Earthquake Toggle in Level file

[TheCycoONE]

From Wolfwood...@aol.com on June 22, 2013 02:12:57

it would be helpful if there was a way to set on/off earthquakes inside the .level file. As is there seems to be no way to disable it like in earlier levels of the Theme Hospital Campaign.

It's very annoying sometimes due to how it effects buildings, and currently seems to lack a reaction period before larger earthquakes, making it hard to stop particularly bad ones.

If there was a way to just turn it off, it would be great for levels where you just want to build for the sake of building.

Original issue: http://code.google.com/p/corsix-th/issues/detail?id=1653

[TheCycoONE]

From maartenp...@hotmail.nl on June 22, 2013 00:47:34

But I think this is a PART of the game. I think that such an option is not needed, but what do the other developers think of it? But when you want to be able to put earthquakes on/off, you should make an option of this in config.txt. But maybe you could also add some information about those two lines you found in the level files, I don't know if deleting them will put Earthquake off.

Summary: Earthquake Toggle in Level file (was: Earthquake Toggle in Level file)
Status: Input
Labels: -Type-Suggestion -Priority-Medium Type-Enhancement Priority-Low

[TheCycoONE]

From edvin.li...@gmail.com on June 22, 2013 04:48:44

Well, if you dont specify any earthquakes in a level file there will be none... So this suggestion is already in the game.

Status: Invalid

[TheCycoONE]

From mark.l1...@hotmail.co.uk on June 22, 2013 10:56:09

I have just tested a custom level and left out the earthquake control and was surprised that I got an earthquake. Could it be if they are not specified in the level file the game is adding them at random anyway?

Cc: edvin.li...@gmail.com

[TheCycoONE]

From mark.l1...@hotmail.co.uk on June 22, 2013 11:22:40

Now tried the same map by adding #quake_control[0].StartMonth.EndMonth.Severity 1 2 0 as the only control and got a quake in May, it was a new game, just the same map.

So perhaps this is a valid suggestion or is there another way of not specifying a quake I am not aware of?

[TheCycoONE]

From Wolfwood...@aol.com on June 23, 2013 10:15:10

@maarten
It is a part of the game, but no more than emergencies, quarantines, or any other kind of reactive disaster. As of current, i believe emergencies can be set in the level file and will not go off without it. The earlier levels of Theme Hospital also don't have earthquakes.

@edvin
Then could this be noted as a bug? Because it's not working that way. The .level file i'm currently using is based off of example.level, which had no quake controls.

[TheCycoONE]

From mark.l1...@hotmail.co.uk on June 23, 2013 11:00:47

Status: Accepted
Labels: -Priority-Low Priority-High

[TheCycoONE]

From mark.l1...@hotmail.co.uk on September 02, 2013 12:25:26

Looking at this again and taking into account that we know with emergencies the game is programmed to create them when there are none left in the level file (earthquakes appear to be the same with the exception of the campaign, which I think stops them in earlier levels)
As this behaviour is requested in another issue (creating them randomly), would it be a good idea to have cheat switches or a config option in the settings menu where a player can disable things like earthquakes, contagions and emergencies if they want to? (Disable Quakes | Disable Emergencies | Disable Contagions)
It could be something I can work on, but I don't want to invest any time on this if it is not going to be used.
If we went down the cheat route, it would then affect the players score, which seems to be just imo, for them not accepting all the challenges of the game.

[TheCycoONE]

From Wolfwood...@aol.com on September 08, 2013 10:18:28

Why is it just to punish someone just because they don't want to deal with 'one' of the challenges? Earthquakes aren't in the entire game in the original version.

I would think the level file would be the best solution myself, as then you could just create levels that don't have earthquakes. It's not as if you want to alter the balance of the game, just have levels that aren't balanced around earthquakes.

I'm just not understanding why the player should feel punished just because they don't want this one feature in a level, provided it's not in the entire game in the original version.

If i recalll, Emergencies already has a config option in the level file.

[TheCycoONE]

From mark.l1...@hotmail.co.uk on September 09, 2013 00:49:16

I think that the only score that would be affected is that of the campaign. This is because there is no end of level bonus when you have cheated, so I don't see there is a problem here to be honest.

[TheCycoONE]

From d.krasni...@yahoo.com on November 05, 2013 04:22:04

Found it out, guys - if you don't want these irritating earthquakes to happen all the time, edit the #quake_control lines in the *.level file to look like this:

#quake_control[0].StartMonth.EndMonth.Severity 9999 99999 1

It means, that theoretically the earthquakes should start to happen at the 9999 month of the game and stop at the 99999 and have severity value of 1. I think, you can use even bigger values without any bugs.

I removed all the other #quake_control[x] lines from my level file and so far played about 10 years without any earthshaking terrors.

[TheCycoONE]

From maartenp...@hotmail.nl on November 05, 2013 07:37:32

@10: this method is not advised, because you can't easily revert this, unless you have a copy of the not-edited files of course....

Labels: -Priority-High Priority-Medium

[sadger]

This is fixed with commit 7f7fffa. Changing severity to 0 in the level file will disable earthquakes.

[MarkL1961]

Is it?!

I thought the issue was that setting severity to 0 did not work as the game then creates random earthquakes. Which is why code was later added to disable them in the early levels of the campaign. If setting severity to 0 did work then there would not have been any need for the additional code in the campaign, as they have severity at 0 as a default in the level files already.

[sadger]

I assumed that code fixed it but if it's not the case i'll reopen this then.

[MarkL1961]

I think that one possible solution would be to have a config option that turns off random earthquakes. That way the extra code for the campaign could be removed and setting severity to 0 would then work if the player had also turned off random earthquakes. This way, if a player wanted to add earthquakes into the early campaign levels they could do.
The code for random earthquakes it written to add them once the planned ones on the level file have finished, which is why I think at the moment they kick in when severity is 0.

[TheCycoONE]

When we investigated this, didn't we find that the original game didn't do random earthquakes at the end of the specified ones. If so, I consider that may be the best fix.

[TheCycoONE]

Closing as a duplicate of #296

[fusionstream]

Setting #quake_control[0].StartMonth.EndMonth.Severity 0 0 0 still produces random high severity earthquakes with no pre-tremors... This was present since 0.40 (iirc).

[fusionstream]

Sorry, forgot to mention that now I'm posting for 0.60

[MarkL1961]

I think since 0.60 this has been improved upon. I have been testing the trunk version for a few weeks and we now get a tremor followed by the main quake - damage has been less severe as well

[TheCycoONE]

My earthquake rewrite was done after 0.60 and will be in the next release.