AI formation crash

posted on January 7th, 2024, 3:06 am

Here's a bug report from a recent event. It might have something to do with the scouting process. I think the AI might be missing a step somewhere, causing an issue. This particular time, it happened with the Romulans. I'll try overwriting your AI files onto my version and see what happens. I was constantly testing everything I added to the mod, and this crash I'm getting doesn't seem to have anything to do with a new mod. I'll have a look at the tactical expansion.

Overwriting your AI Files with the ones in the mods I provided will cause you crashes! They’re meant to be for the Tactical Expansion version of that mod! They will NOT work. The backup ones from Rifraf will also cause you crashes if you made any edits to the starbases, shipyards and building order by adding units.

The key to modding is to NEVER overwrite any file including AIP files you copy what you have then transfer and overwrite what is there.

The scouting process is automatically used by the AI the second you start a game by the way, they have a scout as a starting unit after all and start scouting. If they caused crashes the game would crash right away as part of that AI Objective.

I would suggest playing against yourself via the Map Editor as I’ve previously stated and watching everything as it happens. Including creating and executing formations to actually work in fishing for the true crash cause and not making assumptions on it and rashly replacing files such as the AIP files especially since they’re edited differently through the Tactical Expansion Mod.

Maybe you should upload your mod your playing with to have someone with experience hunting crashes fix it?

posted on January 7th, 2024, 3:08 am

I'll check the units for all the races and see what crashes. I ran a game against the Alternate Borg race, but it didn't do anything. It just sat there with two construction ships and a nexus. So, I built everything in the Federation roster, including added ships and stations. Everything worked fine until I killed the Borg off. Then, when the Admiral's log tried to load, it crashed and gave me something about an "invalid bitmap" or something. I checked the bitmaps in the Admiral's log, and everything seemed okay.

I'm having an issue with my larger freighters. After they mine a bunch of a particular resource, they dump it in favor of the next closest resource.

That happens if you don’t have a station to process the mined resource! Orbital Mining Stations did that automatically mining metal. If you don’t have a mining station to handle that resource they’ll dump it and move on.

posted on January 7th, 2024, 8:39 pm

I have dilithium mining stations and starbases set up to process all resources. So, they should go to the nearest facility first before dumping their cargo. What's happening is that they will mine a dilithium moon and then dump it for a nearby latinum nebula. I wonder if making two more versions of my super freighter for metal and latinum and switching between them would work.

Also, I've found an error that strangely didn't seem to hurt anything, but I fixed it anyway. In the cscout.odf, there was an error:

//Cloaking Device
weapon2 ="gccloak"
weaponHardpoints1 = "hp04"

weaponHardpoints1 was listed twice, with both the first and second weapons referencing them. Strangely, when I tested the scout before fixing it, the game didn't crash. Shouldn't an error like this cause a crash or, at the very least, the weapon not work?

This error was present in your tactical expansion mod as well.

I haven't found my missing " yet. Is there a debugger that's available? I have one from ArmadaFiles.com, the Star Trek Armada Ultimate Modifier. It has a decent debugger but doesn't recognize many legitimate commands or any commands added by the Fleet Ops team. I have found it good at detecting errors like the one above, or when commands are listed twice in a file.

posted on January 8th, 2024, 1:12 am

I have dilithium mining stations and starbases set up to process all resources. So, they should go to the nearest facility first before dumping their cargo. What's happening is that they will mine a dilithium moon and then dump it for a nearby latinum nebula. I wonder if making two more versions of my super freighter for metal and latinum and switching between them would work.

Also, I've found an error that strangely didn't seem to hurt anything, but I fixed it anyway. In the cscout.odf, there was an error:

//Cloaking Device
weapon2 ="gccloak"
weaponHardpoints1 = "hp04"

weaponHardpoints1 was listed twice, with both the first and second weapons referencing them. Strangely, when I tested the scout before fixing it, the game didn't crash. Shouldn't an error like this cause a crash or, at the very least, the weapon not work?

This error was present in your tactical expansion mod as well.

I haven't found my missing " yet. Is there a debugger that's available? I have one from ArmadaFiles.com, the Star Trek Armada Ultimate Modifier. It has a decent debugger but doesn't recognize many legitimate commands or any commands added by the Fleet Ops team. I have found it good at detecting errors like the one above, or when commands are listed twice in a file.

If that error is in the ODF For cscout.odf in the Tactical Expansion Mod then since that is just the 2014 Upgrade Project Mod with additional ships and stations added by Trashman then that means that the ODF coding for that was done by Rifraf. Since it’s just a cloaking device specially weapon it’s just ignoring the weaponhardpoint coding. Some weapons do this as you a find some modders omit this line for certain weapons.

Have you by any chance checked the ODF file “scoutBase.odf” that all Scout Ships use? That file links to many files including physics and is linked to every scout ship no matter what faction. You might also in checking that file want to make sure you also have the sounds (voiceovers).

posted on January 8th, 2024, 2:03 am

I checked the scoutBase.odf everything seems ok. Nothing seems missing.

eventSelect = "ScoutSelect"
eventAcknowledge = "ScoutAcknowledge"
eventAttack = "ScoutAttack"
eventStop = "ScoutStop"
eventMove = "ScoutMove"
eventRepair = "ScoutRepair"

the regularphysics file and the trekphysics files both reference the same thing should this change?

//physics file for all other physics stuff
//physicsFile = "sscoutphys.odf"
physicsFile = "trek_sscoutphys.odf"

//physics file for trek physics stuff
trekPhysicsFile = "trek_sscoutphys.odf"

posted on January 8th, 2024, 5:51 am

I checked the scoutBase.odf everything seems ok. Nothing seems missing.

eventSelect = "ScoutSelect"
eventAcknowledge = "ScoutAcknowledge"
eventAttack = "ScoutAttack"
eventStop = "ScoutStop"
eventMove = "ScoutMove"
eventRepair = "ScoutRepair"

the regularphysics file and the trekphysics files both reference the same thing should this change?

//physics file for all other physics stuff
//physicsFile = "sscoutphys.odf"
physicsFile = "trek_sscoutphys.odf"

//physics file for trek physics stuff
trekPhysicsFile = "trek_sscoutphys.odf"

Having duplicate physics files referenced in ODF files isn’t a problem and has never caused crashes. In fact it’s like that in many mods.

What you also want to check is every physics file that is referenced. They could have missing “ in them plus they were modified by Rifraf yet no backs up for them are provided. This includes that he added coding from other physics files that aren’t referenced.

posted on January 8th, 2024, 2:37 pm

Here's a bug report from a recent event. It might have something to do with the scouting process. I think the AI might be missing a step somewhere, causing an issue. This particular time, it happened with the Romulans. I'll try overwriting your AI files onto my version and see what happens. I was constantly testing everything I added to the mod, and this crash I'm getting doesn't seem to have anything to do with a new mod. I'll have a look at the tactical expansion.

It's an out of memory crash, that's different from most crashes that point to a clear location either fleetopshook.dll or armada2.ldl, but I have seen it before. If you are using the Fleet Ops 4.0 engine (it has a fleetopshook.dll file with a last modified date in 2016, instead of 2012 for regular old Fleet Ops 3.2.7) then it could be the memory leak that is present there (which I fixed in the game engine for my upcoming new release of Roots). Otherwise I've seen it before as an AI problem when some value in strategic_AI_config.txt is below or above a certain limit, and I think it also interacts with AI_GRID_SIZE in RTS_CFG.h and all of these problems are especially acute on very large maps (with height or width of over 32k IIRC).

P.S. did you get that aynchronous mouse cursor thing only in Roots or also in stock Fleet Ops or other mods? And which version of Roots were you running?

posted on January 8th, 2024, 3:26 pm

This is what my strategic AI config file says:

// How many tiles per threat mapgrid?
#define threat_map_resolution 900

// How many tiles per death mapgrid?
#define death_map_resolution 900

// How many tiles per our empire mapgrid?
#define empire_map_resolution 1000

// How many tiles per enemy empire mapgrid?
#define enemy_empire_map_resolution 1000

// How many tiles per exploration cell?--Ship sensors have 800 range--
#define exploration_map_resolution 800

// How many tiles per goal cell?
#define goal_map_resolution 300

// Fraction of bleedover during threat relax--100% of threat should bleed over--
double relaxation_coefficient = 1;

// Number of threat relax cycles. This becomes how far away a threat is felt.
int relaxation_cycles = 0;

Is there anything I should change? Some specific value?

P.S. The Asynchronous mouse cursor error only occurred in Roots mod, not stock FO or any other mod. I was able to locate an old forum post with the solution, and that fixed it.

posted on January 8th, 2024, 5:29 pm

This is what my strategic AI config file says:

// How many tiles per threat mapgrid?
#define threat_map_resolution 900

// How many tiles per death mapgrid?
#define death_map_resolution 900

// How many tiles per our empire mapgrid?
#define empire_map_resolution 1000

// How many tiles per enemy empire mapgrid?
#define enemy_empire_map_resolution 1000

// How many tiles per exploration cell?--Ship sensors have 800 range--
#define exploration_map_resolution 800

// How many tiles per goal cell?
#define goal_map_resolution 300

// Fraction of bleedover during threat relax--100% of threat should bleed over--
double relaxation_coefficient = 1;

// Number of threat relax cycles. This becomes how far away a threat is felt.
int relaxation_cycles = 0;

Is there anything I should change? Some specific value?

P.S. The Asynchronous mouse cursor error only occurred in Roots mod, not stock FO or any other mod. I was able to locate an old forum post with the solution, and that fixed it.

That Strategic AI File is pretty much STOCK to many mods with slight changes from the original stock version. What I’m saying is that it’s in almost all mods as that form. In fact it’s the Strategic_AI_config file in my modding partner and my mod and it’s linked to all our other mods in the Main Mod Data File for we 100% removed FleetOps. Plus we’re using the 4.0 Engine (Loader). We do in our main mod have unique crashes that we’re hunting and a weird Tooltips issue in game that they all say GUI and other text before the needed units. Plus Trading Stations still don’t have the Trade Menu for some reason when 4.0 should have fixed that.

Since I’m at my local Navy Recruitment Office as my new posting since my recent deployment ended and my modding partner is at home I had him send a copy from our personal mod to our Mega.nz account: https://mega.nz/file/jdwnwBDC#uOPzcEyQi4-A0313x-sJWH_QXWtPmEUTYaNqaeFiafU

I can 100% confirm that file works perfectly fine.

This is the changes from stock; the following below is from Stock Armada II and is also from the Original Armada II Classic Mod:

// How many tiles per threat mapgrid?
#define threat_map_resolution 800

// How many tiles per death mapgrid?
#define death_map_resolution 800

// How many tiles per our empire mapgrid?
#define empire_map_resolution 800

// How many tiles per enemy empire mapgrid?
#define enemy_empire_map_resolution 800

// How many tiles per exploration cell?--Ship sensors have 800 range--
#define exploration_map_resolution 800

// How many tiles per goal cell?
#define goal_map_resolution 800

// Fraction of bleedover during threat relax--100% of threat should bleed over--
double relaxation_coefficient = 0.8;

// Number of threat relax cycles. This becomes how far away a threat is felt.
int relaxation_cycles = 2;

By the way, the master ai editor who designed the Merciless AI from Armada2Files and part of the A2Upgrade Project 2.0.0 made these edits for the AI: Freyr. Here’s Freyr’s thoughts on the AI: Artificial Intelligence - Freyr's Thoughts- Strategy vs Cheating: https://mega.nz/file/iIoAWDQR#dBopYtGOs3oClmHhyC6AWmh4Nkav77Pb6oM3bz1zD7c. (Note: This file we turned from its original text format to a PDF file.)

posted on January 9th, 2024, 2:36 am

I tried your strategic AI config and it works on all AIs except Romulans and Klingons. I can play as Romulans or Klingons, but not against them. I get the same original crash every time I try to play against them.

posted on January 9th, 2024, 3:20 am

I tried your strategic AI config and it works on all AIs except Romulans and Klingons. I can play as Romulans or Klingons, but not against them. I get the same original crash every time I try to play against them.

It’s not that file then if it works with the other factions. The crash is related to something else. If it caused a problem it would be with ALL Factions. And we use that file in all our mods and in our install of Rifraf’s Upgrade 2014 Mod.

Honestly if you’re having problems that you can’t figure out, you should use the Original Armada II Classic Mod. Here’s a download link: https://mega.nz/file/vEwAjC6b#bbfrYhVll506hq7JDFYj9kaA9RwRYYDWa1LbQ5VdBU4

That’s because I’m 100% sure even the stock game numbers will cause your game to crash. You can copy them right into that file you want to assume is causing your problem.

Also as a further process of elimination you could transfer that same file from other mods like Jan B’s Roots Mod as well as FleetOps to test to see if you get that crash.

Like I said though I’m pretty much 100% sure you’ll get the crash you’re mentioning because that file would cause all factions to crash and all ships to cause the crash for all ships use it.

posted on January 9th, 2024, 7:43 am

I tried your strategic AI config and it works on all AIs except Romulans and Klingons. I can play as Romulans or Klingons, but not against them. I get the same original crash every time I try to play against them.

I’ve gone through all 30 pages of Rifraf’s Armada II Upgrade 2014 Mod page here on the forums and I’ve noticed something: you’ve commented there a few times and were having issues with this mod around 2015. One of them appears to be this bug and Rifraf had no fix for it and couldn’t understand the Bug Report files you provided. This is the exact link to that page: https://www.fleetops.net/forums/modifications/mod-sta2-upgrade-project-2014-a-stock-a2-mod-in-fo-12498?hilit=STA2%20Upgrade%20Project%202014%20v2.0&start=360

Also with going through the entire 30 pages, I downloaded ALL of the possible patches and other downloads available and compiled all their zip files that I unzipped and checked them. They all SHOULD be fine but I haven’t tested them. My boyfriend is already upset that I’m staying up way late for this side project of figuring this crash out for you. If you use the ship and stations within these files within the Armada II Upgrade Project 2014: Tactical Expansion Mod they will break that mod due to the added units. Same with any AIP Buildlists. You will have to manually edit those files. I have though expanded some of the folders here to help place them in the correct folders. When adding these versions in you’ll have to overwrite what’s in your mod as well… this means it will break what you’ve added in.

https://mega.nz/file/HUoSzBjI#cF1_a6X_YAZ9AG2vhiSNQlcpjqxPAewa5N6551Czr4I

Personally I would suggest starting Rifraf’s mod from scratch and testing it out after using these files to fix it and then (AND ONLY THEN) add whatever you’ve been adding to 100% make sure Rifraf’s Mod is working for you properly without the crash you’ve reported.

posted on January 9th, 2024, 2:26 pm

Well, I tried all those patches and everything. I even put them on a fresh install. I still got the same crash. It looks like I'm pretty much limited to the Classic Mod instead of A2 Ultimate. I'll have to upgrade the textures on my own.

I really appreciate you helping me out. But it doesn't look like there's a solution to this issue.

posted on January 9th, 2024, 7:29 pm

Well, I tried all those patches and everything. I even put them on a fresh install. I still got the same crash. It looks like I'm pretty much limited to the Classic Mod instead of A2 Ultimate. I'll have to upgrade the textures on my own.

I really appreciate you helping me out. But it doesn't look like there's a solution to this issue.

If all you’re after is the updated graphics and AI Changes (Merciless AI), you don’t need Rifraf’s Mod at all. After all other than his slight changes that really don’t make major changes compared to his base mod that he used to change the Armada II Classic Mod, all he did was use a mod that already did that! You can in fact use it with the Armada II Classic Mod but I don’t know what changes to it were done to make it work as a Mods Directory Mod and if or how this might make it not playable. Yet over at http://armadafiles.com/ is that base mod… here’s the direct link: Armada II Upgrade Project, Vanilla Ultimate: http://armadafiles.com/files/armada-2/mods/miscellaneous/armada-ii-upgrade-project-vanilla-ultimate-v-200/details.

posted on January 9th, 2024, 7:53 pm

I think I've tried installing vanilla ultimate over the classic mod before but it just made everything worse. I'll try again. I have the installer for vanilla ultimate 2.0. Unless there's a newer version.