v0.12.2

First of all

Oh wow... I was not expecting such a warm response to my little project. Thank you to everyone who's downloaded and tried the patch!

Fixed

• Any disc image installs now, whichever build it holds. Patching still needs the English retail build.
• The Japanese rerelease is named when you hand it in, rather than coming up as unrecognized.

Wanted: the original Japanese release - this one to be exact

I'm looking into patching the Japanese releases as well, though it is a long way off - the rerelease turns out to be a separate compile, so the patches have to be found again against it. Groundwork on that has started.

The 1997 original is the one disc that I haven't been able to find, so if you have it imaged, get in touch at pairo@segaonline.net. The whole image is really useful, since several patches write to files beside the executable.

v0.12.1

Fixes to the new INSTALL section. Patching itself is unchanged - the same
build is accepted and the same bytes are written, so a game already patched
with 0.12.0 does not need doing again.

Fixes

• Choosing a Manual, then loading a different disc image, could carry the
  choice over to a disc that does not have it. Installing then stopped with
  No ENGLISH directory on this disc, which is not what was wrong. The box
  clears with the source now, and a manual a disc does not carry is named
  along with the ones it does.
• A .cue sheet whose track timestamps are written in an unusual form made
  Source do nothing at all - no error, no note, and the buttons never lit
  up.
• Rip soundtrack now checks there is room for the tracks before it starts,
  rather than filling the drive and stopping part way. The soundtrack is
  320 MB and goes wherever the game is, which is not always the folder the
  install was measured against.
• A copy or a rip that fails half way through says what happened - a full
  drive, a folder it cannot write to, a disconnected disk - instead of showing
  a raw error code.

v0.12.0

Install the game straight from a disc image

No mounting, no virtual drive, no wrestling with a 1997 installer. Point the
patcher at your disc image and it reads the image itself.

How to install

Already have the game installed? Nothing changes for you. Skip past it,
pick your v_on.exe in GAME FILE as always.

The window is rebuilt around this. Essential patches are applied as a set
now rather than ticked one by one - each fixes something broken on a modern
system with nothing to weigh up.

Fixes

• Rip tracks refused cue sheets written on another machine - a D:\ path,
  a stray backslash, a byte-order mark - even with the .bin sitting right
  beside the sheet.
• Parts of the window could come back blank after resizing until you moved the
  mouse over them.

The patcher is called vo_patch everywhere now and the download is
vo_patch-0.12.0.exe. Nothing in your game folder is renamed. Patching itself
is unchanged: same build accepted, same bytes written.

v0.11.1

Netplay fixes. The game itself is patched exactly as 0.11.0 patched it, so
there is no need to re-patch - but both players should update the Internet
play add-on, which is the same Install button.

Fixed

• Mismatched patches left the joining player waiting. When two players
  had different gameplay patches the host was told why and the other player
  was not - they sat on "Connecting..." until they gave up. Both sides now
  get the message. Updating one side is enough for that side to see it.
• A match could freeze while a menu was open. If a frame went missing
  between rounds it was never asked for again, and the match hung until
  someone quit.
• A dropped connection while hosting killed the dialog. Your code lasts
  as long as you keep the window open, but if the machine sleeps or the
  network drops for half a minute the server forgets it. That used to end
  the wait with "No answer from the matchcode server". It now takes a fresh
  code and carries on - the dead one disappears rather than sitting there
  looking valid.
• "No game with that code" also appeared when the code was fine and
  somebody else had already joined it. It says so now.
• The patcher could leave the ending credits half-written if the disk filled
  up mid-apply, and a second run would report the line as already in place.
  Both roll files are now written together or not at all.

Playing against someone still on 0.11.0 works as before.

v0.11.0

Internet play with matchcodes!

Virtual-On's link mode finally works over the internet. The game only ever
found opponents by broadcasting on the local network. Hurray for no VPN!

How to enable Internet Play: In the patcher, scroll down to the "Add-ons"
section, and install the "Internet play" module. If you are running the patcher
through the command-line, you can also use the command --netplay path/to/game
to install it directly.

The module comes in the form of a file called dpctrl.dll, replacing the original one
the game comes with. A backup of the original file will automatically be created,
and if an updated version is available, the patcher can also be used to update it.

Connect via Match Codes, no Port Forwarding required! One player hosts and is given
a code, which can be used by another player to connect to them directly. If a direct
connection is not possible, both players will connect through a relay server located
in the region selected by the host. All of this happens automatically, just click and connect!

Advanced users can also host their own relay servers and point the game to it if desired.

Direct IP is still there for LAN play, or if you would rather not go
through a server: the host forwards UDP 47624 and reads out their address.
The dialog shows the local one and will look up the public one.

In order for internet play to work, both players must use the same settings in
the "Essential Patches" section of the patcher. If a mismatch is detected, the
connection will be cancelled, and a message will be displayed showing which
patcher settings aren't matching. The patcher will also give a warning when
unticking either the Fix Frame Rate or Fix crash on round loss settings.

If something does not connect, create an empty vo-net.log beside
v_on.exe and try again; send that file with a bug report.

Also adding relay=1 under [net] in vo-net.ini can help with freezes and routing woes.

v0.10.2

Fixed

• The game no longer crashes coming out of the attract loop. With the
  XInput patch applied, skipping the intro movie and then leaving the game
  alone through the demo match and the scoreboards crashed it on the way
  back to the title screen. One of the patch's routines was placed on top
  of data the attract loop copies; it has moved.

v0.10.1

Fixed

• The ⓘ description for XInput gamepad support showed the stick deadzone row cut short, with the rest of it dangling as a separate paragraph
• Restore original now writes each file beside the game and renames it over, the way Apply does, so an interrupted restore cannot leave half a file
• Re-running the credit line over roll files it already patched said the executable was unchanged when it was not

v0.10.0

New

• Stick deadzone control for XInput pads

• Each player gets their own setting in the F11 Extras dialog
• Affects both sticks with 5 - 95 % being the valid range
• Defaults puts both back to 40 %
• Values are saved to v_on.ini ("1P Deadzone" / "2P Deadzone") and can be edited there by hand

Changed

• The F11 Extras dialog (above) has been rebuilt

v0.9.0

Just add Keyboard (Simple) back, how hard can it be? Apparently very.

XInput gamepad support

• New profile: Keyboard (Simple), the game's all-keys profile, back on
  the F7 list. Every action bindable, for both players.
• Simple and the gamepad share one bind page, but each shows only its own
  inputs, and each keeps its own saved binds - switching profiles or
  restarting no longer loses either set.
• Changing device takes effect as soon as you press OK; no trip through
  the bindings page needed.
• Starting the game without a controller connected no longer resets the
  device or the binds.
• The device list is now ordered Gamepad, Twin-stick, Keyboard (Simple),
  Keyboard (Real).
• The bindings window titles both player sides correctly; the label
  inside, stuck on "1P side" since the original game, is neutral now.

Extras menu (F11)

• The dialog now pauses the game and the music while open, like the
  built-in F-key menus.

v0.8.7

Says which build you are running, and credits the patch in the ending roll.

• New: ABOUT. A section at the bottom of the patcher with the version, a
  link back here, and one tick box: Show the version, and credit the patch
  in the ending roll, on by default.
• Title screen: the version in the bottom right, in the game's own
  lettering.
• Ending credits: two lines under the CYBER TROOPERS VIRTUAL-ON title
  at the top of the roll, in the roll's own lettering.
• Files: the roll's artwork lives beside the game, so scrstfcg.bin and
  scrstfmp.bin are rewritten and backed up. Restore original puts them
  back with everything else. If either is missing or is not the one this was
  built against, the whole box is skipped - version included - and the rest of
  the patches still apply.
• Licence is now MIT rather than CC0. Use it as you like, commercially or
  not; keep the notice with the code. It covers the patcher and its tools, not
  the game.

Repatch from a clean v_on.exe.bak - Restore original, then Apply
patches - since the executable and the two artwork files have to match.