Custom Start Date Patch / ArtMoney Development Thread

[Midas]

Hex-editing not so hard after all huh .

[Alessandro]

I'm now running a sim with this second edition and our modified exe, with all leagues selected (a part ECHL). So far all good but it just started, will keep you updated

[Alessandro]

Ok it got past the October 1st date. Now going on.

[Alessandro]

With all leagues selected (not ECHL) the game crashed on February 28th. Now i'll try to do it with some single leagues

[Alessandro]

Update:
AHL: works
Canada: works
Austria: works
Czech Republic: works
Denmark: works
Finland: works
Germany: works
Great Britain: works
Norway: works
Russia: works
Slovakia: works
Slovenia: works
Sweden: works

[archibalduk]

With all leagues selected (not ECHL) the game crashed on February 28th. Now i'll try to do it with some single leagues

So are you using the patch I posted with your modified exe?

I've been working on narrowing down the addresses in the hope this might solve some of the problems I've been encountering. It's really painstaking work but I'm slowly narrowing them down (I've decreased it from 104 to 67 so far). Hopefully I'll be able to upload a new patch and some more details by Monday.

I've also been wondering if it would be better concentrating on using ArtMoney before clicking on the 'New Game' button in EHM - in other words, when you're at the opening main menu in EHM. It seems when you click on the New Game button, the game sets the starting date and loads the database before taking you to the League Select Screen. If we could set the start date before clicking on the New Game button then perhaps it will set up the start date correctly for when you start the new game. Clearly clicking on New Game makes sets up / initialises the game in some way and so I wonder if we need to set the start date before it does this. Perhaps this would avoid the problems we're encountering.

Something else I'm wondering is whether there are some addresses that need to be set to the following year. If I load a saved game I have from November 2012 (i.e. the 2012/13) season and do a search for '2013' then I get a list of addresses in ArtMoney. If I look up these addresses when playing a game in November 2006 (i.e. 2006/07) season then I found some of the addresses were set to 2007. This suggests that not only must some addresses be set to the desired starting year, but some of the others must be set to the following year...

Hex-editing not so hard after all huh .

Hehe! It's a lot quicker and easier using ArtMoney though.

[Alessandro]

With all leagues selected (not ECHL) the game crashed on February 28th. Now i'll try to do it with some single leagues

So are you using the patch I posted with your modified exe?

I've been working on narrowing down the addresses in the hope this might solve some of the problems I've been encountering. It's really painstaking work but I'm slowly narrowing them down (I've decreased it from 104 to 67 so far). Hopefully I'll be able to upload a new patch and some more details by Monday.

I've also been wondering if it would be better concentrating on using ArtMoney before clicking on the 'New Game' button in EHM - in other words, when you're at the opening main menu in EHM. It seems when you click on the New Game button, the game sets the starting date and loads the database before taking you to the League Select Screen. If we could set the start date before clicking on the New Game button then perhaps it will set up the start date correctly for when you start the new game. Clearly clicking on New Game makes sets up / initialises the game in some way and so I wonder if we need to set the start date before it does this. Perhaps this would avoid the problems we're encountering.

Something else I'm wondering is whether there are some addresses that need to be set to the following year. If I load a saved game I have from November 2012 (i.e. the 2012/13) season and do a search for '2013' then I get a list of addresses in ArtMoney. If I look up these addresses when playing a game in November 2006 (i.e. 2006/07) season then I found some of the addresses were set to 2007. This suggests that not only must some addresses be set to the desired starting year, but some of the others must be set to the following year...

Great to hear your progresses. Yes, I'm using your patch with my exe. The February 28th problem seems to lie in one of the UHL or CHL.
Some of the addresses do need the following year(s). Eg in Finland there is a modification of the number of teams from season 1 to season 2. The same in Russia.

[archibalduk]

Hmm so the ECHL, UHL and CHL all have issues. I wonder about the AHL. I think there's a set of addresses I'm missing here...

[Alessandro]

AHL, as I wrote, works fine

[archibalduk]

AHL, as I wrote, works fine

Aha so you did!

[archibalduk]

I've managed to slash the list of addresses down to a very small number indeed. I've got it down to three addresses that control the start date, one that prevents the 1st October crash during the first season, and then two for each nation you select from the New Game screen. I still need to test whether I've managed to resolve all of the issues I've previously mentioned in the v0.02 changelist - although it looks like the World Championships team bug still exists (but it seems to resolve itself gradually over the course of two seasons). Once I've finished testing, I'll upload a new version of the patch.

Even better, I've got the ECHL up and running. I'm running a sim as we speak, but I've already gone past the 1st October without any issues. I'll let you know whether I successfully get to the beginning of the second season.

[Alessandro]

Archi - that's terrific. Hopefully we'll manage to get rid of the WC bug, but one can live with that I think. I wanna try and see if our rules about altering the teams' number will work - will do it tonight or tomorrow.

[archibalduk]

I got through the whole ECHL season without a problem! However, it crashed on 1st October in the second season. I managed to get around the crash by updating one of the addresses in ArtMoney. I'm going to keep experimenting to see if this can be avoided - it'd be a bit of a pain having to re-apply the patch each time you load the game.

Archi - that's terrific. Hopefully we'll manage to get rid of the WC bug, but one can live with that I think. I wanna try and see if our rules about altering the teams' number will work - will do it tonight or tomorrow.

Annoyingly, I think the address that you must change in order to avoid the 1 October crash may well be responsible for the WC bug - but as you say, it's a bug most users can live with. Also, it is almost eradicated in the second season and I expect it is completely back to normal in the third season (I haven't simmed this far forward yet).

I'm also interested to see whether ArtMoney could be used to change rules and league numbers. Once I finish with the start date, I plan to take a look at this. I wonder whether the addresses you've used by hex editing the exe match the addresses in ArtMoney...

[Alessandro]

I'm also interested to see whether ArtMoney could be used to change rules and league numbers. Once I finish with the start date, I plan to take a look at this. I wonder whether the addresses you've used by hex editing the exe match the addresses in ArtMoney...

I'm quite sure you can. However, I do not have a clue about how to do it The Tapani/Zozoa patches change pretty much everything in CM, I think the same can potentially be done with EHM, we only need to figure out how. Unfortunately I am a zero when it comes to these things.

[archibalduk]

The CM community was very lucky in that they had a member (i.e. Tapani) who was an experienced programmer and could somehow understand what was going on with all the hex code. I was informed by a very helpful member of their community (John Locke) that Tapani is no longer an active member of their community. It seems all subsequent modifications have all been based on what Tapani found. We really need an EHM equivalent of Tapani - someone who can understand the hex in ArtMoney and know what to look for. Still, I'm managing at least to get somewhere with lots of trial and error.

I'll need to do a lot more testing before I release a new version of the patch (I don't want to release v0.03 if it's worse than v0.02 ) but I'll explain what changes I've made in order to get the ECHL up and running. I haven't yet tested the NHL with this new setup and so I don't know yet whether you'll encounter a 1st October crash in the second season. Here's what I've been doing:

Follow steps 1-5 from the instructions I posted for version 0.02 (click here). Where it says in step 5 to load the AMT file, load the v0.02 file.

Find the following addresses in the right hand column of ArtMoney and change them as follows in the table below. I've posted the values for both 2010 and 2011 start dates so you can choose which set to use. Use either the values from the 2010 column or the 2011 column from the table below:

[table][tr][th]ArtMoney Description[/th][th]Address[/th][th]2010[/th][th]2011[/th][/tr]
[tr][td]Value 136[/td][td]0091 96D7[/td][td]2010[/td][td]2011[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Start Date 2[/td][td]00C6 9BFE[/td][td]2010[/td][td]2011[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Value 170[/td][td]00C6 A848[/td][td]16779226[/td][td]16779227[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Value 171[/td][td]00C6 A854[/td][td]16779226[/td][td]16779227[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]N America 1[/td][td]00C6 A8C4[/td][td]50333658[/td][td]50333659[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]N America 2[/td][td]00C6 A8D0[/td][td]251660251[/td][td]251660252[/td][/tr][/table]

Once you have set the values for 2010 or 2011 follow steps 9-14 from the instructions for v0.02. Please note that the values I have posted above only work for the North American and Canadian leagues. I do have the values for the other nations/leagues but I don't have time to post them at the moment - I'll post the details later. I'll also post some details of other addresses that seem to be related to the start date.

If you encounter a crash on 1st October of the second season:

1) Reload your saved game.

2) When you get to September, open ArtMoney and load the v0.02 patch.

3) Don't change any of the values other than 0091 96D7 which you should change to whatever year you're currently at. E.g. if you're at September 2012 then you would change 0091 96D7 to 2012.

4) Keep ArtMoney open until you get past 1st October.

Hopefully I can figure out how to avoid this bug - it's a pretty darn annoying one. I haven't yet tested to see whether the NHL encounters the same problem in October of the second season.

[Alessandro]

I will test it myself later today. Hopefully it will work.

[Alessandro]

Got a crash during the game creation!

[archibalduk]

Got a crash during the game creation!

Did you set the start date to 2010 or 2011? I've been testing using 2010. Did you select leagues other than the North American leagues?

I've made a few changes and have managed to avoid the crash on 1st October in the second season with the ECHL (I have successfully simmed to 2nd November of the second season). I did a test earlier today and found that the crash on 1st October of season 2 affected the NHL as well. I'm hopeful that the fix for the ECHL will also work for the NHL (well, seeing as it was selected as a 'Standard' background league I expect it should be ok).

Using the my settings, I've been able to get past the 1st October of the first season with a start date of 2011. I wonder if I posted an incorrect value before or if you made a mistake changing the values... Either way, I'm going to upload a new patch in a short while. This is a bit different to what I posted earlier today and is easier to use.

Annoyingly the game still crashes on 1st October of the first season if you quit the game before that date and reload it later. This is something I need to look into next.

[archibalduk]

Here is version 0.03 beta. This is much improved over previous versions but unfortunately there do remain some issues. I don't think there is much more I can do to improve the patch - other than reduce the number of 009x addresses included (although I don't expect that this will resolve any of the current issues). What this patch now needs is extensive testing using different selections of leagues. If tests don't uncover any further issues then it's probably in a position where it can be released as version 1.0. The issues that are remaining, although annoying, are not game-breakers IMHO.

***** Before using version 0.03, please note that the instructions have changed. The patch is used from the Main Menu screen in EHM (i.e. before you click on the New Game button) rather than from the League Select screen. *****


Version 0.03 Beta


Disclaimer / Warning

Before downloading the patch, please keep in mind that I'm only providing this for TESTING PURPOSES. I cannot guarantee the stability of any game you create.


Changelist

Version 0.30 beta

• The start date is now controlled using just one address. All other addresses are used to ensure that the game does not crash on 1 October (I could probably reduce the number of addresses further);
• There are no longer any issues with viewing player/staff profiles or clicking on player/staff names in news items;
• The game no longer crashes when selecting the ECHL.

Version 0.20 beta

• Number of addresses in the .AMT file have been reduced from 198 in version 0.01 to 104;
• The game no longer crashes when viewing a player's Game Log in the Player Profile Screen (this was only an issue upon starting the game and seemed to resolve itself once you have quit EHM and reloaded the game);
• The NHL League Overview screen no longer states that the Eastern Conference Playoffs Quarter Final will take place on 4 October five years later than it should (this appeared only to be a cosmetic issue).

Issues / Bugs

The list below merely lists the issues that I have encountered during testing. If you find an issue or bug whilst testing that isn't on the list below then please let me know. I am working on resolving the issues identified below.

• The game crashes on 1 October of the first season if you quit the game before this date;
• Selecting the ECHL when creating a new game causes a crash;
• The teams in the World Championships have become mixed up. EHM simply selects the first 16 nations of the alphabet for the competition. This appears to self-resolve over the course of two seasons;
• The number of addresses included in the .AMT file could most likely be reduced further;
• No testing has been done to check that v0.03 is compatible with leagues other than the NHL and ECHL.

It seems as though the game progresses more slowly through September of the first season than usual (but perhaps I'm wrong). Let me know if you agree with this. It appears to run much more quickly the following September.


Instructions

1) Download and install ArtMoney (you just need the freeware special edition): http://www.artmoney.ru/e_download.htm

2) Download the attached CSD Patch file. For ease of use you may want to save it to your ArtMoney\Tables folder (but it doesn't matter where you save it).

3) Run ArtMoney with Admin Privileges. To set admin privileges, right-click on the shortcut to ArtMoney (or the ArtMoney exe itself), click on the Compatibility tab and tick the box entitled "Run this program as an administrator". ArtMoney won't load EHM if you don't run with Admin Privileges. When you load ArtMoney, it'll display a splash screen advertising the Pro version, just click on the Continue button to ignore this.

4) Load EHM so that you are taken to the Main Menu screen (this is the screen that has the buttons for New Game, Load Last Game, Delete Game, etc).

5) In ArtMoney, click on the Load button at the bottom of the window and select the CSD Patch file (and obviously click on the Open button to open it). This will load the relevant addresses in the right hand column.

6) Click on Edit -> Select all. This will select all of the addresses listed in the right hand column.

7) Click on Edit -> Set value. This will bring up the Set Value pop-up window.

8) In the Set Value pop-up window there are two boxes. In the Value box enter the start year you would like (e.g. 2011). In the Step box enter 0 (zero). Then click on OK.

9) In EHM, click on the New Game button and create a new game as you usually would.

10) Once the game has loaded, add however many General Managers you want. Click on Finish to finish adding GMs and this will take you to the News Front Page screen. EHM will prompt you to save your game - save your game as you usually would.

11) Exit ArtMoney.

12) Do NOT exit EHM until the game has reached 1 October of the first season. If you do then it is likely you will encounter a crash on 1 October of the first season.

13) Once you have reached 1 Oct you are able to exit EHM. When you reload your game, you do NOT need to run ArtMoney (you only need ArtMoney when you want to create a new game).


OPTIONAL:

Before testing out the CSD Patch, you might want to make a new copy of the Lidas v3.2 Rosters in your EHM database folder. Then open your copy of the rosters using the Pre Game Editor and change all of the players' years of birth so that they are correct. To do this, click on Tools -> Change all staff ages, enter 5 into the pop-up window, and then save the database (make sure you run the Editor with Admin Privileges otherwise your changes may not be saved).

I've created an amended extra_config.cfg (click here to download) for use with the Lidas 3.2 rosters when testing the CSD Patch. The changes I've made to the file are to correct all of the dates of the draft switches, future transfers, cap penalties, etc. Please note that this is entirely optional.

[Alessandro]

WIll post results of my tests...

[archibalduk]

WIll post results of my tests...

Thanks. Your help is very greatly appreciated.

On a side note, I managed to change the start date to 1974. I've only simmed to early November of the first season but it runs okay. The only issue I've found is that you get CPP errors with regards to player/staff contracts. This is because the contracts in the database are set to expire in the 21st century - understandably EHM does not like this!

[nino33]

TO archibaldukuk/Alessandro.....Kudos to you both for your efforts!

On a side note, I managed to change the start date to 1974.

Now you've got my full attention!

The only issue I've found is that you get CPP errors with regards to player/staff contracts. This is because the contracts in the database are set to expire in the 21st century - understandably EHM does not like this!

I wonder if changing all contracts to the "variable" 2/1/1900 would fix this.....the drag is changing 40000+ contracts and not being sure it would even work

[archibalduk]

Now you've got my full attention!!

Hehe!

I wonder if changing all contracts to the "variable" 2/1/1900 would fix this.....the drag is changing 40000+ contracts and not being sure it would even work

I imagine it would. I'll try it with one player to see whether I get an error when viewing his contract details (this is the second type of error I encounter when trying a 1974 start date). However, at this stage it's simply not worth changing the 1974 database to accommodate a custom start date of 1974. I need to do much more testing first. I need to sim a whole season to see what EHM does with the league records, etc. Will it simply overwrite the previous details of the winners of the 1974/75 season or will it simply crash...

Maybe I could get this all working for a future version of the 1974 database, but I think at present we'll just have to go with the 2006 start date for your rosters. If I can figure out a workaround to the contracts issue without having to edit 40,000 contracts then I'll let you know.

[Alessandro]

Austria and Russia worked without any problem. Will try more leagues tomorrow

[Alessandro]

TO archibaldukuk/Alessandro.....Kudos to you both for your efforts!

I'm doing nothing but clicking "start new game" and "go to vacations". Archi is the man