Freelancer Path Generator

StarTrader

Tsk Tsk

Must be them thar Uni pills ‘es bin takin’!

I meant bug reports, Chips.

I have not experienced Op’s type of problem, have there been others?

Chips

I’ve not experienced it, but to be fair, I’ve not given it a fair chance since his last post about it either, things kinda get side-tracked at current.

Right now I’m supposed to be writing a paper. I visit websites as a stall method basically ::)

StarTrader

Well, what can I say?

I tested the files made by this utility very extensively today and it plots correct paths for me each time. I’ve got maybe 20 new systems but it’s enough.

I will report again if I find anything untoward.

Strail

I just need to drop some ideas here, I have 115 systems and plenty of paths. the file is 700kb+ in size and have spent a lot of time working through problems with paths.

Firstly, if you have visit 128 entries on the zones at the gates or jumps this can cause problems.
Secondly, if you use the whacky invisible jumphole/ random jump holes, this does cause problems
Thirdly, you need to realise that the game doesnt read your path from the path file direct, it parses the file (in memory), so if you have any problems with your jumps it will be flakey and this is typical of the problem OP was mentioning in setting paths/waypoints. So you can have a perfect path in the file showing the right jumps etc, however, it means nothing if other paths are wrong or incorrect in the relevent file.

I found that if you still have problems with paths, as long as one of your illegal or legal files match your shortest file, this can be a temporary workaround. i.e. it doesnt crash the server.

Hope some of the above is of some help to people.

Chips

???

More confused tbh I think it’s important to split up waypoint plotting, and jump path creation.

Without the shortest paths, jumping from one system to another (from 5+ year old memory) results in a crash. Without, however, the path files - you also can’t plot a “best path” between systems.

So somehow it’s related to the best path, the question is how - and this is where I’m starting to get confused as to where responsibilities lie.

The paths generated cannot identify objects for which waypoints should be set. The path files just contain the names of systems, nothing more…

At that point I’d assume that the path file is basically just a load of links, saying “look here, then here, then here” with each link referencing the system object or whatever it needs to look at next before passing it to potentially some sort of actual path plotting algorithm. There is nothing else within the path files that can identify targets for path waypoint plotting. It’s out of my hands so to speak, I can’t control that. For example, in the original game - plotting from Li02 to Li04, where if memory serves, the shortest and illegal both just go straight from Li02->Li04 (connected by jumphole) whereas legal goes Li02->Li01->Li04. However, there’s nothing that goes “plot to this object, then in next system, this object, followed by this object, then this object, this object and finally in the new system this object” etc. Obviously something else takes over and actually works out where the plot points will be…

So are these 128 zones causing issues for the thing that actually plots the points? (stops a course being plotted? Or makes it incorrect?)
Are the multiple overlaid jumpholes/invisible jumps causing issues?

I’ve no idea how it identifies certain jump objects, trade lanes or other as being what to waypoint… and certainly the path files themselves contain nothing that indicate this either - how could they.

What can I do to resolve these issues, or are you saying that’s the problem - it’s not the path files, it’s the actual system files the modder makes that causes this issue in how he’s dealing with zones/objects? At a bit of a loss now.

I got confused quite how the making shortest/legal/illegal all the same (irrespective of whether there’s an acceptable jump object available with correct legality) can somehow make everything work without issue. That, to me, appears to make no sense… if legal = shortest, can you plot through jumpholes in Omicron Alpha? or if you try, does it target the sun or the jumpgate or just say no best path?

If the game only plots to legal jump objects, it should throw a fit and plot to the first targetable object (the sun usually) of a system whereby there’s only jumpholes, or just say “no path”. If it just says “no path”, then how come we’ve had issues with incorrectly targeted objects within a system - and why is the path file responsible for this, or how is the path file responsible for this?

Super confuddled now

Strail

Yes Im saying that the paths are simple, the issue lies in the modding of the systems.

For instance, I used the path gen from flscan, got similar problems to other people and edited the system inis accordingly and i have it working fine. This is the same flscan that people have said its crap at path file gen etc. etc.

So, in summary, whilst I havent used your tool Chips. I dont believe it will be a tool problem, it’s a modding problem.

StarTrader

I agree.

Before Chips wrote this, I used FLScan to generate my path files for this same mod, with the same systems, and FL crashed whenever I tried to plot paths.

I did not fix any ini files (did not know for what sort of problems to start looking), and Chips’ second utility has worked fine on exactly the same systems. (My second run of the first release of Chips’ path generator screwed up but Chips realised the problem and fixed that in no time).

Strail, can you remember what problems you found in your ini files that may have caused the crashes when you used FL Scan? It will help me to understand what could it be. Thanks.

FR

If you have more than 10 jumps - maybe more than 9 - in one path there will be a crash
and there’s a limit, how many JH/Gates can be in one system.

That doesn’t mean the number of JH/Gates is limited 4 the system itself, but 4 the system in the pathfile.
Not sure about the number.

And additional i suppose, that JH,
which are targeted by more than one starting JH
can crash the server if those are in the pathfile.

The FLScan pathgenerator gives pathes with more than 10 jumps and
with 2 much Gates/JH in one system.
If you have those on your server, it can be restarted by routing

any of those 10+ jump pathes or
via systems exceeding the number of JHs/Gates.

BUT it can be fixed server side by just removing those entries from the pathfiles.
otherwise this info would be censored.

Chips

Must admit, vanilla FL has no more than 9 jumps from any one legal starting system to a legal destination system (as in routes which enable auto waypoint plotting).

OPR8R

“errors in modding” would imply that the systems are modded ones
but these probs appear even in vanilla systems

Strail

This is why I dont believe that the path file search when setting a way point/jump is limited to your one line entry in the path file.

That doesn’t mean the number of JH/Gates is limited 4 the system itself, but 4 the system in the pathfile.
Not sure about the number.

Let me expand on my previous point. If I have 10 jumps in a sys then it will crash when i set a waypoint that travels through the system with 10 jumps. Why would it crash if its just reading the path file line in the path file?. The reason is it doesnt just read the path file line to get you from a-b, otherwise you wouldnt crash if you had 10 jumps in a sys. It reads the other jumps in that sys and each sys it goes through, or at least does other calculations involving “unrelated” jumps in your path file line entry.

This is why I think your looking at the wrong problem

FR

You might be right, so we didn’t test that with single routes.

We just removed every path going through a system with 10+ JH/Gates.

dexter200031

I meant be doing something wrong but when I down loaded the beta of path finder it is a .jar file and no exe to run it. I have windows operating system…

Thanks , Dexter200031

Chips

pm’d a reply

For anyone else, I know I typed lots on the first page, and it’s blooming dull to read… but…

To use this you will require the Java Runtime Environment - if you haven’t already got it installed, it’s 100% free and available from here JRE 6 update 6

(link in first post).

Chips

I’m not going to continue working on this within the forseeable future as I don’t see the value (incase anyone checked up or wondered).
The tool itself will remain available, but source code is removed.

Just be warned that FL crashes if paths are too long (10 jumps was it?)… this is an FL issue, not a tool issue.

StarTrader

No complaints here Chips, very many thanks for the utility, it solved my problems.

All the best pal.

Chips

Hmm, what a difference some boredom and old code makes.
I’ve made a change or two to include a warning regards to paths being greater than 10 in length.

Question is - would people like this as an option or just a warning?
Option:

It will just alert you but write out the path and continue.
It will alert you, but it will not write out the path, and continue.

Additionally, is it right that this issue only affects legal paths, and only if they’re longer than 10 system connections in length? As it writes extremely fast, you’ll basically only see it in the errors window that pops up (if any errors were encountered) at the end of its run.

Oh, Merry Xmas too

OPR8R

i guess if you get a warning about paths you still should be able to remove the damaged path manually so a warning would be enough

but ive a different question about the path calculation

if you want to go from A to D… which path would be created (over B or C?) or how does that tool decide between possible paths
I dont assume that it would create 2 paths leading to D coz that would crash the game

Chips

@OPR8R:

i guess if you get a warning about paths you still should be able to remove the damaged path manually so a warning would be enough

but ive a different question about the path calculation

if you want to go from A to D… which path would be created (over B or C?) or how does that tool decide between possible paths
I dont assume that it would create 2 paths leading to D coz that would crash the game

It’ll create only one path for sure

Which will it choose? Simply down to which order is in the files I think… but it will select A, B, D (for example) and every path going through these (ie if there was an E beyond D) should similarly select A, B, D, E.

I just ran a quick check - these are the paths generated where FL has this type of circumstance.
So plotting from Liberty to Kusari, two possibles on the pathway…

li01, li03, iw06, ku02, ku01, ku03
li03, iw06, ku02, ku01, ku03
li02, li01, li03, iw06, ku02, ku01, ku03

ku03, ku01, ku02, iw06, li03
ku03, ku01, ku02, iw06, li03, li01
ku03, ku01, ku02, iw06, li03, li01, li02

On the return it’s plotting the exact same path in the event that this may cause an issue.

So testing again, going from Liberty to Rheinland.

li01, li04, iw01, rh02
li02, li01, li04, iw01, rh02
li04, iw01, rh02

rh02, iw02, li04
rh02, iw02, li04, li01, li02
rh02, iw02, li04, li01

As you can see, it all plots one way through iw01 on the way out.
However, I assume due to ordering of the gates on the return way - it’s plotting via iw02 instead. They all plot via iw02, so as you progress through your plotted route the path will remain passing through the same systems. If you reach your destination and plot a path back, it’ll be along a different choice for the B/C dilemma, but as you progress down the route -the choice will remain constant from the start (ie it’ll be C for the whole route out, but B on the plotted route back). There is no change as you go from one system to another in plotting (as far as I can see, lots of paths to check to verify this though!

I’ll download the thingy to check what the original FL files do

Hmm, guessing it makes no odds then:

Path = Rh01, Li01, Rh01, Rh02, Iw02, Li04, Li01
Path = Li01, Rh01, Li01, Li04, Iw01, Rh02, Rh01

Pretty much the same differences as I got.

OPR8R

kk