The Constant Gardener, a PT utility for the PC

The Constant Gardener
(a Plant Tycoon utility)



Why? Who?
This utility is designed for players (such as me - I'm older than the dirt in the pots) with arthritis in their hands, or carpal tunnel, who have trouble putting soil in 15 pots (not too bad) and then watering all 15 pots (this is very uncomfortable for me).

How It Works:
Run Plant Tycoon.
Run The Constant Gardener utility.
Press ON.

What Does It Do:
Every half a second, the utility checks your pots for soil and water. It fills the pots with soil, and fills them with water to about 80% on the water meter.

Anything else I need to know?
Since each vendor of Plant Tycoon (BigFishGames, LDW, etc) stores the information on the pots in a slightly different place, and since I don't have each vendor's version of the program, the very first time the program is run, one must click "Tools" and then "Find Pots" to find the location of the pots in memory for that particular version. This only needs to be done the very first time the program is run.

Comments, suggestions, questions? Please leave a reply to this thread!

Cheers,
Borg

PS I wish to thank LadyCFII for the idea for this utility, and I wish to thank her (again) in advance for the beta-testing she has not done yet.

Okay, I have a question: How exactly does it work? LOL, just a rather clueless person here! LOLOL Oh, wait, you edited the post. Heh. lol

This sounds like what I need..where do I download?

Still being tested!

Very nice utility! but:
But I want not to fill all my pots at 80% with water because I fill the pots with the cactus only at 50 or 60% (at the T). Could it be possible to choose the level of water we want?

I think that could be a possibility! I have carpul tunnel and in any event this will help me out tremendously! plus I got a son 4 dogs in the house 3 cats in the house a hubby and a team of 20 work hands to feed and take care of LOL! {I live on a farm/Ranch}

I'll ask if the Isola Cactuses (Cactii?) do better with less water (as would real cactuses), and if they do I will change it. Good point.

I can't wait for the Mac version

Update on The Constant Gardener

The Constant Gardener utility is now available for download in the Plant Tycoon Guide section, HERE.

So far it has been tested and works on the LDW and BFG versions of Plant Tycoon. If it works or does not work on your version, let us know in a reply to this thread. In your reply please mention who you bought the program from (if you forgot, it should be on one of the splash screens that appear when the game starts up and is loading).

Cheers,
Borg

PS: Questions, comments, bug reports.. please leave a reply

Hiya Borg, I was download number 6. I have done what the Tools area said and it can not find my pots. Friend bought this one for me from Reflexive Arcade. This this is what I get:

What does it say the name of plant tycoon is in task manager? to bring up the task manager, right click on taskbar (long bar at bottom of screen with names of all your programs running) and select the line 'task manager'

It says 'Plant Tycoon' & 'The Constant Gardener' and that's it.

not the taskbar itself, the task manager (right click taskbar, pick task manager, and look under the "processes" tab)

also are you using windows xp or vista? is your processor 32 bit or 64 bit?

Under the Image name it is Plant Tycoon.RWG and Plant Tycoon.exe

Windows XP, 32bit.

I wonder what .RWG is the extension for? Must be part of reflexive's system I am guessing. I sent a test program that lists process names that may help us, and if that doesn't help I have more tricks up my sleeve. It may take us a little bit to get it working, but I will keep trying

Completely brilliant. I have such problems with this due to health issues so this was more helpful than you can imagine.

THANK YOU,
Kathy

so good!!

Program now works with Reflexive's version of Plant Tycoon

You are sincerely welcome!

Thank you I am glad you like it

Thanks, Borg!

I've just downloaded the utility. I thought I'd report that it seems to work fine on Windows Vista (32-bit) as well as XP. At least, it found the pots and filled them up properly.

Thank you arnie for the surprisingly good news! it isn't often i get to use both of those adjectives on the same noun you know.

Cheers,
-Borg

Plant Tycoon is great, Virtual Seed Tray works and now The Constant Gardener is up and working - I'm in Plant Tycoon heaven! Thanks Borg and all the PT team.

I may have spoken too soon.

It worked fine yesterday, filling the pots, and refilling them as needed. When I stopped playing I turned the utility off, then shut down the game after selling my last plant. Then I quit the Constant Gardener.

This evening I've just opened the game and all the pots are empty. I started the utility and although the On button turned green, nothing happened. I tried shutting it down again, having it search for the pots again, then starting it, but still no change.

Is that on the windows vista system? I think for me to fix windows vista problems i would need to test it on windows vista. one of these days i should get vista. my apologies that it destroyed your game, arnie

Yep, on Vista (specs in my sig).

Sorry, I wasn't clear, it didn't destroy my game, Once I sold the last plant last night I closed PT, having assumed (probably wrongly) that the CG had refilled all the pots with soil and water. It had been doing it OK earlier ...

When I opened the game today all the pots were still empty, so either they hadn't been filled, or (unlikely) they'd been filled then somehow got emptied again. I didn't have any plants in the pots.

Still, the VST will fill up my pots, so no great loss for me if it doesn't work.

OMG!!!! I love this! It totally helps with my wrist and fingers cramping! Thank you! Thank you!

You are most welcome! I am glad you like it

I bought my game from Big Fish, and the constant gardener came thru for me just fine. I had all of my pots full of plants when I set it up, but it said it found all of my pots.

Thanks, I appreciate this, as I hate filling those pots with soil and water.

RuthieJo

I have noticed a weird _bug_ with this while using ..... of course VISTA. Once you have the CG turned on, if you minimize it, it seems to not work. The green button is highlighted but it doesnt water anything. However if you leave it up and just click on other windows using the task bar (at the bottom) it seems to work. Is this something that anyone else has noticed?

that happened to me

Me to THANK YOU...I just love this game and its been a great stress relief....I just joined this forum and already I am thrilled with all the information I have gotten, Thanks Barbara!

It is great, but you gotta remeber to leave both programs on...works great...helps save some hand time*...

Thanks so much! It's very sweet of you to share your work with the rest of us.

I just found this topic. What a wonderful mod, I can sure use it! One question,tho--does it run for more than one game at a time? I hav 5 running (obsessive, yeah) One less thing to worry about. now for the little fly infection....

Yes it runs for all games in the PT - the one you have running and the other slots in that game.
I have 3 game slots in my PT and they are all runing at the water level I set for 1 game!!
If you have the _bug_ collector running it will remmebr which game you are in - DO NOT RESET it for eaach game as you will lose the settings and have to reset it all over again!!!!!!

Thanks so much Borg, works great! You really are brilliant!

I've downloaded TCG as well.

It's running properly on my machine.
Vista, 32-bit

This program is great. Thanks for designing it. I also have VST (thanks to TheGnome and DW's suggestion) Little new to it, but I'm getting the hang of it!

Keep up the good work!

I downloaded the utility but I am getting some message about net.framework when I try to open it. Can you help? I bought the game from pogo to go.

hi lazymary,

a lot of newer computers come with NET 2.0 already, most older ones don't. it is easy to install NET 2.0 and there is a link for it somewhere on this forum, but since I am lazy I googled it and found it can be downloaded from microsoft here:

Click here to download NET 2.0 from Microsoft

once you download and install NET 2.0, the constant gardener should run.

-Borg

Thank you so much! I installed the netframe thing and everything is running fine so far. One question though I have 3 games running on PT, does the utility only water and replace soil for the name thats up and running?

yes

its quite useful

Well I had closed out my PT and Constant Gardner and the next time I played I first put on my PT then the gardner but its not refilling or watering. I tried to have it find my pots again as I did the first time but its not doing anything. What did I do wrong?

I have installed the constant gardner and it gives me an error message that is this:
to run this application, you must first install one of the following versions of the .net framework: v2.0.50727, contact your application publisher for instructions about obtaining the appropriate version of the .net framework, what is this and how can i update it??

You need to get it from Microsoft. It's listed in the top downloads on Microsoft's download page.

Hey Borg, awesome utility.. saves much time, headaches and hand cramps. One thing I've noticed though. When using this utility, that it doesn't register as using water.

I've planted 5oo something plants in my new game, and until just a minute ago, used a total of 1 liter of water. *snicker* Super plants genectically altered to suck moisture from even the most arid of climats!! LoL! It's now at 4 litres, cause I manually topped them off without using your utility just to see if that was the issue.

It doesn't bother me and definitely won't stop me from using it, just figured you'd like to know.

Hi AnthonyK,

Yes, someone else pointed that out a few months ago as well. I think we decided to keep it the way it is though so no one could cheat and get on the leaderboard by having watered the most. Then I think LadyCFII mentioned that watering plants with the most water will not get a player on the leader board. I think.

- Borg

I have PT installed, but it says "error: 80004005".
Maybe Constant Gardener doesn't work with RealArcade games?

that is the first time i've heard of that, and i'm not sure what to make of it. if i come up with anything i'll let you know.

Constant Gardener worked great on my 4-year-old laptop. I had to install the net framework on my computer I literally got brand new from Dell 4 days ago. Heh, kinda funny.

Thanks again!

Hi, this application is not running on my pc.. Can u tell me why??? It only show this error message..
The application failed to initialize properly....
Oh and i use windows xp sp2..
could u tell me whats wrong??

scan page 5 of this thread near the middle of the page - LadyCFII has a link to microsoft to download the .NET framework, which is what you are missing

Cheers,
-borg

Hi borg, I got my game at shockwave.com and my contant gardeneris saying it can not find my pots. Can you help. I have the exl which i was able to get it to work.
Seed tray nice. But i can not get CG to work.
pam2000001

it might have different offsets than the LDW version. each vendor adds their own copy protection scheme to the program, and since each scheme's code takes up a different amount of memory and gets loaded ahead of the main program, the main program is shifted a different number of bytes. i wrote some code to search the most likely areas of memory for the offsets but if their scheme is much shorter or longer than the average or if something else is moving the code to an unexpected place the program can't find the offsets.

i use the same method with my Virtual Seed Tray .. and it does work.. thx..

Thanks kindly for this utility, it's working great and saves me a lot of time. I'm using windows Vista and didn't think it would work, but it did... no sweat!

Thanks Again!

Hi all
I usually run all 5 nurserys at the same time. Will this program do that or do I have to play only 1 at a time?

Thanks
Pawtet

I can not get this to work. I maybe doing something wrong. when I unzip it where do i put it in the files. with the pots or elsewhere? I just put it in the plant tycoon folder but it would not install. I would really love this utility. Can you help? I think it came from GameMill

with the pots is fine. are you having a problem getting the program to run, or does it run but just not keep the pots full of soil and water?

if the program is running but not filling pots like it should, i think it may be because the program was obtained from gamemill but i am not certain.

each vendor can choose their own form of copy protection when they sell the program. i have tested my utilities with the version of plant tycoon from LDW and from BFG and have adapted it to work with both. but to get it to work with every vendor's copy protection i would have to purchase it from every vendor

I got it to work !!! And I love it.. makes it so easy.. thanks a lot Now If you can tell me just exactly how many diffrent plants there are so I will know how many more I have to find. I know there are over 500 but how many over 500? Please please tell me???

You can see the answer to your question here in the Plant Tycoon Guides.

Ok got it..... then checked my plants and I have all the 23 foliage and plant types. and also all 32 flowers Just can't remember what plants I have all ready got once and witch ones I still need to get. But I do know now that I only have 105 to go. Just wish I knew what ones. What a job it is going to be, guess I should of wrote them down as I got them

Thanks

If you use Borg's Virtual Seed Tray, it will tell you what plants you have already discovered.

I actually subscribed to this forum just to have the opportunity to thank Borg for the wonderful Plant Tycoon add-ons he created. They all work perfectly, and have been a great help in my quest to complete the game! (I'm still far, far from it, having yet discovered only 112 species... but the constant gardener, as well as the spreadsheet and virtual seed tray helped me understand the very basics of the game, therefore, boosted my enjoyment of it tremendously!)

I really did get addicted to this game, so...

Resistance was futile!

Thank you, Borg!

Thank you Christy79, I could not get this to find the pots until after I read your post. I have vista and was not running PT in full window mode. I tried it again in full window mode and now it has foind them.

Well thank you I was just looking around to find out why the CG wouldn't work like it did on the other computer. this computer has Vista. You gave me the answer. I hope. going to try it

thanks

Constant gardener doesn't recognize my pots. Using windows Vista (32 bit) and downloaded game from real arcade / gamehouse.

VST works fine - would be nice to be able to use constant gardener too.

Thanks.

Hello,

I realize "the constant gardener" was created a couple years ago and the creator might not still be working on it but I thought I'd throw what I've got going in the hat. I have Windows 7, 64 bit and while the program starts fine it does not recogize my pots. My version was downloaded from Gamehouse.com. I'll keep checking back in case anyone moderates this thread. Thank you!

Thanks! What a cool idea!

Am I thick or what???? I downloaded the constant gardener and it found my pots ok so I exited and shut my game down but now when I run PT I cant find the CG were is it stored so I can turn it back on.

Depending upon your computer's operating system and settings, it could be in a number of places. All you need to do is use the search function on your computer to look for The_Constant_Gardener and you should be able to find where it is.

Just wanted to thank Borg. I haven't played PT in about 2 years. I found this when I was hunting for the suggested pricing list and the plant guide he had done. I found this and the virtual Seed Tray and I am thrilled. THANKS

Ok, I would very much like to download the Constant Gardener, but the link to download it takes me to a Virtual Families 2 page instead of plant tycoon. Could someone please shed a little light on this subject please? Thanks!

Please try the link again. The link has been updated to go to the correct place. Many links were altered during a forum software update a long time ago, and unfortunately, we have to fix them all by hand!

Thanx Xay! Found the link finally! Did anyone else have a problem with the fact you cannot exit the game while you have this utility running? It would be nice to do other things while the plants are growing. I got Plant Tycoon through BFG and cannot run two games at the same time. 0:-D

I know this is very old and development is most likely stopped at this point but this tool does not work on the Steam version of Plant Tycoon. Just wanted to let you and anyone else know.

None of those utilities were developed by us, but by a fan of Plant Tycoon who is not affiliated with LDW. Those utilities did work back then, and we provided them to our fans, along with many other user guides and mods. However, we also warned players that they assumed all risks associated with using them on their computers.

Unfortunately, pretty much all of the utilities that Borg created for Plant Tycoon stopped working long ago. Unlike our games, which have all been updated to work with current technologies, those utilities have remained untouched for over a decade.

Operating systems have changed tremendously since those utilities were created, and the techniques that Borg relied on to make them work are no longer usable. The Constant Gardener, in particular, used active memory modification techniques that are blocked by modern security features.

It was fun to use them when they worked, but the game is still very playable without them.