Spider-man

that was almost touching. -- all right, I'm jealous. [ 03-05-2002, 15:08: Message edited by: Spider-man ]

if you target a shuttle that has retrieved a cargo pod, the Cargo WILL be displayed when you check the SMD. Other ships will not show cargo. Cargo pods, as noted by duncan earlier, will display cargo when checked also.

whoops, ALPHA Majora

bloody scavengers

"Multi-national." I called them "mullarians" for about 2 months before someone told me.

it's awesome to see something jump in and when you hit f10 to view it, you just see flying debris and fire with station PTA's stroking through it. "admiral ozzel came out of hyperspace too close to the alliance starbase.. He's as clumsy as he is stupid..."

gonna need more time to test it with the PAD and cloaking, SC, but so far you've got a winner!!! The defense revision is incredible. Now those stations are appropriately formidible! great patch. More details after more extensive assaults.

Screw the old career. Install the defense revisions. It's like a new damn game. Running beautifully, no CTD's or save problems at this point. Seems to be running faster, but perhaps it's the placebo effect. anyway, BEST_PATCH_EVER.

holy crap, I'll buy one!

hot damn. can't wait.

quote: ...I've been using your mining drone crash saved game to test the 1.0.05 compliance. Not only does it work, the fail safe built into the saved game (which bypasses the corrupted entry I mentioned above) works just fine. So, if you still have that saved game, you can use it with the 1.0.05 compliance patch just fine. It will auto-fix the incorrect entry and allow you to extract the drone just fine. It works here. YMMV sweet. I'll play for a bit with that, until I see the Random fire. Then I'll go full 1.006 so I can try out the much-anticipated defense revisions. thank you so much for digging in there and teasing out the problem (or at least, fixing it). Can't wait to try it. [ 02-27-2002, 06:39: Message edited by: Spider-man ]

thank you for the hard work, SC.

ah. well, for the record, I was defining my terms as this: 1. corrupted save: A saved game that will not load via resume or restore. If sent in to the SC he will report back that it is "corrupted". 2. CTD: Any crash to desktop, at any time, regardless of when a game was saved. I brought up the idea of CTD's being a manifestation of Corrupted saves and here is the reply I got. lemme see if I can find it... my question (page 7 of other thread): quote: The question is first: What does it mean to have a "corrupted save"? This term has been tossed around the forum a lot and I'm not sure what it means. For instance: Does a "corrupted save" always mean that the save game cannot be loaded (ie: crashes immediately)? Or could a corrupted save cause a delayed crash to desktop or lockup? What I am getting at here is that if there is some mechanism by which people's saves are being corrupted, then this corruption could lead to the crashes to desktop and lockups some of us have been experiencing. If I start a new campaign and continue to play it without saving I seem to have a bit less trouble (fewer CTD's and lockups over time) than if i have saved the game multiple times. Anyway, i'd like to hear how a savegame gets corrupted, what this means, and what can be done to prevent it. the answer: quote: Saved game corruption can manifest itself in any number of ways 1. HDD failure e.g. lost clusters etc 2. System failure e.g. bad clusters (from #1) being written while the file is saved 3. Incompatible saved games e.g. using 1.0.03 saved games with 1.0.04. This usually happens if you applied a patch incorrectly or didn't delete all the files in the SAVE game folder when applying a patch which specifically indicates that the file format has changed. Resuming or restoring a game which then fails, does NOT necessarily mean it is the saved game. Once the file is loaded, the screen then switches to the configured graphics mode, all the graphics engine requirements (buffers, res etc) are all loaded. Now, if the graphics card settings (either in display properties, BIOS, DirectX etc) are suspect, it will fail to init and will exit or give a hard lockup. This is one way in which a saved game can be suspected of crashing the system, when in fact it is NOT necessarily at fault. So, what I take from this is that the CTD's may or may NOT be due to corrupted save games.

Reply posted in the 'system configuration' forum.

quote: SC, Perhaps it's time you get an Nvidia/SBLive! machine and find out just what the heck is causing all these save game corruptions. Everyone I know has this problems, even a number of forum regulars here well known for publically stating they have 'no problems' running BCM have admitted privately to me that they have corrupted saves at the same rate of frequency I do. Sorry for being blunt, but just cause YOU can't reproduce it does NOT mean it isn't a problem. I've tried this game now on no less than 7 different machines, all SBLive! with Nvidia cards, and I get an average of 1 bad save out of 10 on ALL machines. I've done all SC and others have asked, even bought Windows XP, but the same problem that plagued me on Windows 98SE plagues me now on WinXP. How about a roll call? Everyone who has problems with corrupted save games, time to speak up! Please, let this be known to SC so he can see the size of this problem. Thanks. Idaho I thought I'd respond to this here since it's not an explicit game bug (that we know of). I've had these problems in the past, reinstalling WIN98se has helped. I still get CTD's, but haven't had a corrupted save game (that I know of) for quite some time. Additionally, I do not have a SBLive currently. Neither did my old system. I did have CTD's and corrupted saves with the old system. Again, reinstalling Win98se fresh has helped with the corrupted saves. [ 02-21-2002, 10:40: Message edited by: Spider-man ]

thanks again SC, can't wait to see how this comes out. I've already sent the save game to someone else who did replicate the CTD prior to my sending it to you. by the way, my RE -- has got higher than a 50. I may be mistaken, but I thought that's what it took. I'll read thru it again. Thanks, everyone, for the help! [ 02-20-2002, 19:07: Message edited by: Spider-man ]

did my saved game work? or did you get the same CTD?

Thank you, SC, for looking at this and making some changes that will (hopefully) make the game more realistic and more balanced. By the way, I spit coke all over my lap when I read that bit about the "PAP smear" (emp pulse should short out cloaking devices as well, right? -- maybe you mentioned that, don't remember). I also like your simple two word answer to jumping in to range of a hostile station and not having a cloaking device: "they're F*cked". LOL

this is gonna be awesome. finally some respectable stations. Gonna have to be sneaky or Zerg the hell out of em with a fleet.

d'oh, forgot about the NDA.

I'm sorry for the confusion. I am using the 1.005 version. I have no prior version saved games. I wasn't stalling, I just didn't know what you were asking. I'll send it once I get home from work later today. I'll pay close attention to the format that you require.

YES!

I agree with gallion as well. Make the stations formidible to all but a big fleet. Gallion have you tried the 1.006 RC stations yet? are they appropriately tough? [ 02-13-2002, 00:58: Message edited by: Spider-man ]

quote: If your answers to Roberto's questions are NO and YES, then send me the saved game. Be SURE to read the procedure for sending in saved games, or face the consequences. Even if you forget to describe the problem in the email, I will discard the email and saved game. here are robert's questions: quote: A couple of questions spring to mind... 1.. Your doing it from a saved game, so I am assuming that when you reinstalled, you were still using the same saved game right? my answer: "yes" i am using the same saved game. quote: 2.. Did you try it from a fresh new game?my answer: "no, it would take too long to correctly reproduce the conditions (see below)" However, "yes" I have tried to fill up some deployed drones in a new game and pick them up -- it works fine. Therefore, my answers to the questions were NOT "no" and "yes". Thus, I figured you did not want the saved game because you told me to send them only if the answers to the questions were "no" and "yes". So I figured you weren't interested in this particular hang-up. No, you didn't explicitly state that you weren't interested. But it was obvious from your post that because this problem is not easily repeatable with a new game, you don't want the saved game. I can only duplicate this CTD with THIS (and a subsequent) saved game. Starting a new game, acquiring the artifacts that I have acquired, flying to Lanis V, landing on the moon, waiting for my drones to fill up, and waiting for my crew's experience to get to where it is now, and THEN duplicating the steps I outlined in the post above --- well, it's too much time and effort. For what it's worth, sending out drones, waiting for them to fill and picking them up in a new game does not cause a CTD. As I stated in my original post, the CTD only happens in my current career. I'll still send you the saved game if you have any interest. Comander Nova -- no disrespect sir, but I tried exactly what you suggested and it crashes to desktop before I can exit the moon (boy was it fun flying in there and destroying those drones!). I'll quote the salient bits from my posts above.... i said this in my original post: quote: If so, do i just fly in there with a fighter, destroy them and go buy new ones? Then I reported this in a subsequent post: quote: One last bit of followup. I destroyed the drones with a fighter, then when I tried to go spacebound --- CTD. It seems that If I wish to continue this career, I will have to abandon the drones and never mine again. The last thing I will try is to fly to the drones with my asset, use the shuttles to offload the minerals and leave the drones where they are. BOLLOCKS, that didn't work either. Thanks for the interest, everyone. I'm thinking about scrubbing the career and just using the playmod to see everything I was trying to "earn" my way to see. To go this far in the career and get a repeating CTD is extrememly discouraging. I may try to revert to an earlier saved game and see if it helps. Unfortunately, its about eight hours behind my latest save.

well said, steve.