Hi, I'm sorry, but for A 10 these dependencies were intended to push & develop OS further as well. In A 11 there are no dependencies any longer, so as soon as you switch over there, the problem is solved as well.

hey can you edit the games so you dont have to have a operating system because none of the games i make fit any of the operating systems

Yup, had the same issue trying to use the sample files. I believe the dev said he'd update the wiki before the public (non-testing) release of Alpha 11 at least, but man, the status of day one Alpha 11 mods will be barren if we can't get it to work at all before that.

That's where I asked the question already 5 hours ago, but didn't get an answer yet.

The dev is on discord, join the SWINC discord

At first look it will be possible to copy & paste about 50% of the text from old mod to the new one. The rest has to be made new and re-balanced.

Yep, I know^^
Also tried to severly mess around with game mechanics etc. to get an understanding of the new features. I got a general idea to convert it, but there is a problem.
I can't get the provided standard game files (without any changes) to be running (which worked every time until A11), so modding them is out of question at the moment. Hopefully the Game Dev will update the mod wiki and reply to my question for solving that.

I don't envy the task of porting any mod as big as yours to Alpha 11.

Its here, A11.

A11....*Holds out begging bowl*

This behaviour is to a certain degree wanted. Some features that will establish a cloud environment or a permanent connection between your customer and your online service/product will cost you server bandwidth, like it does in reality. Therefore I have implemented a handful features with an enorm hunger for server bandwidth. You can see the needed amount, if you look at the appropriate field in the "Create Software Window" and how it changes after tick/untick the feature.

That's why you receive a bad or negative share in internet bills, when hitting too much customers. But this is only one side of it. The other side is that in vanilla game you have the same problem with way too high internet bills without those extrem bandwidth features, after a certain degree as well (only later).

I think you can solve that to a certain level, if you raise or set the price of your product higher, so that it covers more of the bill.

Question: I picked 2000 as the start year. Within a year or 2 i released a Cloud service, which sold well, but the ratio of sales income vs internet bill to host it on my servers is very negative. 30 million $ profit with a few million active users, but over 1 tbps needed to handle the active users at like 50 million $ internet costs per month... am i doing something wrong or is this something that will always lose money but you do it as an rpg element or something like that? Even if i sold the software for 10x what i am, it would still lose money. I will say i just let it overload the server and saw no drop in fans or a dip in its units sold per month so maybe having enough bandwidth doesnt matter?

Job well done.

Thanks for the hard work!!

Here we go again with a new update. As always have fun. Feedback is also appreciated.

Okay, thanks for the info and your quick replies :)

Oh, no problem^^
This version starts only at 1980. If you want to play from 1970 on, you have to use my 1970 version for A9 (that also works with A10), which is linked in the description text above.

And yes, the bug enables the AI to use the "forced features" before the official release for the human player directly from the start and even before that. That's why you can't even use them after taking over those AI Companies.

Okay, so looking at it, I had misread a few things and thought this mod still let you start in 1970. It turns out that it's a different mod enabling that ability, so I'd like to apologize for pestering you about that when your mod doesn't actually support it ^^;

I'm not asking for a head start or blocking AI from developing things at all, I just want them to use the same feature availability I'm restricted to. I'm watching companies develop products, while I'm just not allowed to even TRY because there are 0 available features so the game won't let me begin. When I check the released products, they all include features that "will unlock in 1980."

I've even taken over some companies using the stock market, and I get their IPs and I can market/sell/support them, but I can't make sequels.

If this is due to the game bug you mentioned, I'm sorry for bothering you about it. I was just hoping that some of the MANY features that unlock in 1980 could unlock earlier, or just be flagged as accessible from the start.

2/2

Preventing the AI to develop products and giving you a lead start is not possible as far as I know. All companies are using the same development time for every feature.

Maybe they only use 1 Feature for release and you are including more? That would explain why they are faster. Or your marketing time is longer and they will overtake you within in.

You have 2 options in modding when the game starts:
1) No one has developed anything before and all have to start from the scratch or
2) There are already things developed and sold from before the chosen starting date (which would be always calculated from 1970, due to the removal of scenarios from A9)

Midway I have changed the behaviour from 1) to 2), because some people complained about not available technologies that they wanted to use for their starting products.

Some products are available due to a not fixed behaviour (or bug), which will be fixed according to Game Dev in A11. This comes from using the code "Forced=True (is required)" as starting term. All features with this code will be available before the official release and starting date.
For the time being, you have to live with that.

This mod looks great, but I was wondering, with the 1970 start, would it be possible to prevent the AI companies from immediately developing things that the player can't develop until 1980 or later? Or, make at least some of these accessible starting at 1970?

I can't make either of the available Input Device types, for example, but other companies release both types 1 month after the game starts. It's a bit weird, I should at least be able to make a keyboard o_O

Love your Mod Shadowmaster, thanks for your work!

It's not only my opinion, if you read online magazines.

I never said "software can make the hardware do things it wasn't designed to" as you can read down below. I just said "several features in these categories that need software support to function".

My first console was a Nintendo Game Boy and a SNES. I owned a Playstation 1 and 2 as well. Most of the games from back then are still good enough or even better with their pixel graphics than most of the new stuff, because of their atmosphere and detail.

To 100% is your link a .dll mod if you read the install description:
- Extract archive to DLLMods folder (if you don't have it, create it) in your Software Inc directory.
- If you are not seeing it then make sure that you have extracted the dll in the correct location.

For you? Lol, just because you have an opinion about NVIDIA, doesn't make reality.
What you are basically saying is: the software can make the hardware do things it wasn't designed to. Like shit? And don't come with your "they didn't know it could do this".

I hope you know about the quality of games that first came out for the the early consoles (even all the way up to the playstation) and how experience with the hardware enabled more powerful games to be made by the end of the consoles lifetime.

It's not a .dll mod, there's no dll files.

Oh and one point to start this mod was exact this reason, because of outdated and not supported mods. Many people started good, but then lost interest/time or waited for something that comes in months/years etc. and that was it.

Fortunately I know how long I will keep it up ;-)

Well, software <-> hardware must be compatible for me in both ways, otherwise you can't use a feature at all. Where do you start from doesn't matter, if it's not supported from one way or the other.
You can see this problem at Nvidias Raytracing. They release Hardware with no software that can use it and expect that everyone should adapt to it.
Weeks ago, I read about that problem where AMD was interviewed. Interestingly they said without software developers on board it doesn't make sense and that a matching ecosystem is the key.

But anyway, thanks^^
Your link is the .dll mod I use from the steam workshop. This one couldn't be integrated back then in a mod due to several reasons.
My main reasons for this were
1) the restriction from the game dev not allowing .dll mods due to safety/malware reasons until not long ago and
2) I don't want to be dependent on other mods and their compatibility/incompatibility.

Software is dependable on the hardware to function, not the other way around. Like the raspberry-pi ARM CPU is not designed for heavy matlab calcs. Whereas your average CPU can do that job okay-ish.

That would be my only problem with the mod. Good job man! :)

Here you go, I looked through the code, didn't see malcode anywhere.

https://softwareinc.coredumping.com/forum/index.php?topic=1876.0

There are several features in these categories that need software support to function. Otherwise it would not make sense to build these products at all, if they can't be used afterwards. Therefore I decided they need an OS as requirement.

Can you post the link to the mod you mean? I didn't hear or find anything like this. I only know and use a .dll starting mod from the workshop to start from 1970.

Softwaretypes: 14, 17, 18, 21 and 27 should not need an OS.

And there's a mod on the coredump website that allows for 1970 start, btw.

Oh okay. Thanks for the explanation^^
I can only agree to that. Test the mod out and use what you like in the end. There is no wrong or right in this.

I have no problem with that, if you keep my mod in your collection with supported mods. Better to be safe than worrying. For making screenshots I normally use the program "Greenshot". Maybe this works for you too?

I believe what he was asking is if this mod is the "go-to" mod to use. @nillinx In my opinion, either this or the Better Game Mod by Milk is what I use, based on what I'm in the mood for. I'd suggest looking at what each offers and try them out.

Also, @Shadowmaster I've tried to get that screenshot multiple times but keep running into issues. I can remove your mod from the list of supported mods for now if you like, while I try to get the screenshot.

@Nillinx, not sure what you mean, but this mod exist only since Alpha 9 and was always named X-Perience.

Haven't played since 8 or 9, this the goto mod? :)

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I think I have tested what you described below. I read the whole review newspaper and every word mentioned was correct and in place.

If you have time to spare, a screenshot would be helpful in this.

Hmm, as soon as I have time I'll get a screenshot from my end. May be a few days. Did you make sure to use the category tag that's on the first few lines of the xml? It's not the category that makes things you can teach your employees/of the features, it's the category of the software.

Okay, now I'm a bit confused after testing. If I understood that right, this bug can occur when using non-original categories (everything that is not audio, 2d, 3d or system). Also it shows up only in the review newspaper, after launching the non-original category software with a placeholder. Correct?

I tried to reproduce that with many different categories and also with Milk's Mod, where the problem was first seen. Either he integrated a fix now or it was fixed with some of the last game dev patches, because it didn't show up to me with a [NoLoc]. I used AI, Game Writing, Hardware Architecture categories etc., but not 1 time it was displayed like described.

Hmm. Maybe I consider myself lucky in this case for now, since I didn't find anything, but as soon as someone finds this, please post a screenshot and the year and software produced, so that I can take a deeper look again.

Anyway, many thanks Sterfor, for Informing us and fixing this from your side.

I'm not entirely sure if your mod has the issue, I mostly added it just in case and because it's one of my favorite mods. Anyway, what happens is when software launches, if the software uses a <Category> tag (the one on the same level as the first few tags like name and such) that isn't included in the base game, the category needs to be added to the localization, else when you look at reviews for the software, any mention of the category has [NoLoc] before it.

If your mod doesn't have the issue, well, that's a good thing, but just wanted to mention it in case/if you or your users wish to test it to see.

Thanks for the info. I don't know about this problem and heard for this the first time?! Could you give me more information about it. Where will it be displayed in-game etc.?
I took a look right now and couldn't find it.

Just wanted to let you know, I've uploaded a compilation fix for the [NoLoc] bug that (in case this mod has the issue) now includes a fix that should work on this mod. I'll leave this here to tell you in case you do have the issue and want your users to know about the fix. Here it is.

thank you <3

@Decay Tempest,

as promised I re-balanced the input devices as well as some other categories in the new update. Now it should be better and more rounded than before.

Everyone,
have fun with the newest update released today.

thanks Shadowmaster!!

It's been consistent for me on multiple games as my money maker. ~ Chuckles. ~ even on sparse with my first input device in 1980, I still made 145m ish.. in contrast to that, my OS which is my only astounding, only made 6m in profit.. my second best seller, is a Mother board at 35m..

@Tempest,

thanks for the information. For the next update I have to re-balance some overhauled categories and I will have an extra look into this one, if there is something suspicious going on.

Rarely a "spike" can occur that will be way over/under the overall price range. I had many test run's, but due to the game mechanics I couldn't get rid of those completely, so I reduced them to the smallest minimum possible.

The problem with many features is indeed the overview.
I decided to go rather from left to right instead from top to down, because this looked way more chaotic than the current form. The difficult thing is that you can't directly place the feature in the row or place you want to. You have to trick it with integrating a dependency and then the feature will go up/down a row.

The next limiting factor is that you can only supersede from 1-20 and not further down. Due to this, I had to split some things up that I didn't plan to and so on...

If that will be lifted in the future, I will surely re-design some parts for more usability.

I get the same Issues with refunds, so far it only hit me, with Anti-virus and PC building.. Though, Input device for me, just give way to much money. Compared to the other product so far..

Average of a good sale.. is usually 5-10 Mil... Input device... 50+ Mil.

in general scrolling down is better than scrolling to the sides... just my opinion

maybe you can sort the features by theme - like: one row for genre (in games), one row for AI, on for Network things... and so on

thanks for the fast answer!!
i havend more time/money to fix more bugs XD just two month. I was trying youre mod with a quickstart but it fails XD - i like the difficult changes you made!!

no i mean the overview of the feature window if you start dev a own produkt...