The Settlers 4: Coalfix Plugin

By default, the size of your economy is limited by the so called coal bug. That is when a players economy consumes more goods than the game can assign jobs to carriers. Since coal is the the most used good it is usually the first good being affected - ultimately leading to starvation at the smiths or smelters although more than enough coal is being produced.

This plugin for The Settlers 4 fixes the coal bug.

There is a German translation for this README. Please note that it may be outdated.

Features

• Fixes the coal bug - for coal or any other good.
• Removes the delay when assigning a job to a carrier. Carriers will react much quicker to your commands.
• Compatibility: Works with the Gold Edition and the History Edition of The Settlers 4.
• Multiplayer interoperability: All participants must use the plugin - otherwise the game will desync.

How to use

You need an ASI Loader to use this plugin. I recommend The Settlers 4: ASI Loader as it works nicely with the Gold and History Edition of The Settlers 4 and does not require any configuration.

1. Download a release.
2. Unpack the files into your plugins directory.
3. Start the game. The plugin will load automatically.

To uninstall the plugin remove CoalFix.asi from your plugins directory.

Known Problems

• This plugin does not really fix the coal bug but instead pushes the limit. Instead of assigning a job to a carrier every 16 ticks, we now assign a job every tick. To really fix the bug we would have to loop the open jobs and assign a carrier as long as there is a free carrier left.

Issues and Questions

The project uses the Github Issue tracker. Please open a ticket here.

Contribute

The official repository of this project is available at https://github.com/nyfrk/Settlers4-Coalfix.

Compile it yourself

Download Visual Studio 2017 or 2019 with the C++ toolchain. The project is configured to build it with the Windows XP compatible v141_xp toolchain. However, you should be able to change the toolchain to whatever you like. No additional libraries are required so it should compile out of the box.

How does this plugin work?

The game assigns jobs every 16 ticks (~1.14 s). When creating a job the game imposes a delay of 32 ticks (~2.28 s). The plugin decreases the timings to 1 tick (~0.07 s) for both occasions and thus pushes the limit that ultimately leads to the coal bug.

License

The project is licensed under the MIT License.