Patch Out

[Born Acorn]

Locomotion v1.76 Patch (2.08MB)

Download

ftp://ftp.infogrames.net/patches/locomotion/LOCO_PATCH176_USA.EXE

Download Instructions

Click on the Locomotion v1.76 Patch link
When prompted, save it where you will be able to find it (use Desktop if you are not familiar with directories)

Install Instructions

Locate the downloaded patch (LOCO_PATCH176_USA.EXE) and double-click it
Follow the on-screen instructions.

File Details

>Tutorial 1 road vehicle failed to start at end of tutorial (only affected US V4.02.168).
>Vehicles would occasionally overtake even if road wasn't clear (could also cause 2 player game to go out of sync).
>Using scenario editor to generate large worlds with high number of large cities resulted in industries failing to animate.
>Removing a broken-down power car from trains with multiple power cars could leave train in permanently broken down state.
>Routing problems with trains approaching multiple-track stations.
>Entering blank name when setting station name caused crash.
>Ships and aircraft could be sold while broken down.
>Displaying town list or industry list window in scenario editor and then generating new landscape could cause crash.
>"Please insert your CD" message not translated (German only).
>Trains wouldn't unload and load if breakdown on approach to station.
>Construction possible while quit confirmation window displayed and game paused.
>Gridlock possible if both aircraft and helicopters used at large airport.
>Certain combinations of train vehicles could cause trains to be automatically removed from track when train is reversed.
Sea level option in scenario editor caused inconsistent results at values over +28 - Fixed (now restricted to +28)


tada!

[ajy]

Finally! Thanks a lot good old CS :up: now bring on the Bigger Maps:D

[PikkaBird]

Originally posted by ajy
Finally! Thanks a lot good old CS :up: now bring on the Bigger Maps:D

I think there are rather more pressing gameplay issues than the map size. :rolleyes: Such as:

Truck drivers who slam on the brakes when they see something in the rear view mirror,
"Metropolises" which double in size overnight,
When working underground or in cities, destroying buildings even when they're set to invisible, and
the "channel is required by ships/road is in use" headache which can make remodelling a road or sea transport route take years...

And this patch doesn't address any of them. It merely fixes a few rarely encountered and easily avoided crashes.

If Chris Sawyer wants "people to still be playing Locomotion in 10 years time", is this hopeless excuse for a patch his message to the mod makers to ignore the EULA and just get on with it? ;)

[ajy]

Yes, the patch did say that it fixed "Routing problems with trains approaching multiple-track stations" well IT DOESN'T :mad: But this must just be a little patch before they release the patch that will fix:

Building Underground (make the road invisisble, and make sure that if you right click to change your track that you don't wipe out the city)
Overtaking trains, the stop to let a train ovetake them that can be up to two signal blocks away
Waypoint problems, they are ignored
Ship pathfinding
City growth speed, i mean wtf???? i went from 663 people to 5,000 in 4 years!
:eek:
And of corse bigger maps :D


Well if they don't fix this then the Mod community probly will end up ignoring the EULA and get on with it. They did one hell of a good job on TTD, so there high hopes for Locomotion if they get their hands on the .exe files :D

[Born Acorn]

ignoring a EULA is very common. There are nervous people who do it privately but talk about it and distribute their mods on IRC or p2p networks

[PikkaBird]

Originally posted by ajy
Yes, the patch did say that it fixed "Routing problems with trains approaching multiple-track stations" well IT DOESN'T :mad:

Actually, what's changed there is the behaviour of trains when facing multiple one-way signals.

See here (http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?p=219383#219383).

[jpinard]

Could you please ask Chris to fix some of the major problems in the game, instead of this half-hearted attempt?

I'm pretty disappointed Chris appears to be doing the "bare minimum" for his loyal fans. Sure the "bare minimum" would be no patch, but to be honest, the game has serious problems that Chris should have fixed. I can guarentee, though I've purchased all his previous work, that I will not be doing so in the future. Maybe he cares, or maybe he doesn't - but it's insulting he only works on the patch when "greater than expected sales" is achieved. You know, our computers are no longer circa 1990, and it would be nice if he programmed actual pathfinding into the game, instead of the pathetic half-assed manual waypoint system he put in. I so wish I'd waited for reviews instead of pre-ordering this... And also, tell him maybe its' time he hired some extra programmers... although that would cut into his profit-margin - but what's more important?

Arggh. Bitterly disappointing.

[damnationltd]

Wow. This patch doesn't help me, either. :(

I figured that CS would've tweaked the reliability settings a bit... or at least changed the interface slightly to make replacing vehicles easier... the micromanagment involved in individually replacing within every 5 game years is out of hand; from what I hear, it's about as bad as having to train each member of your staff in RCT3... which is the simplest reason I haven't bought RCT3. :rolleyes:

I know that the community has modded vehicles to not break down at all, but that severely alters the game balance. I don't MIND replacing vehicles, it's just that after twice through having to do it all manually and painfully (and only 10 years have gone by, and that's what I'm spending all my time on) I'm pretty sick of doing it altogether. At that point I usually start a new map so there's some freshness...

Maybe I'm not obsessive-compulsive enough; at this point, as many others have said, I'm spending more time on the forums than playing the actual game... :cry:

Any future patches planned? I really hope that wasn't it; if CS were to keep up with patching and releasing, there would be lots of leeway for me to buy an expansion, eventually...

[PikkaBird]

Originally posted by damnationltd
I know that the community has modded vehicles to not break down at all, but that severely alters the game balance.

There are other mods out there which make the vehicles last around 20 years, but that also affects the balance. IMO just about everything in the game needs to be made more expensive to build and operate, if the economics are supposed to be a challenge. :cool:

[Chyron]

I'm sure he's released this small patch to "appease" the fans and that he's working on a much bigger patch which addresses all the game's shortcomings. Give the bloke a break, he made the game single handedly...not many people (if any) in the industry can say they do that now.

[jpinard]

Chyron, Chris being "cheap" is not something I'm going to praise. It's amazing how a little marketing "spin" can make you all so gullible.

[damnationltd]

It's easy to be a pessimist, right? That way, nothing can ever disappoint you.

I agree about 50%, so the above statement is made half in truth and half sarcasm; i.e. take it with a grain of salt and not personally, please. Some days I really want to have hope, and other days I don't hold my breath.

Honestly, we don't know the details between Atari and CS, we just see the outcomes. Communication from Atari to the fans/customers could be a bit more verbose, assuming they can afford to have someone sitting around all day posting diplomatically-phrased responses on the message boards.

The Rollercoaster Tycoon series was enormously popular and fun even WITH several glaring bugs that were never resolved. Most of those bugs didn't cause a subpar gaming experience -- I never ran into one that did, at least, and I played the crap out of them... word of mouth helped ongoing re-release sales, and made the franchise extremely high-grossing.

In this case (Locomotion), the target audience (largely TT, TTD, and TTDPatch players, also trying to hit a broader Sim demographic, as well as the loyal RCT crossover crowd) is underwhelmed, and it shows. A product that could -- with another month or two worth of work, and I think just about the entire community pretty much agrees on that point -- have an immense fanbase and a great future, is faltering.

I know a lot of the criticism has revolved around this picture of CS as the guy in Monopoly running off with his bags full of money, but I don't really buy that. To not follow through this time around hurts HIS brand too, and clearly there are more mouths involved (since the RCT series) to carry lip service. So you've programmed 3 or 4 really spectacular games? Great! But it doesn't look good if the most recent one flops... and millions in royalties can spend pretty quickly these days...

Then there's Atari's side of the equation. It's one thing to have this awesome Lone Wolf developer who can bring in millions in revenue, and it's quite another to contract out the same solo developer who causes your need to support your games (support is free for the consumer) to explode, not to mention what "hasty releases" do to your brand as a publisher... in this case, the support is on the thin side, and the brand is suffering for it. Not a pleasant place to be for Atari, I'd imagine. You can say "Atari's already GOT your money!" but the easy reply to that one is, "yeah, once..." and I seriously believe they know that.

I'm guessing there's restructuring going on in Atari right now because of the whole Infogrames situation, but I doubt that this strategy of the last 6-12 months is going to be how they want to do business long-term... more of a short-term band-aid. In the long-term, rushing releases and not giving incentives to or coercing the developers to finish what they started is going to hurt them, bad. In the short term, tossing out some cool concepts, in the rough or otherwise, is necessary to bring in the revenue that will fuel the company for ANOTHER 6-12 months. Companies that have spectacular performance are rarely acquired, so it sounds like a case of "something's broke, let's try to fix it."

Personally, I'd like to think they're just VERY understaffed right now and trying to streamline the business to account for that. I think that when the acquisition went down, heads rolled... they usually do. Restaffing is difficult. I'd LOVE to work for Atari; the name alone would have me smiling and whistling all through the day, and I'd give 100% to make sure that the company's image was being done justice. I can't imagine a scenario OTHER THAN a skeleton crew at Atari, right this moment, trying to do the same.

What does this mean for the future? Hard to tell. It's obvious that Atari's geared for the short-term. But unless they want to be a memory (again -- and this time, probably not so fondly) it's my opinion that they'll end up doing a pretty firm 180 sometime very soon. Probably at the start of this next year, right after the holiday season when the $100's are clean and crisp. If they DON'T do a 180 in the next year, IMO they're dead in the water. :(

In the meantime, I just wish they'd keep us better informed... if patches are to be 2-4 months apart, I can certainly plan my gameplay choices around them... not very cool to have a game you can't enjoy for 6 months, but... I've got plenty of those on impulse buys.

[ajy]

What i want to know is why can't there be a "replace" button on all the trains, buses, trams, planes and trucks that replace the train/wagons for you???????? why make us painfully go through each train (when i have around 100 and 20 trams) until something is done about this i think it's better playing with no breakdowns because, really when you have that many vechicles it becomes all most imposible to countinue expanding your network. All your time is spent on replacing vechicles:bored:

[jpinard]

Yea Ajy, if Chris played his whole game through, he'd have added that feature. It's obvious he "programmed it", but didn't take the time to play it all through.

damnnation, great post!

[hamsterhill]

"amen" damn i wish i had that kind of wording damnnation... you should do this for a living