Beta: 2.5 beta 1!

Hi all!

It seems not mentioning the beta in the last announcement actually worked, 
and I am proud to announce that TTDPatch has finally gone beta again.  It 
only took 29 months!

To properly appreciate the vast amount of changes that have gone into it 
since 2.0, the new version will be 2.5.  And the first beta is now 
available at http://www.ttdpatch.net/src/

Compared to 2.0, the number of switches has nearly doubled, and especially 
the new graphics set capabilities have greatly increased.  If you haven't 
been following the alpha releases, you can find the up-to-date manual at 
the TTDPatch wiki, simply go to 
http://wiki.ttdpatch.net/tiki-index.php?page=Manual to read about all the 
new switches.

I have added one experimental feature that may initially cause some 
problems.  If you find that a large number of your .grf files suddenly 
have "invalid sprite" problems, you have probably accidentally enabled 
"mandatory GRF Resource Management" mode.  This is mainly useful for 
graphics authors to test that their .grf files conform to the GRM specs, 
for most other people it should be turned of with 
"experimentalfeatures.mandatorygrm off" in ttdpatch.cfg.  Note that if 
you're upgrading from 2.0, some grf files need to be updated too.  If, 
after turning off mandatory GRM, they still have invalid sprites, try 
downloading the latest version of them.  That should fix most problems.

There were again a lot of bug fixes since the last alpha, and some more 
newgrf features by Csaba.  Enhanced tunnels (track over tunnel entrances) 
should now work fine even in PBS junctions.  Also, I believe I have fixed 
the problem regarding the persistent engines feature and newgrf sets that 
use the "early retirement" property of vehicles.  Please report it if this 
is not the case.  Finally, the font problems from alpha 72 on are fixed 
now too.

 From now on, the next few beta releases will be essentially bug fixes. 
If you know of a bug in TTDPatch, please make sure that we're aware of it 
too.  The first place to check is the TTDPatch bug tracker at 
http://wiki.ttdpatch.net/tiki-view_tracker.php?trackerId=1 .  It's fairly 
new, and I haven't yet imported all the "old" known bugs from the todo 
list at http://www.ttdpatch.net/src/todonow.txt so check that too.  If the 
bug isn't in the tracker, feel free to make a new ticket there (even if 
it's also in the todo list; that way it's less likely to be forgotten). 
After creating the ticket, make sure to attach the relevant configuration 
files, crash logs and savegames to help us reproduce the problem and fix 
the bug.

I will start the translation process to get all the various translations 
up-to-date in the next few days.  If you would like to volunteer for 
translating TTDPatch, please email me.  I'll try to contact the previous 
translators first, but if they decline or (as is often the case) can't be 
contacted I can always use someone to fall back to.

In conclusion, enjoy the new version, and let's hope that the release of 
2.5 isn't too far away now!

Have fun,
Josef


All changes in 2.5 beta 1:
- fix problems/crashes related to town grfs (fixed text problems too)
- fixed crash with rv/tram tunnels with abandonedroads off
- added missing switches to grf var 85
- new experimental switch "mandatorygrm" to require that grfs reserve the
   IDs they use (will break many old grf files; only for authors)
- fixed PBS with enhancetunnel bridge pieces
- by Oskar: show reserved PBS pieces on enhancetunnel bridges
- fixed newsounds crash if no sound hardware present
- allow autoreplace to choose model with wrong refittability as long as
   default cargo type matches
- by stevenh: fixed tunnel lockups when a tunnel was placed on top of
   another tunnel
- by Csaba:
   * fixed newcargo price factors being calculated incorrectly
   * new global variable 10: snow line height table (give a snow line
     height for every day of the year)
   * (devel) renamed gethouseterrain to gettileterrain since it works
     for all tiles, not just for houses
   * industry variable 61 now contains the terrain type as well
   * added var. action 2 global variable 20 to get the snow line height
   * added action 5 type 0C * snowy versions of temperate trees
   * the snowline variable is now set to FFh for non*snowy games to make
     GRF coders' lives easier
   * (revert) industry variable 61 no longer contains the terrain type
   * added parametrized industry variable 62 to get landscape info about
     nearby tiles
   * bugfix: callback 3B didn't work correctly for effect 0; it was
     always planting fields no matter what the callback returned
   * bugfix: callback 22 is now enforced when building the industry as
     well
   * new industry variable B3h (byte), shows how the industry got built
   * industry variable A7h (byte) now contains the funder of the
     industry
- fixed bug with plane colour schemes not considering cargo classes for
   passenger/freight determination
- fixed early retirement for planes and ships setting train retirement
   instead
- by Lakie: added train props 0B and 1F to callback 36
- fixed(?) early retirement property breaking persistentengines
- made ai boost and moreindustriesperclimate obsolete
- fixed font size and newhistory problem in utf8 mode

-- 
Josef Drexler


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