Custom Start Date Patch / ArtMoney Development Thread

[Manimal]

I just installed the b-version in my EHM directory and tried to run it as administrator.
It asks me to install a new version of .Net Framework
v4.0.30319

Shall I do so or is it enough to just install that C++ program you mentioned?

[archibalduk]

I just installed the b-version in my EHM directory and tried to run it as administrator.
It asks me to install a new version of .Net Framework
v4.0.30319

Shall I do so or is it enough to just install that C++ program you mentioned?

Thank you - that helps greatly. I expected you'd need version 4.

Try without the C++ programme I mentioned. If it doesn't work then try the C++ programme.

Let me know if it works for you without the C++ programme.

[Alessandro]

With regards to the error message when using the Launch and Patch button, try doing this:

1) Move the CSD Patch window to the top left corner of your screen (so that you can keep it visible even when the EHM window opens).

2) Click on the Launch & Patch (Windowed) button. EHM should now start loading.

3) Keep looking at the middle section of the CSD Patch window (the bit that shows the error messages, etc). At what point does the "Applying 2011 start year..." message appear? Does it happen before the EHM window has appeared? Is it during a particular opening screen?

The reason I ask is because it might be that the Launch & Patch button is trying to apply the patch too quickly. When you click on the Launch & Patch button it waits three seconds before applying the patch. This works fine for my fast laptop (Intel i7 CPU with 6gb RAM) but might be too short for slower computers. Perhaps the waiting time needs to be increased to four or five seconds. If I know at exactly what point you're getting the "Applying 2011 start year..." message then I can calculate how many seconds I need to add on.

Anyhow, now I am in late November of the first season so I think it just works fine, do you want me to test anything specific?

No thank you (because it will work exactly the same as the ArtMoney method). I just needed to check that it would run on other people's computers. Thanks again

Oh, my computer is much slower than yours, thus I think u must definitely get that time longer. I need a new laptop. I will probably buy a new one after Christmas, so Archi stay prepared because I will be seeking your advice again
Anyhow, archi, will it be hard to include the module for other persons' files? Marek and I (well, mostly him) prepared a file with some modifications (shoot-outs, import rules, etc) and it will be neat to test it within this utility. We tried your work and our work together and it works great.

[Alessandro]

Btw, lol, someone caught us when we discovered what chances we have with artmoney:

[Manimal]

So I installed the .Net Framework. Now, when I try to run the patch it just closes down immediately with some kind of Windows-error

[archibalduk]

So I installed the .Net Framework. Now, when I try to run the patch it just closes down immediately with some kind of Windows-error

Ok, try installing the C++ package: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/de ... px?id=5555

Hopefully this will be the solution.

[archibalduk]

Oh, my computer is much slower than yours, thus I think u must definitely get that time longer. I need a new laptop. I will probably buy a new one after Christmas, so Archi stay prepared because I will be seeking your advice again

Hehe sure I'll be ready to advise! I'll try adding a little extra time to the patch file and will email it to you. Hopefully that will solve it.

Anyhow, archi, will it be hard to include the module for other persons' files? Marek and I (well, mostly him) prepared a file with some modifications (shoot-outs, import rules, etc) and it will be neat to test it within this utility. We tried your work and our work together and it works great.

Well I'm new to C++ and so it'll be a challenge - but it is certainly possible. I managed to create the current CSD Patch in just two days having never before used C++ and so I'm optimistic that I'll figure it out. If not, I can simply add your/Marek's modifications directly into the exe without any problem. The challenge is adding the ability to import a file containing modifications. I'm going to do some research for Manimal's rosters and will then be trying to solve the WC issue - and then after this I will start work on the ability to import your modification file using the CSD Patch. I'll keep you updated!

By the way, I mentioned an issue with the Russian league yesterday. I've been doing tests today and have discovered that you must use the CSD Patch whenever reloading a game involving the RSL/KHL until you reach 1sth July at the end of the first season. After this date, you no longer need to use the CSD Patch.

I know Finland is another league that has previously had difficulties towards the end of the first season and so I'm doing some more tests with the Finnish leagues at the moment.

[archibalduk]

Btw, lol, someone caught us when we discovered what chances we have with artmoney:

Hehe that quite accurately shows how I reacted when I first managed to get it to work!!!

[Alessandro]

Oh, my computer is much slower than yours, thus I think u must definitely get that time longer. I need a new laptop. I will probably buy a new one after Christmas, so Archi stay prepared because I will be seeking your advice again

Hehe sure I'll be ready to advise! I'll try adding a little extra time to the patch file and will email it to you. Hopefully that will solve it.

Anyhow, archi, will it be hard to include the module for other persons' files? Marek and I (well, mostly him) prepared a file with some modifications (shoot-outs, import rules, etc) and it will be neat to test it within this utility. We tried your work and our work together and it works great.

Well I'm new to C++ and so it'll be a challenge - but it is certainly possible. I managed to create the current CSD Patch in just two days having never before used C++ and so I'm optimistic that I'll figure it out. If not, I can simply add your/Marek's modifications directly into the exe without any problem. The challenge is adding the ability to import a file containing modifications. I'm going to do some research for Manimal's rosters and will then be trying to solve the WC issue - and then after this I will start work on the ability to import your modification file using the CSD Patch. I'll keep you updated!

By the way, I mentioned an issue with the Russian league yesterday. I've been doing tests today and have discovered that you must use the CSD Patch whenever reloading a game involving the RSL/KHL until you reach 1sth July at the end of the first season. After this date, you no longer need to use the CSD Patch.

I know Finland is another league that has previously had difficulties towards the end of the first season and so I'm doing some more tests with the Finnish leagues at the moment.

Yes, because also Finland changes the number of team, in the third league. I dont remember the details, though.

[Manimal]

Now the patch starts. HOwever, I get the same errors as Alessandro. I think it was about three secs for me.

If I choose patch only and then starts a game, then it works. I have to start the game up to the first screen before doing this

[archibalduk]

Thank you Manimal. That really helps. It seems .NET v4 and C++ 2010 Redistributable are the minimum requirements.

I've just realised why the the Launch and Patch buttons don't work for you. It's because I forgot to change some of the code before I compiled the C++. This means that the patch will be trying to find EHM within a folder that only exists in Windows 64-bit (i.e. "Program Files (x86)"). I'll change this for the final version and this will enable those buttons to work.

Thank you to the three of you. You've helped iron out the bugs and find out what the minimum requirements are to use the patch.

[archibalduk]

I've encountered a crash on 15th April of the first season when playing with Finland. I think this wasn't previously spotted because when testing with ArtMoney I would start up the game and leave it simming. However, I'm now testing by starting the game, qutting, and then re-loading (and re-applying the patch). It seems I may have missed an additional offset. I'll need to do some testing this week whilst I try and find the missing offset. I'll leave it running in the background whilst I do some NHL research for Manimal...

[Manimal]

I've been think on wether I should change my roster work to be in appliance with a changed start year and I've decided that my first release won't be, but after that I'm gonna do the change.

Hopefully, someone has some good idea on mass-editing things(contracts) in the editor. Otherwise, it'll get done the old-fashioned way.

[archibalduk]

Hopefully, someone has some good idea on mass-editing things(contracts) in the editor. Otherwise, it'll get done the old-fashioned way.

I'm going to write a simple programme to mass edit the contracts. Leave it with me... I wouldn't want you to have to edit thousands upon thousands of contracts by hand.

[Tasku]

After updating the C++ stuff I get that "You MUST run as admin bla bla"-error. The problem is, I don't know what the password is for the admin user. I always assumed I was already the admin user with my own account.

[archibalduk]

With regards to the Finland crash, I think I've found the rogue offset (it is 0092 1734). I'll do some further testing tomorrow, but it looks like the one.

I always assumed I was already the admin user with my own account.

Oh no! You won't be able to apply the patch without admin privileges. You wouldn't even be able to with ArtMoney. To edit the memory, you have to be able to run as admin...

[archibalduk]

So I've been looking through the nation.dat file to look up the nation IDs (in hex) of some of the nations ordinarily involved in the WC:

Code: Select all

24 - Canada
33 - Czech Rep
45 - Finland
BE - Sweden
CE - USA

There are two other .dat files relating to the nations:

1) nation_comp.dat
2) nation_comp_history.dat

I've been looking through those two files to try and find a concentration of those particular IDs as well as 07D6 (2006 in hex) or D607 (the two bytes of 2006 in hex reversed - as EHM sometimes seems to reverse it). Within nation_comp_history.dat I cannot find any sort of pattern or concentration of nation IDs. Nor does 07D6/D607 appear in any sort of pattern/concentration.

Within nation_comps.dat there are no instances of CE (USA's id). There is a small section at the beginning of the file relating to the WC but it just seems to relate to the abbreviation, long name and short name of the WC (and all other national competitions follow thereafter). There seems to be nothing relating to nation IDs. I don't think this file relates to the nations within the WC. There are also no mentions of 07D6 or D607.

In terms of database files, this just leaves the nation.dat file. According to the EHM 2005 database structure (unfortunately I don't think SI released the EHM 2007 database structure) there are a couple of fields within the nation.dat file that store the IIHF ranking scores for 1998-2003 as well as the junior's and men's team final positions for 2001-2003.

If EHM 2007 follows a similar structure as EHM in terms of storing the IIHF ranking scores and final positions within the database then this means that the database won't hold the key with regards to fixing the WC bug. If I am correct then there is no way of changing the WC team selection using the database. There seems to be no year setting or season setting within the database with regards to the season/year.

The only likely solution is going to be editing the memory using ArtMoney (and eventually moving this into my patch - any changes that can be made using ArtMoney can be easily added to my patch). I'll have a dig around using Olly but I'm getting concerned that this could be extremely difficult to solve...

Incidentally, there's mention in the EHM 2005 database structure of a field named NationSeasonUpdateDay within nation.dat. This sounds quite interesting (but not in relation to solving the WC bug)...

[Alessandro]

Incidentally, there's mention in the EHM 2005 database structure of a field named NationSeasonUpdateDay within nation.dat. This sounds quite interesting (but not in relation to solving the WC bug)...

This is something imho would be interesting to edit. IMHO in EHM leagues start too late, and thus teams act in stupid way, especially in leagues with promotion/relegations. For example in Sweden they sign players with big paychecks and relegation clause, so after 2 months when the new season restarts, teams get relegated and they fire players cuz of the relegation clause. In my save it happened with players like Hiller, etc...
The ideal thing would be having leagues switch season on May 1st, imho

[Manimal]

The ideal thing would be having leagues switch season on May 1st, imho

Yeah, May 1st would be best. That is the day IRL that teams in Sweden can officially sign players for the upcoming year.
European contracts in the db ends on April 30th, as well

[Tasku]

With regards to the Finland crash, I think I've found the rogue offset (it is 0092 1734). I'll do some further testing tomorrow, but it looks like the one.

I always assumed I was already the admin user with my own account.

Oh no! You won't be able to apply the patch without admin privileges. You wouldn't even be able to with ArtMoney. To edit the memory, you have to be able to run as admin...

Well. Atleast in Vista you don't need a password to do that. Maybe I can use it on my laptop...

EDIT: I checked, and I do have admin privileges on my current account. Not sure why it gives me an error claiming that I don't.

[SharksAttack]

This is something imho would be interesting to edit. IMHO in EHM leagues start too late, and thus teams act in stupid way, especially in leagues with promotion/relegations. For example in Sweden they sign players with big paychecks and relegation clause, so after 2 months when the new season restarts, teams get relegated and they fire players cuz of the relegation clause. In my save it happened with players like Hiller, etc...
The ideal thing would be having leagues switch season on May 1st, imho

Same thing in Finland. Most players relegating SM-Liiga team signs between 1.5. - 30.6. gets relegation clause. And next season they usually relegate from Mestis because they signed SM-Liiga level players with relegation clause and not Mestis level players. Top Mestis level players are already signed before season changes and they have to sign whoever is left.

[archibalduk]

The ideal thing would be having leagues switch season on May 1st, imho

Yeah, May 1st would be best. That is the day IRL that teams in Sweden can officially sign players for the upcoming year.
European contracts in the db ends on April 30th, as well

I'm not sure what the NationSeasonUpdateDay field does (I don't have time to even identify it within the nation.dat file at this stage). It sounds more like the date that the game does its updating game data-type thing. I know it's always on 1 July when you get the update game data window but I think other things go on in the background at other dates. For example, I think something happens with the Finnish league on 15 April each season (hence the crash I was encountering). This is just a guess though.

Anyway, I do wonder what happens if you were to bring forward any start date to before 30 June / 1 July. If no games have been played, etc then how would the game cope with updating the game data?

In the mean time, I'm looking at offsets within the game set 2005. I'm wondering if one of these refers to the IIHF rankings or men's team positions for the preceding season. Maybe changing these to one year before the new start year will solve the WC issue. My best guess is that the game is looking for the previous season's IIHF rankings or team positions but cannot see this once the start date is altered - hence it just picks the first teams in the alphabet.

[Alessandro]

So in my save during an Olympic year the international schedule was hardly modified and the rescheduling brought the Elitserien finals' 7th game to be postponed on May 23rd, so maybe it would be better - if that field works as I tried to guess - to push it on a later date, maybe May 30th or smth like that.

[ElQuapo]

The ideal thing would be having leagues switch season on May 1st, imho

Yeah, May 1st would be best. That is the day IRL that teams in Sweden can officially sign players for the upcoming year.
European contracts in the db ends on April 30th, as well

I think it would be a bad idea to let the season switch before the IHWC's are done. Otherwise players will have their stats from the Championships added to the wrong seasons in their histories.

Directly after the IHWC's have finished would be okay for European leagues.

[Alessandro]

The ideal thing would be having leagues switch season on May 1st, imho

Yeah, May 1st would be best. That is the day IRL that teams in Sweden can officially sign players for the upcoming year.
European contracts in the db ends on April 30th, as well

I think it would be a bad idea to let the season switch before the IHWC's are done. Otherwise players will have their stats from the Championships added to the wrong seasons in their histories.

Directly after the IHWC's have finished would be okay for European leagues.

Yeah, read the post above yours. I'd change it to May 25th - May 30th.
However, we need to know what is that.