27 replies to this topic

[Zenoth]

@ Arkhan

Phew! Alright, what I've done was a little time consuming, but I had to do it to make sure, as you asked. I've played 10 Skirmishes in Broken Lands, and these were the settings used for all of them:

Difficulty: Hard
Resources Rate: Standard
Resources Sharing: Disabled
Heroes: Enabled
Massive Battles: Enabled
Fortress: Disabled
Mode: Annihilate

SKIRMISH #1 -36 minutes-
Me (SM) + SM -VS- Chaos x 2 = No Crash

SKIRMISH #2 -39 minutes-
Me (SM) + SM -VS- DE x 2 = No Crash

SKIRMISH #3 -23 minutes-
Me (SM) + SM -VS- Eldar x 2 = No Crash

SKIRMISH #4 -34 minutes-
Me (SM) + SM -VS- IG x 2 = No Crash

SKIRMISH #5 -19 minutes-
Me (SM) + SM -VS- Orks x 2 = No Crash

SKIRMISH #6 -27 minutes-
Me (SM) + SM -VS- SoB x 2 = No Crash

SKIRMISH #7 -33 minutes-
Me (SM) + SM -VS- Tau x 2 = No Crash

SKIRMISH #8 -22 minutes-
Me (SM) + SM -VS- SM x 2 = No Crash

SKIRMISH #9 -16 minutes-
Me (SM) + SM -VS- Necrons x 2 = Crashed

SKIRMISH #10 -14 minutes-
Me (SM) + Necrons -VS- Necrons x 2 = Crashed

After all of those Skirmishes, and after all of the ones I've also played since I'm testing this whole Broken Lands issue dating from Beta 3, which means a good extra 20+ Skirmishes, my conclusion is quite simple, it's just related to the Necrons and no other races. Since it never crashed with other races then it has to be about the Necrons alone I presume, and perhaps not because of the map itself after all... but then again I could be wrong... or maybe again, the map itself has such a bad terrain that it literally "forces" on a "weak point" in the Necrons Warriors code and crashes it.

Either 1) Put Broken Lands on a black list, providing a clear message/warning to all of the Dawn of Skirmish fans in the final build during the installation process (or after, in the Readme for example) that if they use the mod and happen to play on that map against the Necrons (or with a Necron ally, but as long as it's A.I-controlled) then there's a good chance (yes I'd say that) that it's going to crash because it had been tested enough to come to that conclusion...

Or 2) Disabled the necessary Necrons functions entirely, if that's indeed the direct and only cause of the crashes.

Edited by Zenoth, 04 April 2008 - 05:26 AM.

[dreddnott]

I was posting this in Smokeskin's thread but I suppose it belongs in here...

I'm getting a CTD on Eden with Necrons on the north side (watching AI play). Looks like the same error as yours.

[Zenoth]

I was posting this in Smokeskin's thread but I suppose it belongs in here...

I'm getting a CTD on Eden with Necrons on the north side (watching AI play). Looks like the same error as yours.

Yes I saw that, it's a major update to this whole Broken Lands story, it confirms right there that the map itself has nothing to do with the crash. I'm quite shocked right now, because it never crashed for me when playing against the Necrons in other maps. Still, that's strange, why not on other maps and always on Broken Lands... that might just mean that there's more than just one map, similar to Broken Lands in terms perhaps of terrain design that just hitches on one particular function and the A.I has no choices but to crash when it happens. If there's Broken Lands and Elden, it means that there's certainly others, and I myself haven't tested each and every single maps so far.

I hate this problem, it's the worst crash issue I've had since I know this team and am a tester here, I'll remember this one for a long time.

[LarkinVB]

The hall of blood must be built or the Archon won't get out. If the Archon doesn't get out, they won't harass.

Why not take hall of blood out of initial static build order and put it on top of build order 1-3 so archon will be build. BO 4 will have foundry instead and go for fast jetbikes. Their initial harassing unit will be a squad of hellion.
This is basically what TOTLeft was playing all the time. No archon, T1 jetbike spam.

[jureidinim]

[Either 1) Put Broken Lands on a black list, providing a clear message/warning to all of the Dawn of Skirmish fans in the final build during the installation process (or after, in the Readme for example) that if they use the mod and happen to play on that map against the Necrons (or with a Necron ally, but as long as it's A.I-controlled) then there's a good chance (yes I'd say that) that it's going to crash because it had been tested enough to come to that conclusion...

Or 2) Disabled the necessary Necrons functions entirely, if that's indeed the direct and only cause of the crashes.

If option 1) is used - wouldn't that also mean then that the AI cannot be used in the campaign? (AI necrons that is)
If option 2) is used - would that gimp the necrons in matches if some of their code is deactivated?

Here's hoping a fix can be found

[ArkhanTheBlack]

@Zenoth
Great work Zenoth! I highly appreciate those tests. I'm sure it wasn't so amusing to try all those race combos. Fortunately, the crash seems to be restricted to the Necron Warriors. Another indicator that it might have anything to to with their odd jump ability. At least that's pretty much the only thing unique to the Necron Warriors.

[Inquisitor]

Another indicator that it might have anything to to with their odd jump ability. At least that's pretty much the only thing unique to the Necron Warriors.

I don't know if this is relevant. I'm just putting it out there for you. There's another unique NW feature, resurrection. I've noticed some odd behavior with resurrecting NWs: Sometimes (extremely rare) when I lose a squad, I get a new squad of maybe 1-2 NW. Maybe it's just me imagining things, but I'm quite sure I'm not mistaking. I never take the Resurrection Orb, so please rule that out of the equation (for the record it increases resurrection chance, as well as giving the resurrection power).

The scenario is this: I have my NWs bound to a key, go to battle and get beat up. Retreating I notice that I have a lost a squad, but double-clicking a NW reveals that I have a squad of 1-2 NW not bound anymore. I know this might be related to an old (and fixed) dow bug, where the key binding would be lost if you lost all members of the originally assigned squad, but I have seen it with NW in SS at least twice.

My theory is that the squad tactics in question maybe null and/or there may have been created a new squad.

Hope you can use this input.


Btw, great work all. The next release sounds like it's going to surpass anything before it!

[dreddnott]

Sounds like reinforced members are getting the squad's key binding but resurrected members are not, because they're apparently added to the squad in a different way.