MikeyPI

No there is no need for larger boats than the final one.  The final vessels are quite large in their own rights. The Bravest and the Kane are quite large vessels Kane is 52 feet long and Bravest is 65 feet long.  These are not small vessels, and ultimately there are not many uses for vessels larger than that even in the original missions should one be so inclined.  The size of the vessel does not denote it's function, especially in this game and ultimately either of these two vessels we're discussing would be more capable than the original large fire boat.

Even though I have no intentions of moving forth onto EM5 in modding, I commend you for taking your time in trying to help get others started.  I believe that will have a greater longer-lasting benefit to the community as a whole and certainly appreciate you taking your time to do this, hopefully those who are interested will take advantage of this courtesy you've extended.

Even though I don't have an interest I believe these would be prudent things to start people off with.

1). Most importantly of all, which model applications that you are aware of have the capacity to make files in such a manner as to function for EM5?  As with any format you have the risk that even though it's the same file-type it may not be formatted in such a way as to be understood by the program it's intended for, so any assistance you can provide in listing applicable model apps that can create/export in the proper format for EM5 would be a good place to start.  I am sure there are a few that can do it, but preferably list the more reasonably priced options you're aware of first, going down the line to the more expensive ones that can do the job.

2). Once they have this program it would be nice for them to know any structure-based restrictions that are required to be met in order to make the model dump correctly for the game. Being a new format to everyone around here, the things that you'd think would be obvious if you've dealt with the format before won't be so obvious to those that don't have experience.. So for example, explaining how to setup the bodywork of the vehicle, the interior aspect, the wheels and doors would be nice. In EM4 they were separate parts that had to be dumped, I don't believe that is still the case, so it would be nice for them to know the structure for how to do it right.

3). Texturing was done diff in em4 vs the em5 system, so a basic run-down of how exactly the textures work with the new system and how to set them up to work within it would be a nice starting point, from there people can ask more elaborate questions but I'm going for the "getting started" sort of thing.

4). From my tinkering with em5 it was pretty easy to put items into the editor, but people could benefit from a quick tutorial to get it into the game and working properly.. IE just getting the new content to show up in the editor, and going further to making it usable in the actual game (as far as advanced things like settings for them can be hammered out by others once they know what they have and what they want it to do).  Again going for a starting point for them.

5). Any noted restrictions or defects to be wary of in the above mentioned tasks, things that you can incidentally do that will potentially cause problems (conflicts or crashes and things like that).  Any pitfalls in doing the above things that you don't want to do for the undesired results.  Kinda sucks but we've all been there in trying something that did not work, it's nice to point out to anyone that follows what doesnt work at all and why, such as why taking em4 models and trying to direct-port them is a pretty bad idea.  I've seen the EM5 models, so I know what you mean when you said that, but others may not quite grasp how different the systems really are.

6). How to package your "mod" components in such a way that they can be easily added to another's game by a relatively novice-experienced user... When I played with em5, it did not have a mod package feature, and to be totally honest I don't know if it does as of today or not, but either way it'd be a prudent thing to explain to modders so that they can make modification components that are easy to use, and ultimately easy to remove if the users should need to.  You'll have to wing it a bit to explain this one, but being that I don't know where that stands in doing that for this game I can't be more specific, sorry.

Other than that I can't think of anything else that is really prudent.  I am sure I missed some points along the way and simplified tasks a bit much so for that I apologize, but ultimately the name of the game in what I've posed to you should hopefully be a fairly reasonable starting point for people to get the ball rolling if they so desire to start working with EM5.  I appreciate you taking the time to run through and try to help people get started, hopefully they respect and appreciate you taking your time to do so and ultimately get more specifics than I have posed here.  But as I said I'm trying to give a nice starting point that hopefully will at least put people down the path to ask the more specific questions related to what they want to do.

I really didn't see an argument I saw it more as a discussion.

 

Yea I do not see mentor putting that as his signature I know him to well if an admin called him out about something he would of used bad language just to piss them off  but it does look like something an admin would put trying to be smart.

 

 

And yes he closed the topic and removed all of the download links off of both his mods. And after talking to him I do not blame him one bit for doing it.

See, that is the ultimate irony in it all.. People opt to do things figuring that we'd somehow be upset about it when in reality we just shake our head because ultimately the only one that is hurt when people act immature and change things trying to get attention is themselves.  When we have to go through and edit/revoke rights it does not take us any measure of time to undo what someone does, and his effort to change the signature to an inappropriate setting ultimately just hurts him in the end.  Kind of works the opposite way of what people would think when they go "hah I'll show them" and do rather childish things, just comes back to hurt them instead.

He closed the topics, yet did not state he closed them, a rather immature act really that only hurts himself and any fans he had out there for any of the work he did.  I cannot ultimately say it has any desired effect in doing something so rash other than just upsetting people who might've enjoyed his work he's done on these mods, but ultimately his choice to do so.  Still, it would have been better suited to state this fact instead of just doing it as he did, just a rash example of immaturity that only hurts the fans he did have on these projects. I can't really see how this is supposed to have any positive effect in any way, it more closely shows the effects of a temper tantrum, nothing more, nothing less.

Mentor felt compelled to change his signature to be naughty, so he has a vacation for 15 days.  Ultimately after that time it is up to him on what happens next. So do not expect him to respond for about two weeks time.

Load original model: Remove everything but the part(s) you've broken..... Take modified model, remove parts you've broken.  Merge two together. Done.

I guess I'll throw in my hat into this discussion as well..  What I can't wrap my head around is why you'd want to make a "new" mod here for the LA county and figure you have time to reskin the engines and such into LA county, but on the same flip of the coin believe it'd be not only ok, but expected you'd be able to just port someone else's content directly into your "mod" here because you don't want to invest the time into remaking these units yourself. If you don't really have the time to re-create ALL the units, why is it reasonable to even attempt to start a mod when you don't have this time?  As a whole the Los Angeles regional vehicles are not that difficult to paint at all, especially considering the resources itch used for his content are available to the users (save for some of his latest content).  I personally don't get wanting to create a mod, but not wanting to take the time to actually make the content I need for it.

From your signature:

 

Currently Making the Ocean City Modification, but I am partners

with the Miami Modification and the River Falls Modification

^According to the signature, you do have commitments, but still as I've said above it's just unusual to have the time  for a project, but not the time to actually do the content one's self.

I too feel that as of late the recycling has gotten to the point where pretty soon there will be nothing original left to actually say "hey this mod did this", for the sake of speed/ease everyone just wants to take everyone else's efforts and toss them into their mix and call it a day.  I wish people would take the time to try to make their own changes, even if they are minor ones.  In the american emergency field there arent a ton of vehicles used, but at least they have different equipment, paint schemes, and lighting on them, that at least makes them stand apart... I don't understand why people just want to keep re-using the same content over and over again, especially when they arent even taking the time to customize it in any way what so ever for their mod. 

If I were to ask itch if I could use X Y Z of his mod, but I was taking it from what it was already to be something else entirely, I am fairly sure he'd have no problem with that if the real counterpart used the same setup as his did, but was a completely different appearing skin.  The problem as of late isnt that there are reskins, people have done reskins on vehicles since the beginning of gaming.  The problem is that the effort applied into making them actually different has gone the wayside in lieu of speed to just keep dumping content out fast.  In some people's eyes that keeps them relevant, in most of the modder's eyes it's just a re-hash of the same thing over and over again.

From a modder stand point I put in the time to create something to share with the community, it doesnt mean that I'm perfectly fine with you just taking my content, slapping it together and calling it a modification that your going to put your name all over.. That ultimately would get under any modder's skin, you value your time, so too do other modders in taking their time for this hobby.  I don't deem it unreasonable to take the same resources, re-create similar content.  That is ultimately what Itch expected people to do, instead everyone just wants to keep using his content as direct-ports. I can't fault him for his choices moving forth with his content, there comes a certain point when people need to understand the effort going into content by putting in more of their own effort instead of complaining because he's drawn a line in the sand on it.

To me as of late everyone wants that "easy" button to pump out content fast, all the while putting in as little effort as possible.  What is sad is ultimately many people feel entitled to just keep using people's content as they've been allowed to from the LA mod and expect it to be okey.  I wish everyone would take their time, do their own efforts and cease the lazy behavior of just taking the exact same content and trying to just slap a new coat of paint onto it only(at best, in this case an exact 1/1 replica).  It may take longer for everyone to work on making unique things, but the community as a whole benefits from proper variety.

Well, ultimately comparing EM4 to EM5 is a pointless ideal, EM4 at least had some support provided to make it easier, plus it was very similar to EM3 which made the process of going forth much much easier.  Em5 is a totally new beast, great for Frozen One here that he has figured out all these many tasks to make a mod for EM5.  That being said, I believe the many modders (myself not included) that wished to move onto em5 feel it is rather selfish to keep everything you've figured out along the way just to yourself.  I believe most modders would like the opportunity to throw their hat into the mix on creating their own projects, instead of just having to wait for yours to be well-established as the only game in town before they even might get some help from you.  Ultimately a community is supposed to exist to help one another out whenever possible, especially in instances for the good of the community as a whole.

Ultimately if you want to run a monopoly and be the only game in town for modding em5, that's your right but it is something you should at least consider along the way since making a full blown mod is a great deal of work and doing it solo means a very long time to do it all on your own.  It might serve you just the same to try to bring some of the people who have ambitions into the fold, or release it to the community at large, even if it costs you time in the short-term it may save you time in the long-haul if some of the things you need for your town are made by others as well.  Just food for thought, but ultimately you can do as you wish to do, and people can also agree or disagree with the choices you make, we don't try to run a collective opinion here where everyone has to agree with one another.

Goodluck to you either way with your project. Ultimately though I think the community is better served having more options available sooner for this game as opposed to having all ambitions held in the format of a single project that will be well-established prior to anyone else getting a hand to even try to head in the right direction.  To me in that situation the number of people interested in the game will just dwindle further than it already has thus far (not that it was all that popular anyway so far).  Best of luck on your project, hopefully you can find ways to do more than just visual changes and make some substantive changes along the way to bring EM5 closer to what EM4 already had.

That information was already in the Directx Diag regarding that it is an x360... you need to know the exact model which is usually found on the serial number to the machine, all makes of computers have several models within the same line-up because of different configurations, just because you have a Dell XPS 15 does not mean it's exactly the same as all other XPS 15's.   Find the exact model of your computer and search on the link I provided for your exact computer.

Ultimately though as I've already stated in your case, it makes use of HP's driver set, not intel's.  Because of this your drivers are more "generic" and do not get all the features/benefits of drivers for your specific card.  I am aware of what your video card is, but DX is not, Direct X is treating your video card as a Generic Intel Graphics chipset, and since that is what most games, including em4 use to process the graphical features of the game, there ya go. Your only hope is that somewhere in the HP updates on that site that I've provided the link to there is a graphical update for your specific specs that changes that, if it doesnt you're going to be stuck with the problems you have.  Yet another reason to love HP.

Secondly, your computer is one of those that tries to be an "all-in-one", being lightweight, having the ability to be a tablet and not an actual computer comes at a cost, welcome to the cost.... It's trying to do so many things that ultimately it isnt great at any one thing, instead mediocre at every single trick that it can do, compared to the devices out there that are purpose built to fill all the roles yours wants to claim it can do.  Chances are it won't be possible to fix your graphical problems because of how your machine was engineered by HP, I've already explained why that is several times now, and the only possible solution lies in updating manually through the manuf. website's pool of resources if they've got one that works for yours in particular, if not, because the way HP uses their own sourced intel drivers instead of the most current up-to-date Intel packages available, you get more generic drivers than someone who has just the Intel chipset they bought themselves or from another manuf. that just uses the default oem driver package.

I searched for your specific processor and GPU unit, so those drivers are what are supposed to work for it, my best guess since you have an HP pc, it requires HP-specific drivers.. That'd mean you're outta luck, the driver page I gave you is for the proper processor and GPU, if it is incompatible it is either because the hardware is a different typeset or because yours uses special drivers that arent supported by intel through their service online.. Means HP has to supply your drivers and ultimately that'd mean you get less frequent/less useful updates to them.

Even still I searched from your DX diag on HP's site since apparently thats what you'll have to work with, and I'd guess there is a newer driver there.. Idk your exact model of Envy, but I searched and found newer graphics drivers for some of the envys (2015)

http://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/identify?q=HP+ENVY+15+x360&tool=s-002#Z7_3054ICK0K8UDA0AQC11TA930O2

Find your exact model and look there.. Either way HP uses custom drivers so you're getting stuck with whatever their drivers have with them, not exactly the original OEM from intel.

It will say it's up to date because as far as it is concerned it is, yet my driver is newer than yours is 12/31/2014. Like I said because yours is being treated as a "generic" intel family card it's using it as a generic intel family card.  Mine is treated as exactly what it is, so it uses all of it's features...  Best guess because of your computer being made by HP, it is going for the generic version instead of the specific.  As I told you in the previous post you cannot automatically update, you must manually search for a driver for the video card you have.

Took me two seconds to search manually for these:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/search?keyword=Intel+HD+4400

Read very closely in the previous post and I told you that you'd have to manually search, not rely on windows to tell you if it's up to date or not.

Once again yours is showing just generic information, not your actual card for the video card. 

Your DX:

 

---------------

Display Devices

---------------

          Card name: Intel® HD Graphics Family

       Manufacturer: Intel Corporation

          Chip type: Intel® HD Graphics Family

           DAC type: Internal

        Device Type: Full Device

         Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_0A16&SUBSYS_22D6103C&REV_0B

     Display Memory: 1792 MB

   Dedicated Memory: 0 MB

      Shared Memory: 1792 MB

       Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)

       Monitor Name: Generic PnP Monitor

      Monitor Model: unknown

         Monitor Id: CMN15B9

        Native Mode: 1920 x 1080(p) (60.049Hz)

        Output Type: Internal

        Driver Name: igdumdim64.dll,igd10iumd64.dll,igd10iumd64.dll,igdumdim32,igd10iumd32,igd10iumd32

Driver File Version: 10.18.0010.3496 (English)

     Driver Version: 10.18.10.3496

My DX:

 

---------------

Display Devices

---------------

          Card name: Intel® HD Graphics 4600

       Manufacturer: Intel Corporation

          Chip type: Intel® HD Graphics Family

           DAC type: Internal

        Device Type: Full Device

         Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_0416&SUBSYS_F9351179&REV_06

     Display Memory: 1792 MB

   Dedicated Memory: 0 MB

      Shared Memory: 1792 MB

       Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)

       Monitor Name: Generic PnP Monitor

      Monitor Model: unknown

         Monitor Id: CMN1737

        Native Mode: 1920 x 1080(p) (60.008Hz)

        Output Type: Internal

        Driver Name: igdumdim64.dll,igd10iumd64.dll,igd10iumd64.dll,igdumdim32,igd10iumd32,igd10iumd32

Driver File Version: 10.18.0010.4061 (English)

     Driver Version: 10.18.10.4061

        DDI Version: 11.1

     Feature Levels: 11.1,11.0,10.1,10.0,9.3,9.2,9.1

       Driver Model: WDDM 1.3

Graphics Preemption: DMA

 Compute Preemption: Thread

           Miracast: Supported

Hybrid Graphics GPU: Integrated

     Power P-states: Not Supported

  Driver Attributes: Final Retail

   Driver Date/Size: 12/31/2014 23:41:02, 10896312 bytes

        WHQL Logo'd: n/a

    WHQL Date Stamp: n/a

Note that mine actually shows what model I have for my video card... That is probably why my video card has no problems where yours does, because your intel card is being used as a "generic" by it's drivers.. When they make generic bundle drivers they are universal to work on all the cards, but ultimately as with anything that is universal it does not take into account special aspects of the device it's linked to..  

Your best bet is to try to find different drivers and update your intel systems, not just the drivers to the video card but also the intel control panel (newer control panel=more features).  I noticed your drivers are rather old, so by now there is probably a newer driver available for it, you just may have to manually find it for your exact version of your video card that you have.  I believe yours is the intel HD4400 but double check under device manager to verify that, and manually search for the drivers that suit that card instead of letting windows/hp pick the drivers for it.  I don't have a 4400 so I am not sure if it has problems specific to it's card type, but it's strange that it just has your vid card marked as just an intel, when that happens it is usually using a "generic" driver instead of a specialized one for the exact hardware you've got.

I think it's mostly down to cost of investment for the new subs/tahoes... Given what they cost vs alternative vehicles (albeit smaller ones) they really just don't make sense in the current times..  Add in that the explorer is actually rather large inside but still relatively small outside it makes a more maneuverable urban environment vehicle.  The Subs in particular are just flat out huge and not ideal for urban life.  Even K-9 I've seen alot more going to the Explorer than the Sub (tahoes were never really all that popular to begin with for LEO use since if you need a huge truck you're just going to go for the full suburban instead of a slightly smaller tahoe).  Comparing the Tahoe to the Explorer, I'd probably go with an Explorer first from my view, which is hard to say since I think it's not good looking either, but it at least meets the terms that CFD listed that myself, and most agencies would be looking at as well.

I havent even seen a 2015 suburban/tahoe police package in use, really don't see many of the civilian ones either to be totally honest.  I think it's ugly and perhaps just perhaps the mainstream buyers are feeling the same thing.  I see way more explorers than chevrolet products used for police purposes lately.

Yep I can tell you that ultimately as to your intel card, you're probably using the wrong driver for your card, for normal "desktop" applications it will run fine (watching videos, browsing, etc) but it won't do gaming right with the wrong drivers... Up to you to fix that, but not important really since you do have the dedicated card.  Mine is the R9 series, so diff control panel, but same deal I tell mine to run which apps I want on the dedicated and which ones on my intel card (older games mostly).

The best thing you can do when you have a system working as you want it to, is to disable automatic updating of your video card drivers, because sometimes new drivers will change things/remove features that some of your older games require causing them to no longer work.. If it ain't broke, don't fix it type of motto applies here, since graphical drivers arent security-related it's safer to not let the system auto-update them just because a new ver is available.

Commands issue is related to a bad install of one of the mods most likely, instead of going into it's own mod folder one of them probably ended up installed in the root directory... Gotta wipe them all out and put em back one by one to find the culprit=/  Sorry.

@ CRFD: Okey, looking through your DX diagnosis, a problem that I saw for a machine with "switchable graphics" was that your nvidia card is not displayed as a display device (we culled your dx diag here because my browser didnt like it) but you can see your display device only lists the intel... It does not list the nvidia one for some reason.. For newer games that isnt a problem, but on this old game it unfortunately can be a problem since it comes from an era where switchable graphics werent often used. Your best bet is to manually try to update/change the drivers for your nvidia card to see if that makes the card show up as it's supposed to.  My intel chipset is found under the display devices, my R9 under renderer, but when I dump my dxdiag both are in the display devices section.... http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/85053  Search through and try to find a slightly older one than what you have, go into the nvidia control panel when you update the driver and configure the nvidia card to be used by em4.  Wiping the computer would make it a "brand new" machine again, but ultimately whatever update caused the problem would reoccur if you are correct in not having issues until very recently.

@ Corsair You are just repeating what others have said before... There is a unique difference that must be understood, NOT ALL INTELS ARE CREATED EQUAL !  My intel for example can play GTA 5 on a lower setting, so yeah some of them can do gaming, albeit not as well as the dedicated cards, depends very much on the card, it's drivers, and most importantly the system supporting it.  In the case of CRFD above his intel card isnt even listing the model which it is for the drivers, so my guess is his is using generic intel drivers instead of ones for his vid card specifically..

As to your question about where the DX diag is, I already answered that earlier up there in a post, don't just browse the post actually read it.

@everyone please use quotes instead of codes for any further documents posted (DX or logs) my computer doesnt like the code tag for whatever reason.

My guess estimate would put the water to be around 20-25% of the map where you'll have marine related missions so with every boat we've added we've tried to give them a purpose to make each one have a use.  The vessel in the vote fills the last role, but the old and new ones can fit the bill almost identically, such is why we've left it to the end users to pick which appearance wise they' prefer.  Ultimately either vessel old or new will fill the final role we require represented just fine, we have several other marine units that cover everything else, aside from the jet ski and RHIB found on R1 in the original mod.

Corsair, no DX diag, so cannot compare to figure what your system config is...

You have 4400 I have 4600.

I have an intel chipset along with my R9 dedicated, both show the game perfectly fine so it is possible for certain intel chipsets to run the game as-intended... Cheaper intel integerated chipsets seem to be the ones that have the issues more often than the better (newer) ones.

CRFD you'll have two possibles: 1). when you installed the mod (believe you said manhattan) you may have installed that incorrectly and it screwed things up.. But more likely, the video card drivers you've got are more likely to be behind it...  Try changing your machine to "high performance" instead of default or power saver, this should by default opt to use the higher performance video card over the integrated chipset, thus making the game run forced on the nvidia.  As to your logfile it will be under the installation directory, a file called "logfile.txt".   You can simply copy it and post it here, just make sure you use the code tags to enclose it..

DX Diag is dependent on your operating system on how to get there, but you need to goto "run" and type in dxdiag and press enter... Once that process is done press the save all information button and again copy it here, just use the code tags to enclose it.

Just asking in inactive topics that I follow

If you believe they are inactive there really is no reason to ask if they are dead.  One of the topics you did this in the author posted 3 days prior to your post.  Authors of these mods do this as a hobby, if they have the free time they pursue them, some lose interest completely and do not complete the projects.  The only way to tell if a mod is really dead or not is for the author to post that it is no longer being worked on, which rarely happens, instead most the time they just do not get updated and slowly are forgotten.  Unless someone comes along and revives them asking if it's dead... It is far better to just wait patiently as opposed to asking things such as is this dead?

As a modder if someone came into my topic and asked if it was dead I would certainly not take that kindly. Learn to be patient, if they update the topic then it's still going, if they don't then go under the belief it probably isnt active anymore, if it isnt active anymore it is not hurting you any by following it, even if it isnt updated.

I am totally indifferent as to which one gets represented, which is why I've posed the question to the end-users.  To me they both serve the purpose that we intend for them, they both on this instance at least look the part (compared to many of the older smaller marine units NY had) and ultimately as far as building them goes they're about the same effort for either one.  So for me I really don't mind which one ends up in it, but since I have to put the time into making whichever one it is, I want to make sure whichever one gets put in is the one more people would rather see since in this case the old and the new pretty much are twins in how they'll function for game play. The only difference to me is the time in which they ordered them, but as I've said since it is only the marine units, it shouldn't detract too much having newer boats as opposed to cars where one new one would throw off the rest of them, the boats are kinda isolated in their use so it doesnt matter as much in that role.

dead?

There isnt a reason to ask if a mod is dead in every topic, frankly the concept of stating "dead" or "is this dead" makes no sense... If a mod is dead you're not helping by asking these types of questions, nor of the author hasnt updated in a time will they see someone posting this and think "gee perhaps I should update"..  Asking if a mod is dead is antagonistic and something really that serves no purpose, don't bump topics asking such questions.

Marine 1 (343) is Massive, it does not have a place in the mod.  Realize the scale of that vessel compared to the "bravest" or "kane".  The vessel pictured with the 343 is a roughly 33 foot long vessel, as you can see the size difference is too massive to even consider it for the map.  The largest vessel we will be adding is either the bravest or kane, we will not be doing something the scale of 343 since it would have navigation problems and frankly be oversized for the map.

The largest deck gun on the "bravest" appears to be present on the 343 10 times just for an idea of scaling differences.

Ultimately I have enough source imagery to make either vessel work for the game, but the "bravest" vessel has better (higher res) pictures, just a fact of the thing being newer means newer better cameras on it compared to the older one.  Which is why I've opted to let this one go to the end-user.  One of our other marine boats slightly exceeds our timeline but there are worse things if only the marine vessels do this.  Just happened that the newer marine vessel was more purpose-built compared to the old one it replaced, which was more or less just a civilian vessel painted for the role instead of actually looking and being capable of the role it plays.

With bravest vs kane they ultimately will serve the purpose just fine whichever way it happens to go from a visual standpoint and function standpoint, but since both vessels are a time-investment to recreate them I figured I'd let the end users pick which one they'd rather see included instead of me making the call myself since they really are a toss-up in my eyes in regard to actual use in the gameplay aspect.  On these two it's more preference for the vessel designs than actual layout, ultimately it isnt which one I prefer but which one you guys want to see included in the mod.  Whichever one wins more votes is the one that will end up recreated for the mod.  I just hope it isnt a close vote in the end lol.

You use windows 8/10, chances are an update failed along the way causing it to get stuck in this boot loop, depending on who made your pc requires different steps.. But your ultimate goal is to try to "refresh" your computer (not a full-blown system restore) and see if that fixes whichever of the system files got broken from whatever you updated/did.  You will lose your installed apps in this process, but not the physical files installed on the hdd, so it's a good option if it's stuck in the boot-loop bs.  Check around for your specific pc (namely the manuf. of the thing) and find out what keystrokes you have to do to force the system into the diagnostics options so you can perform a refresh of the system and hopefully fix the broken windows files.

Well just an update and a poll which I'm going to let run it's course for at least half the month, maybe the whole month.  We've gotten to the largest fire boat we're going to represent and are left at an impasse. The options are a vessel that from what I could find was put into service in around 2011 which makes it beyond our cap date for the mod's timeline (Marine 6 "Bravest") or alternatively the vessel which was present during our mod's timeline "Kevin C. Kane" which is within the timeline since apparently "Bravest" replaced it, but the problem is sourcing imagery for this vessel.  So ultimately we're going to toss this problem to the users to pick which one they want, "Bravest" is newer than our cap-date so it would be the newest thing in the mod, and slightly out of place with the rest of the units, but there is more available imagery to make that vessel happen, compared to "Kevin C. Kane" which is within our timeline very nicely, but lacks great source imagery from what I've found of it.  So with the older vessel there will have to be some guesswork, ultimately either vessel will function/serve the same purpose for the mod in what we intend to do with it, so I leave it up to the end-users to decide if they want the accurate (to our time) older vessel, or the newer vessel even though it is beyond when we've cut off the timeline of our mod.

Up to you guys to pick, either way I'll make the vessel.

In the case of other additions of marine units we've done they push the timeline as well but the vessels that are newer tend to be better fits for the way the game works. In this instance it can be either the older one or the newer one and still do the job, so up to you.