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Sounds like a great team doing amazing things! It's strange to hear a reference to Windows XP after 20 years. That was the program I was using on a work laptop when I first bought ZT for my then 9 year old.

Here's my last weekly update on this project until release day a few weeks from now (at most). New additions to the team Big welcome to the project to @Gymnasiast, Jay, and Dexter! Including @finnethen and myself, we are now a ragtag team of five :) Jay's perspective as a programmer and as a longtime ZT1 modder has been absolutely invaluable, especially since most of us have only superficially played the game and have never modded for ZT1 before. Though he was willing to help us regardless as he does anyone, he was still receptive to being named part of the team. At this point our communication and note-trading has been near-daily so I think it would be weirder to say he wasn't! :) @Gymnasiast is a long-time contributor and important voice to the development of OpenRCT2. We were able to connect a few weeks back after I let slip about this API on Reddit and we realized that we were working on similar projects. Recently he hacked the zoo files and released a 233x233 map. His RE experience has been incredibly helpful and I'm glad that we met! Dexter is a fellow university student and happens to be my roommate. He's a computer information systems major with an interest in malware analysis as a career path. This means that he wants to reverse engineer malware to stop the bad guys. Our school requires both CINS and CS majors to learn a lot of this stuff to some degree, so his help will be great. Our goal as a team is a bit ambitious and a multi-year commitment to make this work. We are all busy and have different levels of availability, so we'll see where we are a year or two from now and what our team composition looks like. In the present, I'm happy we have a strong inaugural group for this effort. I hope one day we are able to share what else we are working on but for now, the API will have to do. API Release Window An early version of the API is getting very close to release, likely some time in the first half of July, second half at the latest. I will release it with one or two proof-of-concept mods that utilize the API and some basic documentation. After that, we should start seeing a regular release schedule with additional support and new API features. Features on release: Lua scripting. Lua scripts will give modders the power of a programming language (this goes way past what modifying configuration files let you do). The API is an interface layer that speaks to the game's compiled assembly code and the resources in virtual memory but I am coding it in C++. Lua is a third layer ontop of the API that will make this tool a lot more accessible to everyone. Trust me, anyone will be able to learn how to make cool ZT1 'hacks' in the future. ;) Command Console. The command console will mostly be useful to the developer team, but it's there if you want to use it. It's useful if you want to make changes to the game dynamically or modify game elements without exiting the game. As my personal tribute to Jay and a big thanks for all of his help (and for putting up with me), you open this command console with CTRL + J. New ZT1 file type. The API will read in .emu files within its own folder inside of the ZT1 root. This will hopefully keep things organized. At least 25 game resources to play with at release. All of those are related to the zoo game state (average guest and animal needs, zoo stats like budget, rating, total number of guests, etc). Source code. I said I'd share the source code on Github and I will. And I'm always happy to connect if you'd like to contribute to the project. System Requirements As long as you own a computer with at least Windows XP with the Microsoft Visual Studio C++ 2008 runtime and above, you should be fine. This API does require that you own ZTCC, or otherwise have both expansions installed*. *We'll need to confirm this second point. I mentioned this before, but the first API release will very much be a toy in the sense that we don't yet have access to entity lists (individual animals, guests, etc), so what you can do with those 25 game resources I mentioned will take a lot of imagination. Our tools tell us that the game has around 8,880 functions in the game alone, so we have our work cut out for us before we can start introducing stuff with more substance that people can play with. Variables are easier to expose than functions though, so they will have to do for the short term. See you guys again on release day some time in July :)

Here is the start

View File Open Pony Ride by Jane An animated pony ride for your guests of all ages. Requires the LANG--Jane .dll file for guests to ride. You can find it here. Janes Open Pony Ride First ever made pony ride for ZooTycoon, now configured as building for fun This pony ride was made in 2007 as an object with continuous animation. Don't use the original object Ponyride by Jane at the same time You will need Jane lang dll file for this building to work in the game Put the ztd in your Zoo Tycoon updates folder and the lang dll in Zoo Tycoon main folder To be placed on water and moveable Enjoy 2007 Jane Anne-Lis Brenden Sverige updated 2019-02-03 Submitter Cricket Submitted 06/23/2023 Category Admin Temp Holding  

View File Magic Flowers and Grasses by Z.Z. ZZ – F – Magic Flowers and Grasses Magic Flowers and Grasses are terrain-specific quarter-tile foliages that up animal happiness without adding to the foliage count. There are: Aquatic Arctic Coniferous Deciduous Desert Grassland Highland Marine Arctic (neutral) Marine (neutral) Rainforest Savannah Autumn (neutral) Dark (neutral) Light (neutral) Marine and Marine Arctic do not add to animal happiness as there is no specific code for it, but they do go in tanks. Autumn, Dark, and Light also do not add to animal happiness, but they will go in any exhibit, including tanks. All Magic Flowers and Grasses are loved by guests and make beautiful garden areas. Enjoy! :D Submitter Cricket Submitted 06/23/2023 Category Foliage  

Yep it does have to be labelled correctly as the zoo.ini lists what order to load the files in. And by the way ZT reads everyfile in the game - correct folder or not. I believe. So have multiple storage folders in there might slow things up a fraction

They were hardy little computers. I remember the public outrage when Vista came out and no one wanted to switch 😂 That sounded like such an important job! I had to install a Windows XP virtual machine on my computer in order to make sure the API is behaving, so just know that there are ways to keep the Windows XP dream alive if you're ever keen on jumping on a time machine haha. It trips me out every time I use it.

That's a good way to keep the downloads separate; just take one dlupdates out and pop another one in. I would think that the folder in the game would have to be named correctly or the game might not recognize. But I'm not sure about that. Maybe the experts will answer soon.

I sure wish I had one. I would love to have that Compac XP Professional laptop, new in the box. It was solid as a rock with a cooling fan that was like an AC. I was working at a university in an office as the clerical assistant to 18 Chinese scientists; it was the best job I ever had. The boss got me that laptop so I could work from home sometimes and when I left the department to work part time, he insisted on me keeping it. Best computer I've had over the last 20 years.

Gorgeous! Great work ladies.

Thank you. If you liked that, you'll love this

All the cats are done. My zoos look better viewed at a distance..