Feature: Improve restart command

[Berbe]

When the restart command is issued, a normal map is always spawned.

This improvement takes into account the current state of _file_to_saveload to check if a savegame/scenario/heightmap was previously loaded, and loads the same resource again.

[PeterN]

I'm not sure I would expect restart to reload the game.

[planetmaker]

I'm not sure I would expect restart to reload the game.

I think such makes sense for competitive servers which re-run the same scenario. Could be argued that 'restart' generates a new map with current newgame settings while 'reload' restarts the currently loaded map / savegame.

[PeterN]

Yes, a reload command is what I was thinking of.

[Eddi-z]

Here's what i intuitively would think restart would do:

1. try to load the scenario (or heightmap) this game was originally started from, or
2. start a new game with the current game seed and settings

but don't do anything special with savegames.

[Eddi-z]

That would mean, a reference to the original scenario/heightmap must be stored in savegames, and this reference must still work if the file was moved (fallback to 2. if it was not found)

[nielsmh]

How about the Quake approach - have a variable/setting containing a console command to execute on game end? That command could be a simple newgame command, or it could be one to execute a longer script. It would probably need some kind of additional check to confirm a new game was in fact started, and if not create a new default game.

[Eddi-z]

i don't see how that has anything to do with the topic being discussed.

this is about what the restart command should do, not about ways it should be triggered

[Berbe]

At the moment, in trunk, if you use restart on a randomly generated map, it generates the same map again, ie using the same seed.
Since the state does not change, I find it appropriate that when loading an external resource (be it savegame/scenario/heightmap), the same behaviour apply, that is applying the same exact starting conditions again.

Hence, I don't understand your restart/reload split as I am merely attempting to mimick the current behaviour.

[Berbe]

Here's what i intuitively would think restart would do:

1. try to load the scenario (or heightmap) this game was originally started from, or
2. start a new game with the current game seed and settings

but don't do anything special with savegames.

Why would you make savegames stand out? Savegames and scenarios are kind of the same resource. To me they are interchangeable.
What if you wanted to host games deriving from a specific savegame? On (automatic - after year N) restart, you would spawn a new randomly generated map, which would miss the point.

[Eddi-z]

Why would you make savegames stand out? Savegames and scenarios are kind of the same resource. To me they are interchangeable.

they might be interchangable on a technical level, but not really at a logical/usage level.

What if you wanted to host games deriving from a specific savegame?

you could make that savegame into a scenario, then start from that scenario.

but what about the reverse? what if you loaded a backup savegame because of some griefers that messed everything up? you'd restart from that instead of the original one in your way.

[Berbe]

they might be interchangable on a technical level, but not really at a logical/usage level.

It is true I got carried away by the technical level, as I did not have a point of reference for semantics in OpenTTD. Savegames & scenarios are literally the same, except the former did not necessarily come from the editor...

I made some changes to only intercept savegames in editor mode. Would that be satisfactory?

[stale]

This pull request has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had any activity in the last month.
Please feel free to give a status update now, ping for review, or re-open when it's ready.
It will be closed if no further activity occurs within 7 days.
Thank you for your contributions.

[Berbe]

Ping?