Parallel Universe Invisbile Orions

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Zool
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Parallel Universe Invisbile Orions

Post by Zool »

EDITED

I have been working on the problem of the "Invisible Orion Variants" in PU and have come up with a fix , but would like some volunteers to help test the fix. Just download and unzip the file to your PR folder.

Ship Name Changes:
Old => New
OrionMk2 => OrionMk2
OrionMk2b => OrionMk3
OrionMk2h => OrionMk4

NOTE:You need to be running Parallel Universe & canonHUDs 1.4 OR Dilloh's PU1.1b6-DSE as this fix is based of this mod version.[/b]

This is a beta fix so there are a couple of things I would like anyone who tries it out to watch for and let me know about;
1) Any invisible Orions. (Please note which variant, the squadron name and which system it was in.)
2) Any other invisible ships. (There SHOULD NOT be any.)
3) Any OrionMK3's belonging to pirates. (This happened during my tests).
4) I am particularly interested in the observations of people who start a new game with this fix to compare with the observations of people who patch and continue existing games.


@Dilloh
- I had to go with the "orionMk#" names. For some reason when I used the other names there were problems. (Thats why I had to withdraw the first file).
- Also your suggestion of replacing the faction ships in the faction_ships.py file with the orions, to spawn more didn't work. Somehow, this is how I ended up with pirate Mk3's, but it was AFTER I changed it back to game default. However I did have a look through my save game file and there were a lot of Mk3's attached to lots of different squadrons so I was wondering could these entries in the save game file be causing things not to work according to the faction ship file. (I hope this makes some sense to you.

Please let me know how it goes everyone. :wink:
Thanks, Zool :D
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Last edited by Zool on Sun Apr 08, 2007 1:25 pm, edited 7 times in total.
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Post by Dilloh »

Just a comment... it also works with PU1.1b6-DSE as they both use the same units.csv, master_part_list.csv and faction_ships.py
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Post by Zool »

OK, the patch is ready to try now............. 8)
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Post by Zool »

I have been running for two days now (at least 6 hrs game time) and haven't seen any invisibles .
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Post by huzelbub »

I downloaded it and played a little bit around with the files to modify shields and reactors like in your rebalance mod, but I'm most certain that I did not mess up your changes.
While doing some missions for the exploratory guys I ran into an invisible Orion Mk2h from Abner Squadron in the Delta system and shortly after an Orion Mk2b from Betties Squad in Beta. Though I'm pretty sure that I've actually seen at least one Mk3 before. I can upload the save game if that helps (the ships are still there).
I did not jump into the mentioned systems until I applied the patch so they could not be spawned before (if that's possible).

PS: I've seen two folders in my units directory named "orionMk2b" and "orionMk2h". I guess I'm supposed to rename them accordingly? Could that actually have caused the problem?
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Post by Dilloh »

I can upload the save game if that helps (the ships are still there).
That wouldn't help. Every time you load a game, all ships are respawn elsewhere. Even mission parameters might change.
I've seen two folders in my units directory named "orionMk2b" and "orionMk2h". I guess I'm supposed to rename them accordingly? Could that actually have caused the problem?
Yes, those folders should actually be called "orionb" and "heavyo" - if the folder names don't match with those in units.csv, nothing will be loaded at all. But I wonder how you could manage to see those ships before - before you played around with the values? If you've taken values from zools rebalance 1.0, there might still be obsolete folder names in units.csv. Else, you forgot to run setup.bat after installing pu or canonhuds.

But I think that you messed up something :wink: Consider posting stderr.txt?
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Post by Dilloh »

UPDATE:
I now got the same error like huzelbub had. Despite of having Zools Orion fix installed, I encountered an invisible OrionMK2b. MK2b? Shouldn't this one not exist any more?

So I browsed the files Zool has posted, but he definetively did everything correct. No MK2b entry any more. I looked further for other files he might have forgot of, but there are none.

So I looked up my stderr.txt and found entries like "orionmk2b.blank not found". Strange, why should the game look up those?

Finally, I opened up my savegame. The savegame also stores generated flightgroups to keep the "traffic" in Gemini up to date - otherwised the universe would be totally empty every time you load a game. And there they were - lots of flightgropus with the old terms mk2b, mk2h, you name it. But also some new mk2 mk3 mk4 flightgroups were spawned.

So, anybody trying to beta Zools Orion Fix, always begin a new game. Never use an old savegame, otherwised you will still encouter the unfixed orions.
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Post by Draken Stark »

If ships in your current system are stored in a save file... how could one spawn say... 30 kilrathi and 30 militia? I think that would be awesome to watch. lol 8)
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Post by Dilloh »

I didn't understand how it works yet... I think it gives the game a proposition where which flightgroup should be spawned, if it says New Detroit it might also be in one of the surrounding systems or even more far away - I see no other reason why the savegame should store all those informations.

Let 30 cats battle 30 cops? Never tried to do something similar.
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Post by Zool »

Dilloh wrote:So I looked up my stderr.txt and found entries like "orionmk2b.blank not found". Strange, why should the game look up those?

Finally, I opened up my savegame. The savegame also stores generated flightgroups to keep the "traffic" in Gemini up to date - otherwised the universe would be totally empty every time you load a game. And there they were - lots of flightgropus with the old terms mk2b, mk2h, you name it. But also some new mk2 mk3 mk4 flightgroups were spawned.

So, anybody trying to beta Zools Orion Fix, always begin a new game. Never use an old savegame, otherwised you will still encouter the unfixed orions.
YES!!!! :!:This is just the confirmation that I was looking for guys. Great, you have proven a theory I was working on relating to the savegame. THANKS :D So, now I have figured out how to "graft' your savegame onto a new one so you dont loose your position in the game, money, ships etc.
Anyone interested. :?: :wink:

1)Start a new game and save it. Do not use the "new game" save that PR has built in.

2)Using your text editor, open {..../.privateer100/save/"oldsavegame"}

3)Using your text editor open you new save game in separate window

4)From the old savegame, from the top, copy everything between:
(This is from my savegame, your's will look similar)

Code: Select all

Gemini/Sherwood^988193.375000^centurion.blank|tarsusMk2.blank|Gemini/Perry|galaxygs.blank|Gemini/Perry|fireblade|Gemini/Perry|steltek_fighter|Gemini/Perry 9299.041054 14427.732061 2.893126
0 mission data  97
down to and including

Code: Select all

terrell_no_entry 1 1.000000
unit_to_dock_with 20 12.000000 109.000000 105.000000 110.000000 105.000000 110.000000 103.000000 95.000000 98.000000 97.000000 115.000000 101.000000 0.000000 105.000000 110.000000 111.000000 112.000000 108.000000 101.000000 0.000000
5)Now, CAREFULLY paste this OVER the corresponding entries in the NEW savegame, (at the top).

6)Next, in the old savegame you will see a huge list of entries that start with

Code: Select all

visited_xxxx
and the last line is "

Code: Select all

0 missionstring data 3012
" or similar. This it the area of the sector that you have explored and/or have bought the map(s). You can copy this section to the same location in your new save game this section, carefully pasting it over the current data, or just buy a new map when you get in the game.

7)Save the new savegame file.

8)Now open the folder {..../privateer100/serialized_xml/"oldsavegame"}

9)Copy and paste all the "(ship).csv" files to {..../privateer100/serialized_xml/"newsavegame"}.

10) And that's it. Enjoy :!: :D :!:

One final thing to note. Because it is a "new" game as such, I found that when I did this there wan not a lot of other ships flying around. I believe this is because of the "new game" and nothing has had time to spawn. No problem, just play on.

@huzelbub, I'm also working on an updated version of "Zool's Rebalance" to go with PU1.1b6-DSE/canonHUDs1.4
Last edited by Zool on Thu Apr 05, 2007 11:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by huzelbub »

Dilloh wrote:Yes, those folders should actually be called "orionb" and "heavyo"
I have these, too. They contain similar files as other ship folders, while the Mk2&h only have the orion-hud.png inside. Mk2&h are also in your DSE package and I definetly ran setup.bat without error messages.

Shouldn't it be enough to simply find and replace all the wrong names also in the save game?
I'm also working on an updated version of "Zool's Rebalance" to go with PU1.1b6-DSE/canonHUDs1.4
I liked your idea of different volumes for upgrades but reverted to fix those nasty stalkers (the fireblade was invisible for me, too since I did not notice the missing lines at first).
Last edited by huzelbub on Thu Apr 05, 2007 11:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Zool
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Post by Zool »

@huzlebub, don't change anything else, I tried this and all sorts of things went wrong. Try what I have suggested in my previous post first. It works great in my game.
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Post by huzelbub »

OK, sounds easy enough.
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Post by Dilloh »

huzelbub wrote:Shouldn't it be enough to simply find and replace all the wrong names also in the save game?
Yes, I think it is enough. But I'd highly recommend to start a new game in this case. Why? If the "old" Orions are invisible, they cannot be destroyed. I don't know if the game will take them out if they exceed their time or not. You can transfer your credits or your whole settings as Zool showed.
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Post by Zool »

Dilloh wrote:...But I'd highly recommend to start a new game in this case. Why? If the "old" Orions are invisible, they cannot be destroyed. I don't know if the game will take them out if they exceed their time or not. You can transfer your credits or your whole settings as Zool showed.
I agree with Dilloh, You NEED to start a new game OR make the modifications I outlined above, to continue your existing game in new save without all the spawned ship data, otherwise there could still be very minor bugs (as you found out). I have been playing since I posted the fix and have had no problems or bugs at all, and have seen all the orion variants and not one invisible. My game itself continued on without any interruption os mishap. BTW thanks for your quick feedback fellas. :D My game has been a bit stingy on spawning Mk2's and Mk'3s but I have seen lots of Mk1's and Mk4's. 8)

Just an note of explanation here; I did actually try giving the orion variants their own unique names and also renamed and matched every file and reference within files to the new names. For some reason that I could not fathom, and after spending a whole day looking, checking, rechecking and testing I could not get the game to work with these changes. I found out that if I just changed the actual ship names and left their related files/folders as they were, the fix worked. The ship folders and bfxm files are still called by the names orionb and heavyo. A tad confusing, I know, but it works.
huzelbub wrote:Shouldn't it be enough to simply find and replace all the wrong names also in the save game?
A good point, and something I also thought of as well as the other method. I went with the savegame "graft", firstly to see if it would work but also because I anticipated other potential problems deleting or replacing all the dodgy orion entries, and in my savegame, there were a LOT of them. I do however intend to try it one day just to see how well it works.

Dilloh, now that we have solved this particular problem (I hope :wink: ), did you have any plans on amending canonHUDs 1.4 and/or PU1.1b6-DSE so that others will not have to go through these hassles.?
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Post by zeo1234 »

Zool wrote:Just an note of explanation here; I did actually try giving the orion variants their own unique names and also renamed and matched every file and reference within files to the new names. For some reason that I could not fathom, and after spending a whole day looking, checking, rechecking and testing I could not get the game to work with these changes. I found out that if I just changed the actual ship names and left their related files/folders as they were, the fix worked. The ship folders and bfxm files are still called by the names orionb and heavyo. A tad confusing, I know, but it works.
I suspect the reason is because you have to recreate the original model of the ship under the intended name otherwise the file won't associate with the model and thus you won't see anything in game.

So your changes only worked as long as you left the associated files alone.
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Post by Dilloh »

Zool wrote:Dilloh, now that we have solved this particular problem (I hope Wink ), did you have any plans on amending canonHUDs 1.4 and/or PU1.1b6-DSE so that others will not have to go through these hassles.?
If you mean if the fix will be implemented into canonHUDs2.0, of course! But it might take some time till the next release - My "technique" always was to implement all ideas I had until everything works, then release. Currently, strange situation, there are a lot of ideas and unsolved problems, mostly campaign-related. As I said, I want to create at least a test campaign. Of course I'll accumulate everything.

Since I don't plan to implement new ships into canonHUDs2.0, I can give a 90% guarantee that there'll be no or little change to units.csv or masterpartlist from my side - so this time you can change a lot and I will implement my stuff later.

Just a questions:
Does/will your final rebalance also contain the Orion fix or the other way around?
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Post by Zool »

OrionFix_v1b2 is now ready. I have replaced OrionFix_v1beta1 at the beginning of this thread with the new one using Dilloh's replacement units.csv for canonHUDs1.4. Just click on the filename.
zeo1234 wrote:I suspect the reason is because you have to recreate the original model of the ship under the intended name otherwise the file won't associate with the model and thus you won't see anything in game.

So your changes only worked as long as you left the associated files alone.
Looks that way, to be honest I don't know that much about it. I sort of stumbled across the solution by accident. But it works!!
Dilloh wrote:Just a questions:
Does/will your final rebalance also contain the Orion fix or the other way around?
Yes, OrionFix_v1b2 will be part of the next rebalance. Actually, I have started on it tonight.
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Other Invisible Ships

Post by GordonShomway »

Hello,

i encountered another invisible Ship. It's the Sartha fighter.

I am using the Linux version of PR 1.2 with PU1.1b6-DSE and also applied the OrionFix.

Besides playing PR with the PU-modification is great.
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Post by Dilloh »

The Sartha should be running well - since there is no "special" Linux version of PU, you're the first one to report such a bug. I wonder if it is a one-time error or if you get multiple invisible Sarthas?
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Invisible Sarthas

Post by GordonShomway »

All Sarthas I encounter in the game are invisible. In flight, they show the same behavior as the OrionsXX before the patch.
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Post by Dilloh »

If you'd post stderr.txt and stdout.txt, we could try to trace back the problem. It is the first time I hear from this bug - the Sartha is not involved in setup.bat / setup.sh, it comes as is and works fine, at least for me.
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Post by Zool »

Yeah, I've never seen or heard of this either. :?
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Post by ace123 »

It si very likely that we are running into a case sensitivity issue. Dilloh implies that there is no specific Linux version, and also that it may not have been tested on Linux yet.

ZIP files in my experience have occasionally had a problem where files get named with the wrong case, and perhaps the Sartha is one of those that got named wrong.

GordonShomway, any idea if you can locate the missing/invisible units in the "units" directory, and see if they have a different casing than exist in the units.csv?
The console output will likely tell you what is missing as well.
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Post by Dilloh »

Thanks to ace123, that is the solution!

@GordonShomway:
Please open /units/Sartha in your Privateer folder.
You should see a file named SARTHA.bfxm
Please rename it to sartha.bfxm (small chars!)
Retry...

If this doesn't help 100%, there are some other files in this folder with capital letters, you can also rename them to small chars.

This modification should also help if you encounter such problems with other ships or units.

I'm sorry for that odd situation, the Linux users joined PU quite late - But I'll keep you guys in mind when working on the next big version :wink:
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