EE2, EE2X - Empire Earth II - Unofficial Patch 1.6 (2014+)

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gnleugim
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Re: EE2, EE2X - Empire Earth II - Unofficial Patch 1.5 (2015)

Post by gnleugim »

Well, but as far as I know, there is not aoe for increased attack speed (or better, shorter reload time). what I created was an buff to add decreased damage to units near the fortress (as well as walls and palisades), kinda to simulate the protection it offers. was nice to create fixed artillery positions, just create rounded walls/palisades and unpack the art inside Image

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Dr.MonaLisa
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Re: EE2, EE2X - Empire Earth II - Unofficial Patch 1.5 (2015)

Post by Dr.MonaLisa »

Hmm:

Code: Select all

kEffectType_Attack,
   kEffectType_AttackSpeed,
   kEffectType_AttackReplaceAmmo,
It's in file: hdrs.zip\DbHdrs\DbAreaEffectDefs.h
Attack speed would probably work.

EE2 can be modified a lot, many possiblities, but I need to be careful with every change, to not make people dislike the patch. Basically I limit myself to "adding" things instead of "changing" things. Most of players prefer EE2 as it is, and don't like gameplay changes Image That's why the "mod" part in 1.5 isn't that good comparing to other mods.
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gnleugim
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Re: EE2, EE2X - Empire Earth II - Unofficial Patch 1.5 (2015)

Post by gnleugim »

Yes, I totally understand your position, is quite right actually, after all this is more a patch than a mod Image

Didn't see those before, will have to explore :p thanks
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Re: EE2, EE2X - Empire Earth II - Unofficial Patch 1.5 (2015)

Post by Dr.MonaLisa »

You're welcome gnleugim Image
-------------------------------

I decided to write some information what game crashes have been fixed by Unofficial Patch 1.5. Some of them were actually caused by funy things.
1. 0x1424748b crash - caused by... birds. This unhandled exception crash was present in EE2 1.0-1.5.2, but was not present in EE2: AOS. It took me long months to detect what was causing it. I thought it was leviathan's missile problem, but after hours of tests the crash was still present. One day I noticed that there is a bird at every place where game crashes and... noticed that all birds in EE2 have no "death" animation (or the animation file is incorrect). After adding an animation, the game was not crashing anymore. The crash was appearing very often, because of units with area damage. For example when catapults were attacking and damaged a bird - it was crashing.
2. 0x43173fff, the most popular game crash, present only in Singleplayer games. I call it a "wall crash", because it's caused by AI trying to build a gate in the wall, but some other buildings are blocking it. As first I thought it's caused by wrong building sizes, so I was trying to change wall sizes, road sizes, gate sizes, etc. Unfortunately nothing helped, so I started debugging, and found that some function in .exe is trying to write to memory at a bad address. I simply removed this function from the .exe file (overwrited with NOP), was testing for long hours to make sure that this function is not called/needed to any other thing. Just sometimes AI builds a gate at stupid places (like the center of enemy's territory), but at least people are still able to continue game without negative effects. The Fix for this crash is not released yet (it's included in UP1.5.4).
3. 0x56570c24, very problematic crash, caused by UP1.5 units: TBM Launchers, and always caused by AI. The game crashes when: The Missile Launcher is launching a missile, and then a citizen is trying to start building under it. I was fighting with this problem since 1.5.1 to 1.5.3, and prepared a fix in form of area effect: When a Missile Launcher is staying on a construction site, the citizens in short area are immobilized (can't move). Also every launched missile under construction is being killed automatically. It helps in 99.98% cases, so I call this problem as "fixed", however it still exists, just made everything to prevent crashes caused by it.

There were many other crashes (not related with the Unofficial Patch), which have been fixed, unfortunately I wasn't writing a "documentation" about them, so I don't remember for now. Mostly those were just errors in .ddf files, or wrong AIPs scripts.

Please note that since UP1.5.3(004) the Launcher has a special function to detect game crashes. When unhandled exception appear a report of the crash is automatically sent to me, and a player is asked to send a playback file of the last played game to me. When accepts, the launcher is automatically uploading it, nothing else is needed. Thanks to teens of playbacks uploaded by users I was able to fix almost all crashes which I detected. And it was the biggest reason of 1.5.4 update. Now let's hope the game won't crash anymore (or at least not very often).
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benjamite2012
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Re: EE2, EE2X - Empire Earth II - Unofficial Patch 1.5 (2015)

Post by benjamite2012 »

Dr. Mona Lisa,

Thank you for all of your patches. Your work has really improved the game.

I was wondering if it is possible to edit the game files in order to change the Custom Game Pace in the Game Settings before launching a skirmish. Right now, each attribute, "Unit Production Time", "Building Construction Time", "Health", "Resource Gather Rate", "Build Cost", "Epoch Up Cost," etc., can be customized to be between values 0.25 - 3.00. Would it be possible to edit some part of the game file or game code to increase and decrease those values?
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Re: EE2, EE2X - Empire Earth II - Unofficial Patch 1.5 (2015)

Post by Dr.MonaLisa »

Hi benjamite2012! I'm happy that you like the patch.
I found this topic: http://forum.ee2.eu/t1732-skirmish-game-peace
And I think it has answers for your question. There is explained how and what file should you edit Image
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Re: EE2, EE2X - Empire Earth II - Unofficial Patch 1.5 (2015)

Post by Dr.MonaLisa »

Information about last minor updates 154001-154002:
- Improved fixes for Maximization problems (Solution 1 in the Maximization Helper has new functions). Please read: http://forum.ee2.eu/t1758-maximize-problems-with-empire-earth-ii-on-windows-8-8-1-10 for more details.
- Faster Support Chat (during  active conversation messages will be refreshing 2x faster), instant view of sent message.
- Better Toast Notifications on Windows 10 (with buttons).
- Created empireearth2:// and empireearth2aos:// protocols:
* It's now possible to start 1.5 Launchers with any parameters, for example by Internet Browser. To join a hosted game, you can use:
empireearth2://launch-HostAddress=127.0.0.1%20PlayerName='YourUglyMom'
- More configuration options from the server, for example I'll be able to disable the Windows 8 FIX on Windows 10, if it's not needed in the RTM release.
- In the "UP1.5 Settings" - new option: "Clear Cache / Recompile" will clear game junk files, and help to solve common game / launcher problems.
- Some corrections in units descriptions.
- Fixed a critical bug where slaves and prisoners were crashing the game after receiving an order to collect resources.

...and some more launcher improvements which I don't remember now.
This update has status "important". It means that all Multiplayer players should update the game in order to be able to join hosts.
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Re: EE2, EE2X - Empire Earth II - Unofficial Patch 1.5 (2015)

Post by Dr.MonaLisa »

Unhandled Exception: 0x00606370 after minor update: 154002
Thanks to DJ Ray and GZz for reporting this issue on the support chat.
The crash is caused by incorrectly downloaded file: db_154.zip or db_150.zip during installation of minor update "since ver. 154000 to 154002".
This is a very rare crash, which might be caused for the following reasons:
- Your had internet connection problems while minor update files were downloaded.
- Maintenance work on the installer:
(I was updating the installer several times after 154002 release. I had to fix some problems with protocols and functionality of statistics system. I was overwriting files on the server live, so if someone was currently installing a minor update - downloaded files were different from designed by the installer. The re-upload of files was taking usually ~7 minutes. It's just a theory, but sorry if it caused this problem for you).

How to fix this crash?
Solution 1: Please re-download the full installer of UP1.5.4 here: http://forum.ee2.eu/t1723-ee2-1.5
Solution 2: If you have the new launcher with protocols support, click here: (Click)empireearth2://FunctionMinorVersionInstall[/protocol] and then install update: "154000 to 154002". If the game is still crashing, please repeat this step but select update from "ver. 1.0 to 1.5.4.002" (it's because the minor update installer is somewhere storing it's cache, probably as Internet Explorer cache, and damaged files might be skipped while reinstallation of the update).

The work on update is finished. If you downloaded the update today, and if you're still getting this (or the other) crash - please inform me about it for example on the Support Chat in the game launcher. Thank you.
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fsn2015
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Joined: 20 Jul 2015, 11:24

Editing Max Pop Cap in the original game (without 1.5 patch)

Post by fsn2015 »

Dear Dr. Monalisa,

Congrats for the patch. It is awsome!.  Image

Could you please guide me to edit the max pop capacity in the original files (without 1.5 patch installation)?.

I tryed to edit the Max Population numbers at    \zips_ee2x\EE2X_hdrs.zip\DbHdrs\DbFrontEndDefs.h       but it doesn't seem to work. The file is saved and the game works, but I don't see the effect during the gameplay.

Can I replace the original DbFrontEndDefs.h by your version, without applying the 1.5 patch?.

Do I have to do anything else or just edit this file with notepad?.

I am playing EE2X.

Thank you very much!
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FSN
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Re: EE2, EE2X - Empire Earth II - Unofficial Patch 1.5 (2015)

Post by Dr.MonaLisa »

fsn2015 - just copy file: "DbFrontEndDefs.h" from zips_ee2x folder, and paste to your unpatched version folder (zips_ee2x, not needed to put into hdrs.zip file). Remember that you also need to find a texts file, and add new population options there. It should be in some ee2x_db.zip/Texts/*.utf8 file.
Remember, that you can disable UP1.5 Units and Buildings in the Configuration Utility after installation.
If you still don't like bug fixes included in the patch, you can use the version for developer's, without changed files structure: http://forum.ee2.eu/t1731-development-diary-ee2-ee2x-unofficial-patch-1-5-a-version-of-up1-5-for-modders
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