[SPOILER ALERT!] Virtual Seed Tray "Plus Version"

This thread contains user modifications for Plant Tycoon. These modifications (or Mods) have been created by users and are not supported by LDW. Use these modifications at your own risk. If using them causes problems for your game, please do not request support from LDW. Although many people are using this mod successfully, the use of the Virtual Seed Tray has caused the loss of seeds under certain conditions. Make sure that you understand the risks of using this utility. It's also a good idea to back up your game files periodically.
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WARNING: THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION AND IMAGES CONTAIN SPOILERS. TURN AWAY IF YOU ARE MAKING YOUR OWN BREEDING CHARTS AND SEARCHING FOR THE MAGIC PLANTS YOURSELF!


LATEST VERSION

WHERE'S THE DARN LINK???
The link will be in the guide section after I send the link to the esteemed LadyCFII, and she has a chance to make the necessary changes. If I had to guess I would say some time on Monday.

IT LOOKS THE SAME! WHATS DIFFERENT???
Only one small upgrade. There is now a Tools>Chart drop down menu item:



SECOND WARNING: THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION AND IMAGES CONTAIN SPOILERS. TURN AWAY IF YOU ARE MAKING YOUR OWN BREEDING CHARTS AND SEARCHING FOR THE MAGIC PLANTS YOURSELF!















SO WHAT'S THAT DO???
If you click it, you get this:


WHAT'S ALL THAT STUFF???

• The numbers are the prices you can charge for the plant once you have the needed magic plant.
• The red squares are the magic plants
• The green dots are the seeds you own.
• The yellow dots are the plants you can make (cross-breed) from the seeds that you own.

If you click any of the yellow dots on the grid (in this example I clicked the yellow dot on the Bluestar Gladiatus cell) you get some handy information about how to make that plant:



THAT LOOKS LIKE GIBBERISH! WHAT'S THAT MEAN, IN ENGLISH???
To breed a Bluestar Gladiatus, follow these steps:

• Crossbreed a Bluestar Reptans with a Jalapa Ball Cactus
• Take the plant that results and cross it with a Nox Orchid
• Take the plant that results and cross it with a Nox Orchid Again
• Voila, the plant that results should be a Bluestar Gladiatus

Questions, comments, suggestions, errors? Please leave replies in this thread!

Best Wishes,
-Borg

Sorry to hear about you loss Margi.

Borg, one thing that I never saw mentioned was - If you download another version of the utility, like the one that you are working on now, what happens to your seeds that you have in the other version? Do you have to transfer them back to your game, or can you keep them in the VST that you have and they will automatically go into the new version?

Borg, thanks for all your work on this.

I wondered the same thing as Funkiroller - what do we do about the seeds in the first version that we are using if we download Plus Version?

That is a good question.

Since this change did not affect the way the seed file was stored, I am 95% certain that it will work with your existing virtual seed tray storage files.

Just to be sure, save the old version of the program under a different name, backup all your plant tycoon save games and your virtual tray files, download the new version of the program, and see if it works.

If anyone does that, perhaps they could post their results here

I really am 95% sure that there will not be any problems with this version.

Also, as I mentioned in the non-spoiler version of this thread, there is now an even NEWER version of the program, in which I have added an option to NOT see the spoiler information such as which plants are the magic plants.

Cheers,
Borg

I have tested the new version with the previous version's VST and it works perfectly. Backing up the files first is never a bad idea, however, since we all know that computers love to defy us!

lol, The truth and nothing but the truth.

I backed up my files and had NO PROBLEM with this. Wow, this is neato!!! The only thing I hate is that you can't have it opened at the same time that Plant Tycoon is open. And I wish it said which plants you actually have bred. I have 301 plants, but I'm missing a bunch of seeds, which really doesn't matter, I guess. Unless I need to crossbreed. This is so much fun. I am definitely addicted!!!

Thanks again Borg!

You can have both programs open at the same time as long as you only want to look at your seed lists or the chart and you never, ever, ever save the data in the VST when the game is open. Was that enough of a warning?

I would like to see a sell all seeds button added for those of us who want to sell the extra seeds without placng them in the game 1 at a time...

Virtual Seed Tray News

the latest incarnation of the program now shows you what plants you have already bred in the game by marking them with a salmon colored ring or a salmon colored dot.

to see how many plants you have breed, you can go to the Stats Page in the game and look for "Species Discovered."

Cheers,
Borg

Oops, almost forgot, here is a screen shot. since this is the [spoiler] thread, here is the spoiler picture:



when you first download the program, it defaults to not showing you the spoiler information. the chart will look similar to the above but will be missing things like prices, magic plant identities, etc. if you wish to view the 'spoilers', go to the options drop down menu and uncheck the options that say hide spoilers/hide magic plant identities.

Loved the first version of the virtual seed tray. Can’t wait to try the newest version.

Rose

I can't find where to download the latest version that shows the plants you've already bred in the game. HELP!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Itz,

it will be posted later today. i'm very happy you like the improvement.

Cheers,
Borg

edit (Borg): It has just be made available, and can be downloaded from HERE. Enjoy!

Thank you very much for your kind words!

It's in the PT Guide:
VST "Plus Version"

This is fantastic, thank you so much Borg you're a life saver

Very happy you like it!

I registered mainly to say thank you for this wonderful emmm.... MOD/utility. It is the most useful thing in a game ever and I love the virtual seed and felt if I had found this sooner I didn't have to sell some seeds! I am hoping to see more of such utility, maybe a possibility of extra flower pots? That would mean modifying the game I suppose.

I hope in the next upgrade of this utility you would include pictures of the plants as well. I can't recognise the names and was hoping to see a small picture icon of the plants or the seeds next to the names. This would be especially useful if one has hundreds of seeds.

Thanks again!!

That VST is really marvellous!!
Before that, I spent a lot of time to choose which seeds I had to keep and which of them I had to trash. And, to make more money, I planted those I didn't want to keep, trashed their seeds and sold them. But sometime, it seemed that a cross-breeding were interesting and... Hop!... seeds more! It was no ending!!
Now I feel quiet!! Thanks Borg!

If you've got MS Excel Borg's Breeding Chart is very similar to the chart included with this utility, but also with pictures of each flower and foliage type.

Borg u r "off the chain"...as the young people say. I probably would say "out ta sight". I guess I can streamline my research facility now.

Thank you for registering I think everyone should come join us, we are a fun group!Thank you very much for the complement I am very happy you like it!There are now pictures of the flowers and foliages (under the options menu) and I did not reuse the anemic pictures from my excel project either; these are new pictures taken of robust plants (kudos to the fertilizer bomb!)

Click HERE to download the latest version of Virtual Seed Tray for Plant Tycoon (warning: The note this link takes you to has spoilers in it. To download the program without reading the spoilers, scroll down quickly to the bottom of the note while looking at your shoes. At the bottom of that page is the link to download the program. )

Thank you very much for the complement, LP7 of 7, I am glad you like it.

So that's what the young'uns are saying these days. It is good you told me; otherwise,if I heard it, I might think someone's dog got loose from the restraints.

Cheers,
Borg

Woot, everyone is advertising for my utilities

Thank you Arnie!! woohoo!

I am honored, thank you!Don't be too quiet now, someone has to keep us old people awake

Cheers,
Borg

Before VST I was no good in keeping my seeds, had too many. I have lost citrus and spotted ball cactus and reptans seeds, so now I have to wait to buy them again. But it's ok. I don't mind. Much.

Borg, thank you very very very much for VST!

I really like the newest VST with chart, pics and all. Borg, you more than live up to your "Brilliant Programmer" name!
Something else I would like to see is not only how many insects I caught, but how much $$ I made just on them. Also, I would like to see how much $ I made on just trashing seeds! One does get in quite a bit of $ I know, as it is important early in the game to create some funds for purchases before the money making plants are created. I still can't resist stopping whatever I am doing and grab the net to catch the bugs! I just am curious as to how much I made on bugs alone - that is more interesting to me than how many liters of water I poured out. Maybe a suggestion for Plant Tycoon II!! Surely someone somewhere is working on it!

Borg, i think you have to much time on your hands. lol. good job.

Love the new version Borg! And especially the soil and water feature!

I tried to download the file and i got an error message, the file attached is a screen shot of the error message, what am i doing wrong, the game was closed, backed up, and i downloaded from the linked pages then when i pressed run this is what i got, help

Wow, Borg, your VST will have more features than PT itself if you don't slow down! I love the pictures especially!

Do you have Microsoft .NET Framwork 2.0 installed? It's required in order to use VST. If you read over the post containing the VST, you'll see the link to download the .NET Framework (it's free).

well it was written that if you didnt want to see the spoilers then to scroll fast to the bottom, well maybe that should be changed then cause if we need to read it to see that we need another entirely different program to run the program then we need not scroll fast to avoid spoilers.
that message about scrolling is Here

The note about the required Microsoft Framework and the link are above all of the spoiler information in the Guides post that contains the VST program. You don't get to the "scroll down quickly" part until after the welcome and tutorial. Borg's posts in this forum about scrolling down quickly assume that you've already read the basic information about the VST.

Ok its running, now how do i save it to my desktop so i can get to it when i want to, ive been trying to see if i can save a icon for easy access but its all failing, once i shut down the vst the link becomes an empty icon. ive been having to come back to ldw and reopen the zip file to get to it, and although its still got all the information and seeds in it, which is good, thats a bit of a pain. ive even tried running a search for it (in my own computer files) and seeing if the links there open it up but they all go back to the original zip file that i have to run again. and that wont save as an icon

Follow these steps to put VST on your desktop:

1. Navigate to the folder where the VST zip file is located
2. Right click on the zip file
3. Click on Extract all...
4. Click Next on the Extraction Wizard
5. Click Browse
6. Click on Desktop
7. Click Next
8. Uncheck Show Extracted Files
9. Click Finish
10. Go to your desktop, and you'll see the VST program, which can now be run from your desktop

ok thank you it worked

I just downloaded the latest VST put out on 24th! Borg!, You are a mind reader as well as a 1st class programmer - a soil/water button!!!!!!!!!!!!! Who would have thought.........!

May all your plants bloom forever!

I love this. I so needed something like this. YOU ROCK!!!!
On another note can you please explain to me how to read the breeding tips again. I read the instructions and tried following it but I dont understand I guess. I cant get what I am trying to when I am trying to follow what your saying. Is there another break down?

woot! Glad you like it! But there's something even better coming soon for this.

Gladly!

Best thing to do is copy a breeding tip you are having trouble with to a reply in this thread and it will be fully explained.

Here is short explanation. Lets say that the breeding information for bouncingboy is as follows:

       [[batman] x [wonderwoman]] x [supergirl]

find all the innermost crossbreeds first. In this case we have:

       [[batman] x [wonderwoman]] x [supergirl]

so we do that crossbreed first and get lets say, greenlantern.

       [greenlantern] x [supergirl]

now we crossbreed these two and we get bouncingboy.

Copy one you are having trouble with to a reply in this thread and it will be fully explained.

Cheers,
Borg

I've found often the charts give me something like

Plant A x Plant A x Plant B

In that case, I need to do Plant A x Plant B, then that result x Plant A. Is this true in the VST also?

That's why I have the brackets, [ and ]. Things in the innermost brackets should be done first.

So you won't see:
Plant A x Plant B x Plant C

but you might see either:

1. [[Plant A] x [Plant B]] x [Plant C]

or

2. [Plant A] x [[Plant B] x [Plant C]]

in (1.) above you would do AxB first. in (2.) above you would do BxC first.

Good question, Jazzo!

Cheers,
-Steve

Oh OK, I totally get that now. I missed that before. Thanks, and I should have realised since we just finished order of operations in math class thanx.

Borg: Love, Love, Love the VST. However, it has been too long since Algebra. This one is kicking my tushy. Help!!??

[[[[fragrant ball cactus] x [[citrus maranta] x [[citrus maranta] x [fourpetal maple]]]] x [citrus maranta]] x [fragrant ball cactus]] x [[[[fragrant ball cactus] x [[citrus maranta] x [[citrus maranta] x [fourpetal maple]]]] x [citrus maranta]] x [[[[fragrant ball cactus] x [[citrus maranta] x [[citrus maranta] x [fourpetal maple]]]] x [citrus maranta]] x [citrus maranta]]]

Thanks for all your help.

PG

When it's like that, I leave!! That means there is a lot of cross breeding before to reach the plant I look for!!

Actually, this is not too hard. The first thing to notice is that [citrus maranta] x [fourpetal maple] is listed three times. So that is the first cross-breed (call it (A))

[[[[fragrant ball cactus] x [[citrus maranta] x [ (A) ]]] x [citrus maranta]] x [fragrant ball cactus]] x [[[[fragrant ball cactus] x [[citrus maranta] x [ (A) ]]] x [citrus maranta]] x [[[[fragrant ball cactus] x [[citrus maranta] x [ (A) ]]] x [citrus maranta]] x [citrus maranta]]]

Then [citrus maranta] x [ (A) ] is listed three times, so that is the second pair, call it (B)

[[[[fragrant ball cactus] x [ (B) ]] x [citrus maranta]] x [fragrant ball cactus]] x [[[[fragrant ball cactus] x [ (B) ]] x [citrus maranta]] x [[[[fragrant ball cactus] x [ (B) ]] x [citrus maranta]] x [citrus maranta]]]

Then [fragrant ball cactus] x [ (B) ] is listed three times, so that is the third, and call it (C)

[[[ (C) ] x [citrus maranta]] x [fragrant ball cactus]] x [[[ (C) ] x [citrus maranta]] x [[[ (C) ] x [citrus maranta]] x [citrus maranta]]]

The fourth cross-breed uses the Citrus Maranta again: [ (C) ] x [citrus maranta], call this one (D)

[[ (D) ] x [fragrant ball cactus]] x [[ (D) ] x [[ (D) ] x [citrus maranta]]]

You may need to grow more than one of (D) since it is now used twice:

[ (D) ] x [fragrant ball cactus] = (E)
[ (D) ] x [citrus maranta] = (F)

will then result in:
[ (E) ] x [[ (D) ] x [ (F) ]]

Cross-breed (D) and (F) to get you (G) and then (G) and (E) will give you the plant you are searching for!

Thanks for the info. I will give it a try. Let you know what happens.

Thanks,
PG

Go Socks!

No Algebra needed.

(sfrose's explanation is better than anything I could have written , so I thought instead I would mention how to recognize innermost crossbreeds.)

since the program keeps track of all your seeds, you actually don't have to break this down. what you do is find the innermost crossbreeds and do them, place their seeds in your seed tray so VST knows about them, and then go look at the chart again. You will know an innermost crossbreed because it looks like this:

[plant1] x [plant2]

Notice it has ] x [ in the middle. Not ] x [[ , not ]] x [[ , and not ]] x [ .

Back to our example:

[[[[fragrant ball cactus] x [[citrus maranta] x [[citrus maranta] x [fourpetal maple]]]] x [citrus maranta]] x [fragrant ball cactus]] x [[[[fragrant ball cactus] x [[citrus maranta] x [[citrus maranta] x [fourpetal maple]]]] x [citrus maranta]] x [[[[fragrant ball cactus] x [[citrus maranta] x [[citrus maranta] x [fourpetal maple]]]] x [citrus maranta]] x [citrus maranta]]]

The [citrus maranta] x fourpetal maple] is an innermost crossbreed 3 times up there. once you do that crossbreed and place whatever seed results from that in your seed tray, and go back to the chart, you will find that VST will replace that crossbreed with the name of the seed that resulted, giving you new innermost crossbreeds to do. after just a few cycles of doing the innermost crossbreeds, you will have the plant you want.

Cheers,
-Borg

thanks so much I think i got it. I understand that you didnt want to have any spoilers on the chart. I personally would find if i had the show spoilers checked that I wish it would be breed plant x with plant z instead but I understand why that is not on there. Its good to have to think and use skills we forgot we had.
thanks again for all the hard work and effort you have put into this.
YOU ROCK

I finally understand and I also see that when i have the seed of the plant [[[[[A]x[[[[B]]]= x that it just says [A]x[X]
thanks

I just want to thank you for this really great tool. I got a username just because I think you should know how much better your tools make the game. Thanks so much for all the hard work. You are awesome!

Will you marry me?

Cheers,
-Borg

Well, I'll have to check with my husband and get back to you on that.

LoL!

I have a quick question. I downloaded the virtual seed tray and I can access it when I go to the link on here and click the 'open' button. But I can't seem to find it on my computer. Where is it usually located?

If you're using the "open" option, it will be in a temp directory on your computer. A better way to do it is to use the "save" option, which will download the zip file to a location of your choosing. Then you can unzip it and store it on your desktop or even right in the Plant Tycoon folder that contains your savegames (so that it's easy to find).

This post tells has step-by-step instructions for putting it on your desktop.

BORG/ Lady CFII

HELP! I messed up.

I run three games at once and I lost my favorite...

yup, I ran VST with my game running. In addition to losing the game #1 data, it seems to have confused Constant Gardener as well. When I restarted PT my #1 Game was gone AND Constant Gardener said it needed to find my pots.

Is the first game really irretrievably gone? If so, I guess it's good that my #2 game is pretty comparable, except #1 had a few more bugs.

I was getting overly excited as Tier 4 plants were showing up, and I got careless.

Another word of warning ... slow down. If I were only playing one game and lost it all, I'd be really bummed.

pictishgirl

If you haven't launched Plant Tycoon again once you discovered the problem, you should be able to use the procedure at the bottom of this post to recover the backup file that the game automatically creates for you. Unfortunately, many people react in disbelief when they see that their game is gone, and launch Plant Tycoon repeatedly to try to figure out what happened. That's the *worst* thing you can do when you discover a problem with any software, since it usually destroys valuable files in the process.

Use computer search for VirtualSeedTray.exe --- when you find it, move it to your desktop, or to a file folder with Plant Tycoon info in it near your game.

I love this new VST, thanks, but I sure would like to be able to print out the chart, before I have any seeds, so I can keep up with what to cross with what.

I'd also like to see a "sell" button in the VST. One that you could check the ones you want to sell, then click the "sell" button and they'd all be sold. It sure would be a lot easier than having to send them all over to the game, then sell them one at a time from the seed trays there.

I downloaded the VT but it is not showing any of my seeds. Is there something I am doing wrong. I have all the seeds listed on the right side but none listed on the left side. How do I get my seeds into the tray? Please help!!

On the right there are the seeds that are in seed tray of your game. When you want to save some seeds, select them, click on the 3 arrows in the middle (<<<) and the seeds will go to the left side. They disapear from the game and are on the "virtual tray"!
Then "save change" and QUIT the VST before going to your game. If you want to have some seeds in your game, quit the game before going to the VST and you may chose some seeds of the left part and put it to the right part (>>>).
(ps: the seeds that are in the tray of the main screen can't be seen in the VST)

Thank you...Thank you you have been a great help!

Your welcome!
Don't forget: never open the VST and the game in the same time! (and save your changes each time)

If you trash a seed and you get a question mark does that mean you trashed a seed that you really needed.?

No.

1. Plant Tycoon does not know what seeds you need (and VST does not let you trash any seeds).
2. The question marks in Plant Tycoon just mean you do not know the parent plants of the seed you have your cursor on.

Thanks Borg Got 327 and all 6 magics Now trying to make a million
while I find all the species.

Thank you Borg for this lovely mod. It's definitely a time saver and much needed tool (especially when you need to keep seeds and you don't have a ton of space in your boxes).

Little question: is there any way of moving seeds from one game's virtual seed tray to another? Like you're playing two or three games at the same time and you've accidentally deleted all your Citrus Ball Cactus seeds in game one but you've still got a couple available in game two. Can you move one of the seeds from game two to game one or do you have to wait until the Citrus Ball Cactus seeds becomes available in the Supplies area of game one again?

No, the VST was designed to prevent seed tray sharing, since it could easily be used by people to cheat. Unfortunately, in our world today, there is a lot of that sort of thing, and it causes real problems for our online stats feature.

Kinda had a feeling that would be the answer, but thought I'd check just in case.

I would love to have the VST. Might actually start playing that game again. Do you suppose we'll ever see a Mac version? I can't open a ".exe" file.

The last time I programmed an Apple computer was when I was in college - we used Apple ][e computers. At least I think they were Apple IIe computers - in any event that was before PCs even existed. Methuselah and I were good friends.

I feel your pain. If I had access to one I would look into figuring out how to port the code to it. VST was written in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Express Visual C#. It is kind of quirky and requires the user to have .NET 2.0 installed on their computer, but the price was right.

for any budding programmers out there, MS Visual Studios 2005 Express Edition is available to everyone for free download. That includes C#, C++, Basic, and a few other programming languages. Even a language for writing games for the XBox.

Totally with u Cattales, being a mac user myself. I've been waiting for the Mac VST since it came out but I understand if u don't have access to a mac. I'd be happy to beta test if u make one.

HELP!!!!!! i LOST ALL MY MONEY AND SEEDS- MY WHOLE GAME i DOWNLOADED VIRTUAL SEED TRAY AND WHEN i WENT TO START MY GAME BACK UP EVERYTHING WAS GONE i THOUGHT i HAD EXITED PLANT TYCOON

This is the first I've heard that someone lost money/entire save game. Saving something in VST with PT open will zap all the seeds in the VST but VST does not delete your save game.

I'm not sure what the heck happened. One suggestion is to look in your save game folder for the backup of your save game and rename it to the save game.

Another suggestion is to make regular backups of your save games.

LadyCFII, have you had any reports of people using VST losing their entire game? any thoughts?

Whether it was VST that caused you to lose your game or not, I am very sorry you lost your game. If I could replace it for you, I would.

I haven't heard of anything like that from using VST. The usual cause of people losing an entire game (I assume that what happened is that the game started with a "blank" savegame slot) is some sort of crash or power off while the game was running. In that case, the backup savegame should be intact and the game should be recoverable by following the instructions in the "Note" section of this post in the Guides Section.

The folders are there but I cant open them or if I do there are just fragments

Its probably not VST just something dumb I did while trying to backup files before I did it. Am going to try again with new game

Ah - perhaps what happened was instead of backing up the files, you accidently moved some of them.

Write down the names of all the files on a piece of paper next time before you back them up. After you back them up, compare your list of files on the piece of paper you wrote to the files that are in the save game folder, and make sure they are all still there.

Perhaps we can help you figure out what went wrong with the backup you did so it does not happen again - describe in detail everything you did when you backed up the folder (what folder were you in, what keys did you press, what did you click on, etc)?

My Documents> LDW> Plant Tycoon> Then I tried to copy files Both Folders are there But they all have 1/21 date on logs and no old game files. When I went back to Plant Tycoon there was a whole new game like starting over. Strange In hind sight I think I should have went down to slot 2 and started new game there. Now Im afraid I have gone too far in this game to start over So new game is in slot 1. Im not that computer savvy so I must have [censored] up somehow. So far I have 2 magic plants and I know more then when I started so my stats will be better thi time around. Still love the game so all is well. Thank you for your help.

Think back - what windows or applications were on your screen, what keys did you press, what did you click on or what did you drag?

For me the easiest thing to do would be in windows explorer, in the MyDocuments\LDW folder, I would click once on the Plant Tycoon folder, then type Control-C (copies it), then type Control-V (pastes it) which would create a new folder called Copy of Plant Tycoon. Every few days I would do this again. Future copies would be named by the computer "Copy (2) of Plant Tycoon" and "Copy (3) of Plant Tycoon" etc.

If something went wrong with game 3, I could find Plant Tycoon3.ldw in one of the backup folders, click on it once, press control-C to copy it, then go to the real Plant Tycoon folder, click on Plant Tycoon3.ldw once, then click on the name once so it is highlighted, change its name to Plant Tycoon3OLD.ldw, press enter or click in the white area to make the change permanent, then click control-V to copy the backup version to this folder, and that should do it.

thanks ,borg again for your great programs, but i finished the game once {all 529 & all bugs} and i'm 7 plants away from completing game 2. when i told all that i got all 529, everyone asked me if i used vst, which i did not. i got many relpies, saying they did not think we could get all plants without vst. yes you can!

Borg I think my problem is they may still be there but I can not open them for some reason. It asks what program do you want to use to open these files? and no matter what I use they will not open. They must have gotten corrupted when I copied them. Maybe I even got a virus?? Its a mystery but at least now Im up to 3 magics in the new game. I have a feeling I did not close PT when I downloaded VST and that started the problem. User error. LOL
Thanks for all your help and ideas. I keep trying to go back and open the files but they just wont open. Im afraid I should have just let well enough alone without tring to change the game. I had all 6 magics, all the bugs, and half a million dollars. Oh well I will get a million this time around and all the plants

I don't think you have to worry about a virus or anything like that being the cause of the problem, and it's too bad that you lost all that hard work.

Just a word of caution for the future, though: you should never try to open any of the files that have the .ldw extension. The only program that knows what to do with them is our game. Windows will not know what to do with them, and if you attempt to do more than just back them up or copy them, they may become corrupted and unusable. Borg's suggestion above is a very safe way to back them up, as is following the procedures here in the Guides Section.

If Plant Tycoon wanted you to be able to open .ldw files directly, when the program installed itself it would have registered the .ldw suffix with windows so that windows would know what program to use to open them.

So that is why you get the message about "what program do you want to use to open it with". You could of course open the list of programs and browse to programfiles\planttycoon and use plant tycoon.exe to open the file. However, that won't really work. All that will do is start plant tycoon. Plant tycoon won't play the file you selected, it will play the last game you played in plant tycoon, as it always does. And manually registering .ldw files with windows as "Plant Tycoon" files is not a good idea anyway, as the .ldw suffix is used for other ldw games, not just plant tycoon.

Knowledge is a good thing so I will close with some of that. Here is a run down of the save game file names in your Plant Tycoon save game folder:
Plant Tycoon0.ldw - this is not a game but rather think of it as a table of contents of sorts that lists information about your plant tycoon games. information such as name of game and which game you are currently playing, etc.
Plant Tycoon1.ldw - this is the plant tycoon game you have in game slot 1.
Plant Tycoon2.ldw - this is the plant tycoon game you have in game slot 2.
Plant Tycoon3.ldw - this is the plant tycoon game you have in game slot 3.
Plant Tycoon4.ldw - this is the plant tycoon game you have in game slot 4.
etc.
There is also a log file which is a text based file that you can open in wordpad or whatever your favorite word processor is. Read it one day if you are bored.

Have a really nice day,
-Borg

I now have 4 magic plants and a fountain so I am happy. Im getting the magics a lot faster this go round.

Now have 5 And another game going just in case

All six yay Only took me 9 days this go On the way to being a millionaire. Last magic was the nox so now I can make some real money. Funny, in the second game I got the nox first and was going broke trying to get it in the first so I deleted the second game and finally got it today.

Bravo!! Congratulations!!

Borg, thank you thank you thank you! You are such a genius!!!! I was complaining to my hubby that I needed more space for seeds, downloaded VST and I LOVE IT!!!! I can play around with the breeding so much easier now! Again, thank you.

i am very glad you like it.

a few people have lost seeds in VST, so read and understand the warnings.

basically, just don't press the save button in VST if PT is on your desktop.

if you are only using VST for seed storage, it is just best not to have the two programs open at the same time, and you won't get into any trouble.

if you are using VST for the seed chart and find it helpful to keep VST running when PT is running, remember not to move seeds or press the save button. if you decide you need to move seeds, close both PT and VST, then re-open just VST and move the seeds you need to move.

if the arthritis gets better, the next incremental improvement would be a check to protect the user from doing things that would lead to loss of seeds.

Thank you for that reminder Borg!!
Also would like to remind folks that they should not open ANY LDW game if VST is open - they might corrupt the files and cause their games to be "lost" - yes I know I should not have done it but I did and "lost" my original VV2 games
It was not Borg's fault but my own - I did not heed the warnigns enough!!!!
Lesson learnt - just thought I would pass on to others.
VST is a great utility if used correctly (as in Borg's insructions)

odd. VST should be very safe with VV1, VV2, and FT.

Made my first million woo hoo Im so excited.

Borg and Barbara. I know what happened to my original game. I did not close Plant Tycoon. I only minimized it. Im sure this is what must have happened.

Borg, I love Virtual Seed Tray and Constant Gardener, however I did have an issue with VST. I'm running Vista on my PC. I downloaded both VST & CG, moved them to my desktop and was using both with no problems. However, the next day, when I tried to power up my PC, I was unable to log in to Vista - it said that my User Profile did not exist. I was able to get that back by restoring to my last save point. But, when I logged in, I no longer had the VST application file, just the zip folder I'd originally downloaded it in (CG was not affected, neither was my Plant Tycoon game). Any ideas what could cause this problem or what I can do about it? Has anyone else had this happen? I have not tried downloading VST again, because I was afraid of having the same issue. It was kind of heartbreaking the first time to lose all my stored seeds (although, fortunately, I'd only stored my extras there and still had 1 of everything in my game).

cdbga -

to my knowledge there is nothing in either of those programs that would do that, and lots of other vista users have not reported it.

maybe do a thorough virus and spyware check and if everything looks ok, try it again and let us know if it happens again. maybe try the programs one at a time for a week just in case one of them is causing it so we can figure out which one it is.

thanks for the report, sorry things are screwy,
-borg

Thank you Borg! Knowing I shouldn't get that error made me feel more comfortable trying it again. I tried it on a back-up user profile - installed plant tycoon there and started a test game. Had no problems at all. Was able to use VST, shut down the computer, restarted and my user profile was still there with all my info. So, I went back to my normal user profile and installed VST again. When I opened it to store some seeds, I found the most wonderful thing - all the seeds I had saved in it last time are showing up as being there! So, I haven't lost anything at all. Anyhoo, I moved some more seeds over, saved them, shut the PC down, restarted it and was able to log in to my User Profile with no issues! I've been using Constant Gardener the whole time, so I know everything is okay with that.

Believe me, I was totally blaming Vista for this - not your wonderful programs. There are a lot of things that Vista doesn't run properly and I was afraid this was going to be another one. I'm so glad it isn't. Don't know what made things [censored], but at least if it happens again, I'll know what to do and will know nothing is really lost! Well, I'm off to cross-breed some plants now. Thanks, for your help!

I just downloaded the virtual seed tray. It looks great, but I seem to have a difficulty in finding the icon for opening it. I have already opened it once using my winzip, but how do I open it each time? Do I have to use winzip each time or did the program install someplace?

Thank you.
God Bless.

Hey, Borg, is there any chance of adding an Seed Image Chart like the ones you have for Flowers and Foliage? I've also thought I'd like to see some other cool tie-ins. See if you like them:

1. Printable seed progress chart. I'm constantly checking it to see what else needs to be "discovered," and I even made crude graph paper with a wordprocessing program. But then I have to enter all the updates by hand. Being able to print out your chart every day or two would be very helpful.

2. Image charts in .pdf or some other stand-alone format. That way, I can keep them open for reference, without the risk of losing data because I forgot to close and reopen VST before moving seeds.

3. Ability to sort seed lists alphabetically by foliage rather than flowers. I know it would add a lot to the program, but it would be easier to find foliage groups, since the breed chart order isn't anywhere near the sequence of my discoveries (and purchases).

VST is a huge benefit! I'll bet I have more than 500 seeds stored already! How on earth did folks manage with only 120 spaces in the original game?

I hope you'll be able to work out a way to keep both PT and VST open at the same time. My PC's RAM gets bogged down from opening and closing the two so often - maybe some leaky memory coding somewhere. That's all too common these days, IMHO. Nevertheless, the game is worth frequent reboots. I can't wait to fill the whole discovery chart - about halfway there now.

Oh yeah, is there any way to tell which version of VST I'm running? I downloaded two versions and can't remember which one I installed. Thanks!

oh hi again borg.. hhh.. it's been frustrating.. i dunno what went wrong but it seems that constant gardener and virtual seed tray did not work on my pc... both of them show the same error message.. I attached the image of the error mesage.. could u tell me why?? i really want to use this application coz i think it was so useful to me..
my pc spec are.. (as it shows on system properties)
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Version 2002 SP2
Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.66 GHz
982 MB of Ram
Please,,, Please,.. reply this.. Thanks again...

i think that is an easy one to fix.

most computers come with .NET framework pre-installed these days. your computer (like mine) is a little old.

go back to the guide write up on the programs and look for the link to microsoft to download .NET and you should be all set.

i wrote the utilities in microsoft visual studio c# and anything anyone writes in visual studio relies on .NET to work.

if you can't find the link in the guide section write up on VST and/or CG, google "microsoft .NET 2.0 download" and you should be able to find it that way.

cheers,
-borg

I have a few things to ask and suggest. My first question is what is the button for soil/water for on the bottom of the tray? I thought this was just for the seeds. *confused*

Also, the prices that are listed don't seem to be adding up to what I am doing. Granted, I have both the Golden Berries of Worth and have upgraded my entire nursery, but I am selling my Arthurium Scandens for $170, not $119 and they are going fast. I have slowly been increasing all my prices since I got the magic plant and have been focusing on filling my nursery on the way. I have several plants that go for over $140 and only a couple of the plants on my chart even say that I should be selling anything for over $100. So, my question is what exactly do these prices on the chart reflect?

As for the suggestion, it would be nice to have a simple help button. That would make the basic instructions on using this program much simpler. It would not have to do much, just explain what the individual buttons are for and the basics of running the program.

Thank you.
God Bless.

good suggestions. if there is ever an updated version i will be sure to include them

I looked through everything again and felt like and idiot. All my questions were already answered, I just never noticed. (sigh)

This is a question that I have doubled checked and cannot find the answer. I know that I have to have my plant tycoon closed before I open up the virtual seed tray. But, do I have to have it paused as well? I have been pausing just in case. I wanted to know if I had to keep doing that or if it was not an issue.

Thank you.
God Bless.

I have the same question about the Soil/Water button. Nothing seems to happen when it's clicked. What's it supposed to do?

Also, what screen resolution is necessary to see the whole breed chart? My list ends with Lilia, so I don't see Baccatus or Tilia.

Thanks for answering.

I have noticed that my virtual seed tray keeps on blinking. Every few seconds it will blink. Any ideas?

Also, I reread the area that explained what the colors were, but I have at least one plant that is not matching up. One of the yellow spots has a red circle around it and it says that I have already found it. I though the yellows were the ones that I can get but have not found yet. I know that it is not one of the plants that I am currently growing. Could you please explain this to me?

Thank you.
God Bless.

Rahhh.... I would love virtual seed tray for Mac!!!!!!!

Hi... from the past 5 days very bad thing is happening wid me...

whenever i save the seeds in the VST and then turn off my computer.

The next day, when i start it up, all my seeds are gone and this time even backup is not working...

kindly reply soon if u have any idea...

Well, i have realized that it wasn't because of shutdown...

it will happen when i'll move any seed from the game to the VST and save it...

naomi_joy

I think this happens when you have bred the seed and then sold/planted them. It turns back to yellow because you do not have the seed in inventory but you keep the red ring because you have bred it before. If the seed in question is in the little tray at the top left of the screen, I don't think VST can "see" it and so it would be the same as if it was not in inventory according to VST. Borg can correct me if I am wrong, but I think that is what you have going on.

Hello. First off I would like to say that the VST is a big help in playing Plant Tycoon and thanks for writing it. I am however having a slight problem with the chart display.

Here is a link to an screenshot of what I get when I open the VST chart:

http://img7.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=40596_VST_image_122_632lo.jpg

Click the image to enlarge it. The problem is that I can not view the bottom two flower types so I can not get the equation for making them. If you look at the top of the image you can see that I have moved the chart as far up my screen as I can.

Is there a way to disable the bar at the bottom of the chart and still be able to use the equation function?

Will getting rid of the start bar on my computer let me view the last two flower types? If so how do I get rid of it?

Thanks in advance for any solutions you can give me.

I am not a computer geek (wish I was though) but the first thing I would be looking at is whether or not my computer resolution was set high enough. I know that on my old computer I had to "fix" my properties every time I played a game with a lower dpi than I had set. On my computer I can see everything on the VST chart and it doesn't take most of my screen like yours seems to.

That's my best guess

Thanks.

Yes, changing the resolution does make it fit in my screen. I had it set at 800 X 600. To get it to fit I had to change it to 1024 X 768 or higher. Maybe someone could put this info in the VST tutorial?

Also, maybe add a way to disable the info bar at the bottom of the chart to the VST so that people don't have to keep switching back and forth on the resolution settings?

I have a question for Borg:

When you first did the seed tray-It was in excel-yep I downloaded the first one.

By colouring the cells I figured out what species I had etc. If I get this one can I import my plants that I have into it?

Thanks

Barb

Hey Borg....

i've reinstalled PT and deleted all related files... for two hours the VST worked fine... but just now when i opened the VST all my seeds are lost once again...

plz help me...

Borg is the only one who can possibly assist with VST issues. LDW didn't develop the utility, and we do not support it. If it works, great! If not, you can always play Plant Tycoon without it.

Why do you keep deleting my posts? It says right at the bottom of this thread: http://www.ldwforums.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/104281/page/1

"Questions, comments, suggestions, errors? Please leave replies in this thread!", then links to here.

Didn't realize that it only meant comments that stroke your little egos.

What you can't handle that someone doesn't appreciate having thousands of seeds deleted?


As I said before the VST is garbage.

The VST totally ruined Plant Tycoon for me.

You are certainly free to leave comments (or complaints) here that don't violate the forum rules. Your other posts violated the rules, so they were moved to an admin area for review.

If this utility deleted seeds from your Plant Tycoon game (and not just from the Virtual Seed Tray), or if it corrupted your game files so that you lost all game progress, we would very much like to know about that. We do not want to provide access to mods or utilities that damage the game files.

Although we have a warning in our other game mod threads, the warnings in the VST posts are not as easy to find. I will make the VST posts consistent with the other game mod threads and add the following warning, so that it's clear "up front" to anyone considering the use of VST:

I am also losing seeds in VST, someone in another thread said it happens when you update your stats. I was going to see if that was true for me but I haven't been able to update since yesterday. (can't connect to server)
Something strange I noticed when I was saving a game file was that I have 6 games in the game slots, I only have 3 games going.
There is PT1, 2 and 3 then 21, 22 and 23 which look like copies of the 123 games. The dates and times are the same. Should I delete the duplicates or leave them alone?
Thanks

The "duplicates" are the backup savegame files that can be useful if you ever need to recover a game.

I don't think comments are limited to ego strokes but they don't have to be ego busters either.

It's a game and someone was trying to help. Stop being so fragile. There may be a way to fix it.

Honestly, there's no need for a rant.

Just to let everyone know I haven't lost any seeds using the VST since I stopped updating the internet stats. Your stats are still updated as you progress and really the ranking doesn't mean a lot when there are people who use the spoiler info.

Great game and the VST is the icing on the cake!

NEW (BETA) VERSION

i think you might be on to something, legs3246.

HERE is a new version of VST that should be immune to that strange updating-the-stats bug.

this version will work with the files made from the previous version of VST.

in addition, if you lost seeds in the past, and have a backup copy of the .vst file, or if you did not use VST to save new seeds since losing seeds, this version has a good chance of being able to recover those seeds.

although the change in the program was minor, this is still a new version. so consider this a beta-test version, and consider yourself a beta-tester for the first few weeks.

while i don't expect anyone to have any problems, if anyone does lose any seeds with this new version, please leave a note here. also, if you try out the program and don't have any problems, leave a note to that effect. If a few people report no problems over the next few weeks we can consider this bug squashed.

thank you.

sincerely,
-borg

ps: heartfelt sympathies to senator kennedy, his friends, and family.

Thx a looooooooooootttttttt.....

Borg roxxxxxxxxxzzzzzzz....

In the past 20 minz i tried for sum 3-4 times & it worked fine... thx... gud job...

Borg, I was wondering if u can program the VST so that it can transfer seeds from one file to another...
because when i had lost all my seeds, i started a new game and now i want to move all that seeds to my previous game...

originally there was a PT leaderboard. at that time, ladycfii and i were very cautious in making decisions as to what VST could do. we did discuss the topic of seed transferring.

transferring seeds between files perhaps could have been mis-used to propel someone to the top of the leaderboard, and therefore might have been viewed as cheating.

so now, i am curious - since there is no PT leaderboard, does anyone have any strong opinions about this?

does the virtual seed box have a mac version?

No, there's no Mac version. Borg does his programming on a PC and doesn't have access to a Mac.

Borg, i just now noticed that the new version of VST is not detecting the species discovered...

it will show that seed is available but it wont show that it has been discovered...

Do u have any clue...

Here are the snapshots....

thanks for the report, M.Asad

try this: close plant tycoon completely, then run VST, in order to see the latest happenings in your PT game. This is because PT saves the game approximately every ten minutes or when you close PT.

having said that, when i was writing VST, i found the problem you are discussing. i started a new game and wrote on paper all the new species i discovered and when VST finally said i did not discover a plant that that i knew i had discovered, i checked the total number of species discovered in the plant tycoon stats and found that number to be lacking by one. plant tycoon for some reason did not yet count that species yet. i believe eventually plant tycoon did mark off that i had discovered the species, and when that happened VST also reported it as having been discovered. since VST only reports the species that PT flags as being discovered, even if you have the plant growing right there on the main page, VST will report it has never been discovered.

thank you for testing the beta version! anything to report, good or bad, regarding seed loss?

Borg, i did this a lot of time before even posting over here...

Anyways thank you very much & VST is working fine till now !

Borg, i dont know if its the problem with the VST or mine...

The VST is not showing how to breed the new species...

I've attached the VST snapshot, kindly have a look and tell ...

& any updates on the transfer option...

that is a very strange problem which i can't seem to reproduce on my computer. *sigh*

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo !!



Borg, dont say like dis... i'm addicted 2 this game... what i'll do without it...

Try 2 help... plz plz plz !

Borg, do 1 thing, give me the breeding information of any Tilia flower & i'll try 2 breed it and then it may show in the VST...

What display resolution is your computer set for? I remember some earlier issues when information wasn't displaying for people, and it was usually corrected by changing the display to a higher resolution.

Well, my resoultion is 1280 x 960

I think its good enough !

maybe ladycfii is on to something. can you change the resolution and see if that does anything?

when i wrote the program i created the chart to look nice on a standard (not widescreen) monitor, at a resolution of 1152 x 864.

Borg and LadyCFII, i'm very sorry to say but i think you guys havent look at the picture with attention.

Here resoultion is not an issue, the problem is something else.

See i'm not getting the breeding info of the following:

> Arthurium Retans

> Venus reptans

> Tahitian reptans

> Lilia reptans & lilia scandens

> Baccatus repants, baccatus scandens, and baccatus grass

And

> Tilia (all of it)


Borg, i also lowered the resoultion till 800 x 600 but in vain...

Anyways thanks for the suggestion...

Borg, just to inform you, i had a Tilia Rare oak in my other game so i just transferred it to this game and now i can breed all the Tilias....

yeepeee !!

Borg

I updated to the new version a week or so ago and just started a new game in slot 2. The first time I opened the VST on the new game there were a whole lotta seeds in the VST and the chart showed that I have or have discovered many more than the first 15 plants. I haven't had a game in slot 2 since April. I have tried both deleting and restarting the game in slot 2 but VST doesn't change.

Well, if you want to remove all the seeds listed in the VST, then u have to delete the VST file.

Follow these steps to delete the file:

>> Goto My documents

>> There should be a folder called LDW, open it, then open the plant tycoon folder

>> then delete the VSTray2*

* This will delete all the seeds u have in ur game2

Now open the VST, you should have no seeds for the second slot.

& i hope u'll do it correctly!

thank you. I did not delete those profiles when I uninstalled the previous version. Borg's new version must have "recovered" the seeds from the game I deleted in April.

Yes u r right & u r welcum...

i wanna say thanks borg.. that does solve my problem.. thx a bunch..

Try adding a auto save!!! lol.. loosing a cubbord of seeds is not fun!!! lol also maybe set up the chart to be able to left open so we can look without havein to keep save the book.

The VST is wonderful. Thanks Borg. I joined the forums specifically to thank you, I can now hold onto all the seeds I want.

Thank you very much.

Thks Borg, your VST is working fine for me. Just the thing I needed, and no seeds lost yet.

Is there another update to this mod? I ran the one listed above and nothing changed. My seed tray is empty - the only seeds in showing are the ones I had in game.
It worked fine before, in fact I had 300 seeds in there I would like to get back to finding more. Please advise.

Becky

Hi Please someone give him a Mac

Hi, I need some help with this utility.

When I started using the Virtual Seed Tray, the game game stopped indicating when I discovered new species -- and in the utility's breed-
ing chart, when I mouse over a seed, ... it says Not Discovered and/
or Not Bred, ... even if I have discovered and/or bred that plant.

Is this normal behavior?

That is very odd.

I think the PT save file format can be slightly different depending on which vendor PT was purchased from (each has a different protection scheme).

VST just reads the part of the save file where that information (new species discovered/bred) is normally found if the game was bought from LDW or other vendors that do not change where things are saved in the save file.

I don't have a good fix for this - to fix it I think I would have to purchase the game from every single vendor, and tell the program where to find the information for each vendor.

Thank you very much for reporting the problem. Where did you buy PT from?

Also, anyone else out there have this problem?

Regards,
Borg

This is the Big Fish Games download. BTW, I tried an uninstall/reinstall,
but it didn't help. Neither did getting rid of the seed file, in case of cor-
ruption.

Also, this is without using anything but the Breeding Chart at this time,
and having started a fresh game. Oo

Strangely enough, I can get the game itself to recognize new species.
But only in I use the Mutation Liquid.

I just don't understand any of this.

I am new to this game, so please forgive me if I have overlooked the answer to this question, but the Virtual Seed Tray, does it work with a MAC?

No, Krissykay8. No the program doesn't work with the Mactonish operating system.

Hello everyone! Im a newbie.. where do i find the link for the virtual seed tray?

We keep all of the guides and utilities in our Guides Section. The VST is here.

LadyCFII, thank you

Borg, I've read through all SIXTEEN pages, and can't find this problem addressed. I have a Lenova T61 laptop, with a screen resolution of 1400 x1050 - this sets up a regular screen on the wide-screen laptop. The problem I've having is with the chart - the chart does not fill the window, and when I mouse over a particular square, it displays information for the plant one row down and about four columns over. I've tried fiddling with the screen resolution, but it doesn't help. I'm still able to use the chart by simply watching the information bar at the bottom to find the breeding info, so this is an annoyance, rather than a problem. Has this happened to anyone else?

BTW, love this add-on. It really adds to my enjoyment of the game - by taking away some of the tedious(in my opinion) charting and such. Good job!

Sorry for the long post, was trying to give as much information about the problem as possible.

Kathryn

can you try 1152 x 864 and let me know what happens?

thank you!
-resistance is the ratio of voltage to current futile!

I can't get 1152x864 on my screen. I did try every setting between 1012x768 and 1280x720. I don't think it's the resolution, as the center of the chart would be correct (I think) and the right side would be off on the right. What I have is all rows display one below - click on spotted and it shows painted, and all columns to the left by five - click on reptan, shows gladiatus, click on glaber, shows ridgeball.

I tried deleting the executable, deleting the .vst (after copying!) and restarting, dropping the .exe on the desktop, running from a shortcut, and several variations of swear words.

I think this laptop is possessed I bought it used in January, and it's been in the shop twice already - grr...

Like I said, the chart is usable, this is just an annoyance.

BTW, what kind of programming do you do (other than this wonderful bit). I'm an "old school," as I learned COBOL, Basic, and Fortran. My first programs used the punch cards. blech...

i learned basic and fortran on a teletype (think typewriter with no monitor and punched yellow paper tape for storage) when i was in high school. i used punch cards for programs in college. sigh. i am ancient.

-Borg,
older than dirt

Yep, we had a teletype that connected to Portland State U. in high school. We use to fight over who got the long stream of paper, and I never did find out who dumped all those tiny punch outs in my purse...

Sounds like we are close to the same age

I've read all the thread, but I haven't seen something addressed... I could download and try, but I rather ask: How do you go about putting your seeds back into your game?

There is a detailed set of instructions here in the Plant Tycoon Guide.

Thank you! I guess I will need to re-read that (when my son is not trying to talk to me to stall from doing homework)to see if I can understand it better.

Maybe someone could help me with my problem, I cant get the virtual seed tray to download. When I try it says I am not authorized to download. Not a pop up from my computer but on the actual web page. Hope that makes sense. I recently purchased a new computer and had the game and seed tray on the former pc but I deleted everything from that pc. Need help fast,I am totally out of room in game and dont want to lose any seeds. Thanks!!

There are several different links in various posts in the forums, so it would be helpful to know which link you're trying to use.

Have you tried the download in the Guides Section?

I was trying from another site that I had book marked but your link to the guides section worked. THANK YOU!!! Couldnt continue with game because I didnt want to lose seeds.

when I open it an error window appears and says:
The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135) click on ok to terminate the application

Do you have Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 installed? That's required to run the application. You will find a link to it in the post I mentioned above (look just under the first picture for details).

The application failed to initialize properly (0xc000007b) click on ok to terminate the application

i have microsoft .NET framework 2.o

Unfortunately, you will need to get an answer from Borg, the utility's creator. I'll sometimes pop in and provide some quick answers, but LDW doesn't support VST (or any other mod or utility created for our games). We simply can't support modifications that we didn't create.

NET version detector
Just to be sure you have 2.0, the above link is to a program that will tell you all the version(s) of .net you have on your computer. I've seen errors like this when 2.0 is not present.

i downloaded the microsoft .NET from the first page from this thread and i opened it it showed me that i allready have Microsoft .NET framework 2.0 installed in my computer.....

I can't seem to get the VST to work on my PC, everytime I try it all I get is Notebook and a bunch of symbols. Am I doing something wrong, or is it because I have Windows Vista? Please Help!!!

CD, how did you get the VST to load right on your Vista, I have tried a few times but I just get letters and symbols on Notepad? Please Help

Eve52

perhaps you are trying to open the zip or exe file with notepad? when opening any exe file in notepad you would get pages of odd symbols.

see if you can find an option to "save file" when downloading it. then, after it is downloaded, double click on the zip file to open it. in the zip file should be something called VirtualSeedTray.exe which you can just drag to your desktop. once on your desktop, just double click it and it should run, unless you also need .net 2.0

it sounds more complex than it is. try it. if you have trouble, post another note here.

also, i am not sure, but maybe you need to run it with admin priveledges? anyone with vista out there know if that is a requirement for vst?

Borg, I tried that and it still does the same thing, but this time it did not give me the vst.zip, now what? I want that seed tray. LOL

can you take some screen shots of the steps you are taking? are you downloading it from the guide section post:
http://www.ldwforums.com/ubbthreads/ubbt...eed_#Post104281
maybe with some screen shots we can figure this out.

Step 1: Click the blue download link and choose to "Save File":


Step 2: Make note of the folder it is being downloaded into, in this case, "My Downloads":


Step 3: Open the folder that it was downloaded into:


Step 4: Double click the zip file to open it and you will find VirtualSeedTray.exe. Also here I've opened my LDW save game folder so I can copy the file there:


Step 5: Here I've dragged the file from the zip folder to the Save game folder.


Step 6: here i right-clicked on VirtualSeedTray.exe in the save game folder to create a desktop shortcut to it.


Now, from the desktop, I can click the "Shortcut to VirtualSeedTray.exe" icon to run it.

The only other step involved would be to add .Net 2.0 (free from microsoft) if your computer does not have that. There is a link to it in the guide section post about VST.

Not sure the last one went through so here goes again. Yes I was trying to download it from the guide section post. I don't know how to do the screen shots, but will try if you tell me how, but what I get is the download screen that says "open save cancel" I save, and it just goes to notepad I don't send it there.

maybe some Internet Explorer browser setting is messed up and files of type .zip are automatically opened with notepad?

Maybe download Firefox (that is the browser I am using in the screen shots above).

If you google the phrase File assocation fixes for windows vista you will find a number of web sites that talk about this problem. So you are not alone. The top one on the list, winhelponline.com, has a solution for most common file types including .zip. they fix the problem by changing things in the registry.

although this would probably fix your problem, when novices change things in the registry, I worry, because it is possible to make a computer unusable if done wrong.

do you know any computer experts you trust?

another good experiment to do would be to try to download a completely different zip file from a different web site that you trust. if you try to download a different zip file from some other website and it opens notepad and you see the odd symbols, that means it is probably the problem above where the file association for files of type .zip are set to open with notepad.

Borg, I will try winhelponline.com tomorrow and see if it works for me. I did try firefox and that didn't work either, for some reason my computer keeps saving it on notepad even when I uncheck it. Thank for your help, and will try to catch you tomorrow. No I don't know a computer expert either.

Edit: Borg, I went to winhelponline.com and hit the fix on zip and now I have the seed tray. Thank You, Thank You for helping me, now all I have to do is find out how to use it, lol.
Have a great day, you are brilliant.

Borg i wold really apreciate it if you could help with this problem because i really need that seed tray and it just wont work ...

Thank you, Borg!

[eta] Sorry it took me so long to reply... I've had comp troubles - like it dying twice in 6 days, and needing an impromptu reformat.

CAN YOU HELP ME ???

I am have the same trouble. I just got a new laptop. I use Plant tycoon and VST on my old computer (windows XP) with no problems and loved it. The new computer has Vista with a normal screen resolution of 1440x900. I have tried all the different screen resolutions. Here is a screen shot. I had click on "Bluestar Maranta."
I am not sure if my screen shot worked.

I just download Plant Tycoon and VST on my desktop, it has window XP and a screen res. 1024X768. It work perfectly on it.
On the laptop I've redownload Plant Tycoon and VST with the same results. The laptop has Vista and a widescreen. I have all res. and nothing helps.

Is there anyone that can help me with problem.

It says application failed to initialize(0xc0000135)

Please read this post on the previous page of this thread.

I never figured out a way to fix this - the way to work around it is to run your mouse across until you reach the name of the plant you want (in some cases this off the chart). You can still get the info you need, just have to work a little harder for it.

I have Vista and when I download the VST, I have it saved to my desktop, then I right click on the zip file, and choose "extract all". Next I get a folder on the desktop, opening it, I can drag the VST to my desktop and have no problems using it.

Though ever so often I loose all my seeds in the VST, even though I close down the game. I have to close the game in two different places, so I know it's closed down completely. I also make sure that I put the game on "stop time" before I close the game down to go to the VST.

What is the limit on the number of seeds you can put in the VST? Is there a max seed count? Is it for one player or a max total for all?

I have Vista to get it to work as it should I had to first save the file then open it to my desk top. once I had it on my desktop I had to right click go to properties click on the compatablity tab and check it run as xp. Once I did that it works just fine.

I don't think there is a max number of seeds for the VST, I have hundreds in my tray.

Thank you. Me, too. It's why I started to wonder. I don't know where I read 1500, I can't find it, so maybe I'm imagining things. I have hundreds in there, too - now that I have 376 species. I'm trimming it to just two of each as I get entire rows of a flower or columns of one plant.

My seeds will not delete when I want to start over. All the seeds remain in vst no matter what I do to try to delete them. I have to delete all seeds by hand. Very annoying.

This utility is not part of Plant Tycoon and was not developed by LDW. Since it's separate from the game, it maintains separate save files. You can read more about them here, but if you want all the seeds gone, simply delete VST's save file for that game slot.

I wanted to pass along my experience in case anyone else has trouble like this. I have the Bigfish version of Plant Tycoon, and could not get the Virtual Seed Tray to open. I looked through all these posts, and couldn't quite find the exact same problem. The error message I was getting after updating the Microsoft .Net guide thing to 4.0 was "Unable to find a version of the runtime to run this application". In desperation, I tried downgrading the .Net from 4.0 to 3.0, and now the VST utility works. I also had the same problem (unable to open) with the Constant Gardener utility, and this seemed to fix that problem too.

Please help - I just switched from a pc to a MAC and I can't find a link for a MAC version of the virtual seed tray - has one been created? If not, could someone create one for us MAC users?

Please let me know.

Thanks,
Katie

Sorry Katie F! You must be lost without a VST. The last I heard of it, there was no version for Mac

I couldn't do without me VST, so I guess I'll have to stick to PCs for ever!!

Okay, start at the very beginning for me. What is the virtual Seed Tray? How is it used? Does it allow me to store more seeds? How do I download it? Thanks so much.

You can find instructions and a mini tutorial here.

Hello there,

I am having an issue with my game after using the VST and I wondered if anyone else had had this issue and if so if anyone had found a way to fix it. I was playing the game just fine but kept running out of room for seeds, so I tried using the VST. Now my game freezes each time I move the hand/cursor for about 3 to 4 seconds. I haven't been able to catch any bugs since this started, and it takes forever to plant/move seeds. The worst part is that I thought I had saved a backup of the game before I started by copying the folder from the program file on my computer, not realizing that the saved games are saved in the LDW file in the documents file instead.

I have tried updating my video driver, but that doesn't seem to have fixed the issue, so I was hoping that someone else might have experienced this issue and maybe found a solution.

Thanks all!

I'm dying here, I got a new computer and downloaded Plant Tycoon, which I bought from Big Fish many years ago (before it was BF I think). I also downloaded the VST from here.

I installed PT from BF and when I try to play, the screen goes black, I have to pull up task manager, which says PT is not responding. I uninstalled it from BF and reinstalled it, same
thing happens. I uninstalled it from my control panel and reinstalled it thru BF, same thing happens.

Then I cam here to download VST. I had to down the Microsoft .NET 2.0 when I tried to install this, I get the error message that it can't be installed on 64 bit, so now what do I do, I'm very lost without my PT and VST. My other computer bit the dust and this in the only one I have. Help help help please.
========================
update

Ok, I find that I have Microsoft.net 4.0 and that's the reason
I got the error for Microsoft.net 2.0. I've been able to download VST, but now I have to get PT to work on Windows 7.

Virtual seed tray I have xpsp3 and I can not find .net 2.0 compatible for my pc; any suggestions? I can find higher versions.

Do an Internet search using the following search term, and you'll find several legitimate places to obtain it.

I can get VST to run on my 64 bit computer, but the chart is blank. Is Borg still around and willing to create an update for this. If not, is there someone else who can?

I've come back to Plant Tycoon after not playing for almost a year after my computer died. The chart with the VST is very helpful and a time saver.

Kathryn, I have VST up and running on Windows 7 64 bit. The Chart works too. I don't know if this is the Plus Version though. Please let me know if I can help further - you can always send me a PM.

Where is the link for the VST, as this sounds a lot more fun than hand writtern lists

Big Hayley, see if this link will work. I copied it from the address bar on the VST, so you'll more than likely have to copy and paste

http://www.ldwforums.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=104281#Post104281

I realize it has been some time since the last note on this thread, but I thought I'd give it a try. I played Plant Tycoon fairly regularly some time ago, and was using the Virtual Seed tray - delightful little invention! Haven't played for 2 or 3 years. I came back to it yesterday, and worked on my existing game. It worked yesterday and even some of today, but after playing for a bit today, when I went to open the VST, I got an error message - "You do not have an active PT Games. Start a new Game in Plant Tycoon." So I started a new game, and I still get the error message. Can you give me any tips on how to get things rolling again? Thanks.

As mentioned in this thread, a couple of others have had the same problem. I'm afraid it seems likely that Borg isn't around to fix the problem as I mention in the other thread.

Okey dokey, thanks. Dang, I really liked that tray!! I'll keep trying, I guess, but won't count on it. Thanks for the reply.

Unable to run VST+ on a Win7 as it says there is no active game.

Was there a solution that I missed?

I've read every post in this and the Win 8.1 VST thread and am not alone with this problem.

Also followed the tutorial steps to make fresh backups prior to trying this - 'just in case' - oh well, now I have a extra set of backups.

Game is fine but now it seems I'll just have to start culling the game's seed tray of the more exotic crosses while keeping all Tier one seeds.

Tried setting the Compatibility mode to Win XP SP3 for the VST.

That didn't help.

Thought about changing Plant Tycoon to the same compatibility mode but am leery about "fixing what's not broken".

Looked into the .NET Framework 2.0 and on the Win7 it is incorporated into the Operating System rather than having a stack of versions in the Program Files like on the XP.

Maybe VST can't "find" it?

I may try to load them both (PT & VST) onto the Win10 just for fun.

Time to delete more seeds!

After a little digging around as to why the VST won't run I found out:

1.) Net Framework 2.0 can not be downloaded to a WIN 7.

2.) The app - the VST - written in an older version of Visual Basic targeted the 2.0 Framework. It would need to be changed to target the 3.5 Framework to be compatible on XP, Vista, Win 7.

3.) The original author hasn't been around in years and her work is copyrighted.

4.) a "possible" work around would be to set up a VirtualBox with XP's OS and the 2.0 Framework plus PT & the VST.

In a nutshell - it was nice while it lasted.

correction to 2.) should read Visual Studio in C# - oops!

Did something change when PT was updated so that the VST can't read the .LDW files?

I'm having the same issue. Is there anyone out there that has the answer???

The answer that Lia posted a little over two years ago (look just above your post, if that link doesn't work for you) explains the reason for the problems getting VST to work.

The quick answer is that the VST was created well over a decade ago, and it just won't work on the technologies we have now.

Since it was never officially supported by LDW, I doubt it will ever be updated. Too bad, though, because it was really a nice utility.