Finishing touches on a mod

[Tallhwch]

Hello. I have spent the passed few months tinkering with my Star Wars mod (about ready for upload by the way) and working along a similar vein with the Stargate universe. I have Goa'uld, Tok'ra, Wraith, and several other of the more fun but little seen races that will all be playable.

As someone reasonably experienced with the stuff, I've done all the pictures properly, and used JASC animation for the Leaderheads. I'm sure there are quite a few errors I have yet to fix, but I am at the stage where I can start the game and begin exploring where they might be. The problem is I choose a civ, click next, it begins loading, and the game shuts down immediately. Normally the game will give you some indication of where to look for an error, but I get nothing. Would anyone have any idea of where I could look for a mistake?

Thanks

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

Daft question - but are all your artfiles set to 256 colours? My mod once crashed the moment I founded a city all because the popheads file was still set to 16 million colours.

 

[Tallhwch]

Yes all of them I checked have them. It's crazy, I choose the civ, click o.k., and then I'm on my desktop again.

 

[tom2050]

Just to be clear, they are all indexed with 256 color palettes and in PCX format?

Was it unit graphics, terrain graphics, etc that were modified?

It's possible the crash is due to other things, such as added MP3's / WAV's can cause a crash if not in the right format or done with the right programs (major annoyance I couldn't figure out until reading info provided by Hikaro); and certain BIQ settings in scenario properties will cause crash sometimes.

 

[Tallhwch]

Yes they are all indexed in 256 colors and are PCX files.

Sorry. What I did basically was take all the graphics from the Antarctica mod as a basis, including terrain, city graphics, and every unit and tech graphic that was of use. All units I either took from the Stargate mods directly or I found as individual units on this site.

 

[Leaven]

How far does the mod load once you've picked your civ? Does it stop at a certain percentage and what does it say by the loading bar when it crashes? For example, if it loads all the way to player 4 and crashes, the problem may be related to player 4.

 

[KingArthur]

Some basic troubleshooting tips:

#1 Use the import feature to import bits of your mod into a new biq. If you do this importing a bit at a time you may be able to isolate the problem. Each time you import a bit startup a game with the new biq. From experience I have found it's either the Techs or more commonly the Player Setup Properties. Once you've got a working biq, carefully add in the missing bits manually and retest frequently.

#2 It might be the art files so you might want to selectively knock out a folder or specific file by renaming it. I usually prefix the folder name with a 0 so it stays at the top of the file list in Explorer. Be careful though because you can knock out something that's required by the game e.g. Tech Icons or Pediaicons.txt. However, certain folders like Terrain or individual files like Resources can be renamed ok and the mod will just revert to the base vanilla files.

If you really get stuck then I can take a look for you if you want to upload your mod somewhere.

 

[Tallhwch]

To answer Leaven, it shuts down before it gets to a single percent. To KingArthur, good advice. I'll try what you suggested. If I get stuck I'll be contacting you. Thanks to all.

 

[Tallhwch]

Yep, the player stuff in the scenario tab was the issue, thanks alot. So now I get the game around 70% loaded and it stops and says 'sounds\build\a.wav' is missing. I have checked the workers in the Units category, assuming it was an issue with the animation files, and nowhere in the programming does that appear. I did a check on the whole file and it doesn't show up. Any ideas on where to look?

 

[Steph]

If you open your scenario with my editor, right click on the unit list and use the check for error command, you'll get in red all the units that could possibly have an error.

Select one of them and display the pediaicons tool. It will list all the files which are linked to the unit, with again in red the files it cannot find.

It can help locate the error and correct it.

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

Yep, the player stuff in the scenario tab was the issue, thanks alot. So now I get the game around 70% loaded and it stops and says 'sounds\build\a.wav' is missing. I have checked the workers in the Units category, assuming it was an issue with the animation files, and nowhere in the programming does that appear. I did a check on the whole file and it doesn't show up. Any ideas on where to look?

Have you got any civs that aren't allocated to a culture group? I'm sure that's what happens when one isn't allocated.

 

[Tallhwch]

Rob was bang on. Thank you very much. Steph, I have downloaded your editor for the inevitable things that will show up when I check out my tech tree. It sounds extremely useful. Again, thanks for all the contributions. I should have a Stargate mod up and running by next week, with Tau'ri, Jaffa, Goa'uld, Wraith, Ori, Lucian Alliance, Tok'ra, Travelers, Nox, Tollan, Ancients, Asurans, Replicators, Asgard, and Genii.