[TEC] Banging my head..

[Bubblehead1980]

Did a fresh install of TMO RSRD, no alterations to the actual files, just mods over, nothing that ever caused crashes before. Removed the ship pack with all the ships from FOTRS I suspected were the problem. Remove the TMO smoke mod I thought may be the culprit. I make contacts with convoys etc in time compression, things are fine, sim runs perfect.Conduct an attack all is well, it's when convoy is out of visual range and just after losing radar contact, speed up time to break contact and get ahead, CTD most of the time. Even when dont use time compression, it's as if when they are a certain distance away after contact, CTD. Never had this issue before, driving me crazy. I have plenty of RAM. Clean install, 4 gig patch.

Anyone else have this issue? Ideas?

[propbeanie]

The only time I've had anything like that was with FotRSU, and we were changing ships' configs on an almost daily basis... the game would go to generate say a Type=18 GENERIC CA, and the other end of the particular vessel was still set to Type=7, and BOOM! CTD... but if you've got a fresh install and just TMO with RSRDC on top (patches included???), and you should not do that. Was your Save folder cleared before playing? Did the game start-up the first time at 1024x768?...

[Bubblehead1980]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

The only time I've had anything like that was with FotRSU, and we were changing ships' configs on an almost daily basis... the game would go to generate say a Type=18 GENERIC CA, and the other end of the particular vessel was still set to Type=7, and BOOM! CTD... but if you've got a fresh install and just TMO with RSRDC on top (patches included???), and you should not do that. Was your Save folder cleared before playing? Did the game start-up the first time at 1024x768?...

I've ruled out the additional ships, various mods as causes. I'm running a clean version of TMO RSRD. It's not just RSRD though as when I ran TMO without RSRD happened.

After sinking three tankers, it was just the escorts left, CTD when broke contact, loaded save game CTD didnt happen this time, even after found another convoy, sunk all three tankers and had two DD's left. Counted all 6 tankers I sunk that patrol also, amazingly. These were all "native" RSRD convoys, not ones I added. However, CTD's happen when breaking contact with both.

I'm not sure what resolution it started up as.

[propbeanie]

'I loaded back up a patrol from save'... Using a Save file is problematic at best, if you've done ~any~ edits to ship or plane definitions (among a multitude of other edits that can cause issues), or removed or added any of the game's "assets". Anything that's "tracked" in a Save file. I'm thinking even of the ships you've sunk, since there's a "report" tracked in the Save, or if vessels are within "render range", even the ones you may not even be aware of. Crew slots, assignments, equipment changes such as radar, etc. It is probably anything that the game is "tracking" in its database is a potential problem if there's been a game change, as compared to the Save file...

The same thing can happen with using MIS files in the ME after you've changed the ship "definitions" with an "asset" swap. I do wish the game had a catch routine that would pop a message up of something like "PL_Conte_Verde configuration has changed. Are you sure you wish to continue to load the file EastAsiaCampaign.mis?" - or whatever. Then you'd know there was a problem, instead of just getting a CTD, and then wondering "what thuh hey???"...

If you're wanting to test a particular aspect of a campaign MIS, I'm thinking that the thing to do would be to have a separate install of SH4, with empty campaign folders, and an empty SingleMissions folder. Use MultiSH4 to get yourself an empty Save folder of a different name. Then make a copy of the one campaign file you're wanting to experiment with, and put that in the SingleMissions folder. Edit it, and put your boat in there somewhere on the map as user controlled. You could even delete all the other groups that aren't needed, to minimize "interference" when you make changes. Then experiment away, and any CTD should be easier to track down - maybe. If you need multiple MIS file layers, copy them over into the SingleMission folder, edit them individually to eliminate what you don't need / want, then "merge" them all together with a "Mark merged data as saveable". Save it all into an SM folder and file of the same name. (Just don't forget that you ticked that box in the "merge" dialog, for the next time you go to use the ME and "merge" something in just to "see" it.) You now have a "mini" Campaign. You just won't have any "objective" defined, and will start with the "End of mission" screen. Just click on the "Return to game", or whatever it has in the lower left to go back in. Or you could add stuff like that too...

[Bubblehead1980]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

'I loaded back up a patrol from save'... Using a Save file is problematic at best, if you've done ~any~ edits to ship or plane definitions (among a multitude of other edits that can cause issues), or removed or added any of the game's "assets". Anything that's "tracked" in a Save file. I'm thinking even of the ships you've sunk, since there's a "report" tracked in the Save, or if vessels are within "render range", even the ones you may not even be aware of. Crew slots, assignments, equipment changes such as radar, etc. It is probably anything that the game is "tracking" in its database is a potential problem if there's been a game change, as compared to the Save file...

The same thing can happen with using MIS files in the ME after you've changed the ship "definitions" with an "asset" swap. I do wish the game had a catch routine that would pop a message up of something like "PL_Conte_Verde configuration has changed. Are you sure you wish to continue to load the file EastAsiaCampaign.mis?" - or whatever. Then you'd know there was a problem, instead of just getting a CTD, and then wondering "what thuh hey???"...

If you're wanting to test a particular aspect of a campaign MIS, I'm thinking that the thing to do would be to have a separate install of SH4, with empty campaign folders, and an empty SingleMissions folder. Use MultiSH4 to get yourself an empty Save folder of a different name. Then make a copy of the one campaign file you're wanting to experiment with, and put that in the SingleMissions folder. Edit it, and put your boat in there somewhere on the map as user controlled. You could even delete all the other groups that aren't needed, to minimize "interference" when you make changes. Then experiment away, and any CTD should be easier to track down - maybe. If you need multiple MIS file layers, copy them over into the SingleMission folder, edit them individually to eliminate what you don't need / want, then "merge" them all together with a "Mark merged data as saveable". Save it all into an SM folder and file of the same name. (Just don't forget that you ticked that box in the "merge" dialog, for the next time you go to use the ME and "merge" something in just to "see" it.) You now have a "mini" Campaign. You just won't have any "objective" defined, and will start with the "End of mission" screen. Just click on the "Return to game", or whatever it has in the lower left to go back in. Or you could add stuff like that too...

Thanks for the information.I'll follow up

Funny thing is, no more CTD after loaded the save game, after the last CTD game functioned just fine after loaded last save game, which was about 6 miles from the three remaining escorts after sinking the remaining two tankers, , no ctd when broke contact with escorts. Attacked another convoy of three tankers and two escorts few days later(game time) , three tankers and two escorts.Sunk all three in a running battle, broke contact after initial attack and evasion, race ahead and established contact again for night surface attack, no CTD. No CTD after sinking them and breaking contact with the remaining DD's.

Suppose will find out soon if it's solved or just a fluke. I've learned to save often.

[Sniper297]

I've found that editing sound WAV files or textures is no problem when loading a save game, but any other changes it's best to delete all save files and start a new career.

In the \My Documents\SH4\data\cfg folder I have a deletesave.bat file with a shortcut to the desktop folder with all the other stuff in it, so I can delete the whole smash with one double click.

To make your own, create a new text file in your \My Documents\SH4\data\cfg folder and rename it deletesave.bat - say yes, you're sure you want to change the extension when the warning comes up. Then right click the deletesave.bat file, select EDIT from the menu, copy this (CTRL C):


RD /S /Q .\RichSavedGames
RD /S /Q .\SaveGames
EXIT

Then paste (CTRL V) into the new deletesave.bat file. If you're using multiSH4 you can copy the same bat file to the other folders in \cfg since it only works for the folder it's in. For those not familiar with ancient DOS commands;

RD [/S] [/Q] [drive:]path

/S Removes all directories and files in the specified directory
in addition to the directory itself. Used to remove a directory
tree.

/Q Quiet mode, do not ask if ok to remove a directory tree with /S

That deletes all save files and removes the folders (which were called "directories" before Windows) which the game will recreate the first time a new game is saved.