Planetfall

[Cmcastl]

PS. I do miss though that in SMAC, you just activated probe teams and left them to their own devices to steal technology or destroy rival faction utilities as they thought fit, subject to your agreement, of course.

I am sooo pleased by the way that Maniac et al. have grafted SMAC onto Civ IV, the eye candy is terrific, but I realise increasingly how clever was the independence/automation option of SMAC.

 

[Pfeffersack]

PS. I do miss though that in SMAC, you just activated probe teams and left them to their own devices to steal technology or destroy rival faction utilities as they thought fit, subject to your agreement, of course.

I am sooo pleased by the way that Maniac et al. have grafted SMAC onto Civ IV, the eye candy is terrific, but I realise increasingly how clever was the independence/automation option of SMAC.

I never was a great fan of automation, not in SMAC nor in Civ. I remember having it tried once for formers in SMAC - the result was not really bad, but I didn't trust the AI in terms of placing improvements with more serious side effects (e.g. boreholes), so I still had work left. Automatic exploration would be another area where I could imagine doing it...but for spy missions? This subject is just too delicate for me to leave it up to the AI - I mean, one wrong move and you might have war (or does the line "subject to your agreement" in your post mean that you still need to give a kind of last confirmation, when an automated spy thinks it's time to strike?). I'm also curious, if the SMAC spy automation makes use of all missions and pays attention to fact like a lower sucess chance when attacking the same base twice within a short time or choosing a wealthy faction and a big base, when going to steal credits...?

 

[Cmcastl]

One visible thing, Pfeffersack, I LOVED about SMAC automation, was seeing the flights of my interceptors go from one base to the next. Also, I did like to get the messages that my probe teams were going to start some operation against another faction, with my permission, of course. I had authorised the production of the probe teams, of course but thereafter they were very busy! I do miss this in Planetfall.

However I never tire of saying that I am so grateful that Maniac et al. have given me the opportunity with Civ IV to play SMAC anew, and with such "eye candy", as Americans put it!

Live long and prosper.

 

[neohyram]

I'm sure this has to have been covered before but I wasn't able to find it. I installed the main file and the patch and when I try to load the mod it crashes out when I get to the point where it should be loading python and such. Can anyone let me know how to sort that out?

 

[Maniac]

Are you running the official BtS patch 3.19?
Vista users have reported crashes if they have UAC (User Account Control) enabled. Do you use Vista?

Just some wild guesses.

 

[Maniac]

Patch 11g for Planetfall, the Alpha Centauri total conversion mod for Civ4 BtS, has been released. This patch needs to be applied on top of the main v11 file of Planetfall. It breaks savegames from previous versions or patches.



The highlights of stuff changed in the patch now follow. The main focus of this patch was to give some unique gameplay benefits to all the factions.

1. Secret project and promotion buttons by Lord Tirian.
2. German translation updated by Lord Tirian.
3. Sea Mill improvement graphic by Lord Tirian.
4. Lower relationship bonus from trading tech with Zakharov, by Pfeffersack.
5. Former texture improved, by WarKirby.
6. Great Dunes landmark added. Graphics by Deliverator and Lord Tirian.
7. Hyperian unit graphic by WarKirby.
8. Empath Song promotion available for the Isle of the Deep.
9. Hypnotic Trance promotion available for the Isle of the Deep and Sealurk.
10. Sea Beetles resource renamed to Coral Reef.
11. Resonance Cluster resource renamed to Planet Pearls.
12. Xenobiology now required to work plots with planet-providing resources (Monolith, The Ruins...).
13. Morgan can build seven unique secret projects which give a big boost to a base in some area.
14. Unhappy citizens can cause drone riots. Same mechanics as with food riots.
15. Hive Drones produce one less mineral, but eat no nutrients.
16. The Hive can no longer hurry production with population.
17. The Hive can produce Infantry and Flamethrower units at double speed. However these units have 20% less strength, and have a 50% chance to start with the Light special ability.
18. Hive bases now have a 50% inherent defense bonus.
19. Boreholes, Greenhouses and Mines in Hive territory cannot be pillaged. They're underground.
20. Lal gets double votes in Council.
21. Factions are more willing to trade tech with Zakharov, even at lower relations.
22. Zakharov can ignore the "no tech brokering" restrictions.
23. The Believers gain a 20% combat bonus against factions who don't share their state religion.
24. The Mass Driver, Behemoth, Destroyer and Cruiser units gain 8% bombard ability.
25. Aquaformers are invisible in the owner's unblockaded territory.
26. Added a game option which should prevent Formers from constructing Bunkers.
27. Some tech tree changes, especially to the space themed techs. See F6.

 

[Dial A Cow]

I installed the latest patch to Planetfall (11g). I like the new former texture. When starting 2 new games, Planetfall either froze, or triggered a CTD.
Planetfall froze when I started a new game as Lal. The game locked up when right after I finished the Unity Observation Bay. I am not sure what triggered this.
Planetfall had a CTD when I started a new game as Spartan. I had just finished researching Ultraponics when the CTD occurred.

I just got a CTD when attempting to reload a 'Planetfall version 11f' save game.

 

[mamba]

I just got a CTD when attempting to reload a 'Planetfall version 11f' save game.

That is why it was mentioned that savegames get broken.

 

[Maniac]

When starting 2 new games, Planetfall either froze, or triggered a CTD.

Your post is confusing. You say the game crashes when *starting* a game, but then you mention building a secret project and researching a tech, which indicates the crash happens *during* a game.

If the crash happens during the game, try out this patch:

Patch 11h for Planetfall, the Alpha Centauri total conversion mod for Civ4 BtS, has been released. This patch needs to be applied on top of the main v11 file of Planetfall. It doesn't break savegames started under patch g. It does break savegames from previous versions or patches before 'g'.

The patch fixes a bug.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Planetfall froze when I started a new game as Lal. The game locked up when right after I finished the Unity Observation Bay. I am not sure what triggered this.

Does the game really freeze and lock up totally (e.g. it stayed that way after several minutes) ? - I'm asking because a ~ 30s freeze after trading Worldmaps or acquiring the entire map via a wonder happens always for me (and depending on the CPU, this delay might even increase) and is not crashing the game...just wait...

Another reason can be always Vista, 64bit even more - have you disabled the UAC?

 

[Dial A Cow]

Your post is confusing. You say the game crashes when *starting* a game, but then you mention building a secret project and researching a tech, which indicates the crash happens *during* a game.

If the crash happens during the game, try out this patch:

Patch 11h for Planetfall, the Alpha Centauri total conversion mod for Civ4 BtS, has been released. This patch needs to be applied on top of the main v11 file of Planetfall. It doesn't break savegames started under patch g. It does break savegames from previous versions or patches before 'g'.

The patch fixes a bug.

My apologies for being unclear. It was late when I typed that email, and I was pretty tired.

The only instance Planetfall CTDed immediately, was when I attempted to load my earlier save game. It is a shame, but no big deal. I will try the 11h patch with a brand new game. I will post an update, whether or not I run into any other issues.

BTW, is there a 'Transcendance' victory option, like there was in SMAC?

 

[Maniac]

If the cause of the crashes were the issue fixed in patch h, then you should be able to continue your patch g saves under patch h. If not, there's another bug still lurking somewhere. In that case, and if you ever encounter other crashes in the future, please attach a save of just before the crash (just before clicking end turn usually).

 

[neohyram]

Thank you Maniac, I had thought I had installed the latest patch but I didn't. ooops Anyway when I did everything worked fine.

 

[cyrex562]

If the cause of the crashes were the issue fixed in patch h, then you should be able to continue your patch g saves under patch h. If not, there's another bug still lurking somewhere. In that case, and if you ever encounter other crashes in the future, please attach a save of just before the crash (just before clicking end turn usually).

Maniac: I've been playing with planetfall over the last couple of days, and it is amazing. Thanks for you and your team's hard work. I've been running into a few Crash situations while playing 11g and 11h. I've got copies of saves up to 150 turns back as one your earlier posts suggested. I'd say 50% of the time playing the game from a point 2-3 saves before the crash occurs fixes the problem. I am also generating crash dumps and running them through WinDbg. I've received various errors, such as:

11g:
Access violation in CvGameCoreDll.dll @ CvGameCoreDLL!PBGameSetupData::getCustomMapOption+0x3b0:
- arguments: 0xae98cc, 0, 0x2
- call stack:
CvGameCoreDLL!PBGameSetupData::getCustomMapOption+0x3b0
CvGameCoreDLL!CvUnit::getLayerAnimationPaths+0x20b14
11h:
Access violation in CvGameCoreDll.dll @
CvGameCoreDLL!CvArtInfoUnit::getRunLoopSoundTag+0x20
- arguments: 00000004 00000155 000028e8
- call stack:
CvGameCoreDLL!CvArtInfoUnit::getRunLoopSoundTag+0x20
CvGameCoreDLL!CvGame::getSymbolID+0x1cf

Both crashes appear to be the result of a NULL pointer de-reference when the functino executes. I believe for getCustomMapOption this is due to an invalid parameter. I am not sure about getRunLoopSoundTag. It seems like there is no exception handling in both cases, and the game just tries to safely crash. I'm not familiar with the source code of the DLL, having looked at it and the python on only a couple of occasions. But, I am pretty good with debugging in assembly, and programming in C/C++/python. If you want i can send you the dump, dump results, and save games. I just don't have a place to post them. Keep up the good work and let me know if I can help.

 

[Maniac]

Both crashes appear to be the result of a NULL pointer de-reference when the functino executes. I believe for getCustomMapOption this is due to an invalid parameter.

I don't understand how a CustomMapOption could cause a crash in the middle of the game. As far I can see, problems there would have to surface when generating the map.
I have my doubts if the information provided by crashdumps is of any use, or any indication of the real problem. In any case, I don't have any C++ knowledge besides concrete SDK modding, so I don't know how to put crashdumps to use.

Your save files could be of help though. I'd like to ask to upload the saves from, say, 25 turns before the actual crash happens, as I'm currently investigating a crash where the problem begins 18 turns before the actual crash.

You can attach zip archives to posts on this forum. Or you could use a free upload service like Rapidshare or Mediafire.

But, I am pretty good with debugging in assembly, and programming in C/C++/python. If you want i can send you the dump, dump results, and save games. I just don't have a place to post them. Keep up the good work and let me know if I can help.

If you're experienced in C++, could you please perhaps shed some light on what I described in this thread?

 

[cyrex562]

I don't understand how a CustomMapOption could cause a crash in the middle of the game. As far I can see, problems there would have to surface when generating the map.
I have my doubts if the information provided by crashdumps is of any use, or any indication of the real problem. In any case, I don't have any C++ knowledge besides concrete SDK modding, so I don't know how to put crashdumps to use.

Your save files could be of help though. I'd like to ask to upload the saves from, say, 25 turns before the actual crash happens, as I'm currently investigating a crash where the problem begins 18 turns before the actual crash.

You can attach zip archives to posts on this forum. Or you could use a free upload service like Rapidshare or Mediafire.



If you're experienced in C++, could you please perhaps shed some light on what I described in this thread?

Thanks for the prompt response Maniac.

* The PBGameSetupData::getCustomMapOption function is getting called by CvUnit::getLayerAnimationPaths and at some point during the routine a pointer is getting referenced and causing an access violation. My guess is getLayerAnimationPaths is looking for a data structure that is created during the map setup and not finding it.

* You might be right about the crash dumps utility, but i think in cases where an exception occurs, a crash dump will point to the line of source code or assembly language where a problem occurs. It will give you a complete snapshot of the game's execution environment. A full dump from the above exception was 980MB, because it contained everything that was going on in the Civ4 process when the crash occurred. Crash dumps can be used extensively when you don't have the source code to look at what's going on. They can also be combined with source in debugging.

* I screwed up and started a fresh game after this crash occurred, so I'm going to try to play through until i can reproduce the error. Once I do, I'll make a copy and upload the save files you requested.

* I took a look at your thread that you posted. I'd need to look into the issue a bit more and see if i can reproduce your error. I am thinking that insert a coded breakpoint in the debug version of the DLL and finding out when/where the code gets called might shed some light. Also, checking the code by single stepping through the assertion to see what happens might help. Is the CvGameCoreDll source in your mod package the same as what you're testing with? If not, where can I obtain source that I can modify and check?

*I'll have a look at the functions you list and see what I can find. If I have a working debug DLL to test with, I can do a lot more with crash dumps as well (because symbols and source will be available).

i'll check this stuff out tonight and get back to you.

 

[Cmcastl]

Houstin, we have a problem.

For the first time ever, Planetfall, version G/H has crashed on me. The screen just went black on me. I am wondering if I should go back to the previous Planetfall version. I just flag this up because from all the other threads there does seem a problem with the latest version. Not to worry, you gotta expect this happening from time to time in development and it had never happened before! Please don't be discouraged Maniac et al. Keep turning the new versions out! I am sure you will lick this soon enough.

Live long and prosper.

 

[Maniac]

* The PBGameSetupData::getCustomMapOption function is getting called by CvUnit::getLayerAnimationPaths and at some point during the routine a pointer is getting referenced and causing an access violation. My guess is getLayerAnimationPaths is looking for a data structure that is created during the map setup and not finding it.

There's nothing in CvUnit::getLayerAnimationPaths that references PBGameSetupData::getCustomMapOption as far as I can see. So I remain clueless in this particular case.
Here's the function:

Spoiler :

void CvUnit::getLayerAnimationPaths(std::vector<AnimationPathTypes>& aAnimationPaths) const
{
	for (int i=0; i < GC.getNumPromotionInfos(); ++i)
	{
		PromotionTypes ePromotion = (PromotionTypes) i;
		if (isHasPromotion(ePromotion))
		{
			AnimationPathTypes eAnimationPath = (AnimationPathTypes) GC.getPromotionInfo(ePromotion).getLayerAnimationPath();
			if(eAnimationPath != ANIMATIONPATH_NONE)
			{
				aAnimationPaths.push_back(eAnimationPath);
			}
		}
	}
}

Planetfall (like vanilla Civ4) doesn't use layeranimationpaths. That's exclusively used in the Afterworld scenario.

* I screwed up and started a fresh game after this crash occurred, so I'm going to try to play through until i can reproduce the error. Once I do, I'll make a copy and upload the save files you requested.

For the record, two things to keep in mind when playtesting with as main purpose debugging rather than fun:
1) don't use Random Seed Reload
2) don't use map sizes bigger than Large. The smaller the better I guess, but of course it still needs to remain fun to play. So I'd recommend Standard.

I am thinking that insert a coded breakpoint in the debug version of the DLL and finding out when/where the code gets called might shed some light.

The problem is figuring out where to put a breakpoint.

Also, checking the code by single stepping through the assertion to see what happens might help.

Unfortunately in this particular case the assert happens while loading a save, and just leads to a NewMemory function rather than a (to me) meaningful gameplay function.

Is the CvGameCoreDll source in your mod package the same as what you're testing with? If not, where can I obtain source that I can modify and check?

I think I forgot to put the cpp file I changed for the patch h DLL in the patch h download. I've attached a debug package to this post which includes the debug DLL and the files that have been changed compared to the files included in the v11 + patch h download. No changes have been made that would invalidate your patch h save files.

In case you can't reproduce a crash yourself, and thus would need to use WarKirby's crashing saves, there is some extra stuff you need to do: Unfortunately WarKirby renamed his Planetfall directory to 'Planetfall v11g'. This means that to load his save, you need to either:
1) make a copy of the entire Planetfall folder and name it 'Planetfall v11g'
or
2) rename your Planetfall folder to 'Planetfall v11g' and replace two files with the ones I included in the debug package:

Planetfall v11g/Assets/XML/Art/CIV4ArtDefines_Misc.xml
Planetfall v11g/Resource/Civ4.thm

Thanks for your help!!!

Edit: I added another zip which contains v11f SDK files which have been changed in patches g and h. I did nothing that would affect plotgroups though AFAIK.

 

[Maniac]

Houstin, we have a problem.

For the first time ever, Planetfall, version G/H has crashed on me. The screen just went black on me. I am wondering if I should go back to the previous Planetfall version. I just flag this up because from all the other threads there does seem a problem with the latest version. Not to worry, you gotta expect this happening from time to time in development and it had never happened before! Please don't be discouraged Maniac et al. Keep turning the new versions out! I am sure you will lick this soon enough.

Live long and prosper.

Yeah, it's unfortunate there's a bug again after all this time of easy cruising.
If you don't have a patch f download anymore (which was perfectly stable as far as I now), it can still be downloaded here.

 

[Cmcastl]

I have reverted to an earlier patch, Maniac.

But once again, I want to thank you and all the other modders for an incredibly long run of problem-free upgrades. The occasionally buggy patch is a small price to pay for a game that is outdistancing even the playing quality of the original SMAC by Olympic lengths.

I will however want to see how the next patch plays for a while with others before installing it.

Live long and prosper.