Anyone else still need a SUR generator?
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I’m sorry ST for being lazy when it comes to an important subject as this - which really is, for it’s always good to get one step forward in the direction of the perfect SUR file…
…Just a recommendation. Considering these are multi-part SURs, I think more people would volunteer to test if you included the CMP files as well - after all the object names have to match for the SUR to work. I don’t know about the what’s and whatnot’s when testing the SUR as a base or when given to npc’s, but for a player ship I know the SUR names must match the CMP names - and building a dummy CMP would take considerable effort for testing purposes.
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Yes you’re right BBalazs - slipped my mind.
They should still work on the root part, because the vanilla surs obviously only attach the root part, all I did was to rename the vanilla sur.
Anyway here are the ship cmps, surs and mat files too.
The intention as you say is to understand why a sur made with Sur Builder might fail so we can prevent it.
It could be something else on my PC, and this is why I would appreciate someone testing these surs for several hours for me.
Many thanks.
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I can now confirm that single-part surs for the same two ships also fail within 30 minutes.
Sad.
Retested yet again with vanilla surs - all runs well for over 3 hours.
Here are the single-part surs if anyone would please test these and the multi-part ones (the ship cmps are the same) I would appreciate the help, it would tell me if the crashes are genuine or if it is indeed my setup.
The only thing I can think to cause this type of crash after a certain amount of time is perhaps large numbers of error messages accumulating in a hidden FL Server log or buffer?
Does anyone know where there is such a log/buffer? I don’t mean C:\FL-Server-errors.log, I know about that one and there is nothing in it.
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I have tried the DevilRay multipart .sur yesterday evening and after I came back 1 1/4 hours later the server had crashed and the client deconnected. So there really seems to be some problem with your .surs. Maybe I should try some of mine over a longer period of time…
Also I have had random crashes with vanilla models only for some time, and they get a lot less frequent when I remove the rh gunship from play (only npc references).
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Very many thanks, Quarks, much appreciated.
Yes you see, this is my point - I don’t think people are testing their new surs long enough.
If someone else can also do the same testing and get back to me then we can see if it is just me and you that have the problems.
Also if anyone can please generate their own new surs for the two ships and test them successfully (at least 4 hours please guys), then I can test them again, and if they are good on my machine too, then we might be able to see the problems that Sur Builder might cause and avoid them.
Can anyone tell me if such a hidden error log or error buffer exists where sur errors might be accumulating and causing the FL Server crashes?
And how to expose it?
Or is there another way to get the same result and see what is failing?
That might give us all a big help to find the causes of problems (not only sur-related) more quickly.
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How are you testing them? Putting them on npc ships or sitting in space with a player ship?
The only time the UnderVerse had a bad sur is when we first released 2.22 a year and a half ago. Pvp worked fine, which is how we tested everything. This was a large train (vanilla ship) converted for players to use.
Turns out what made it crash was when an npc got through the shield. The first time they tapped directly on the hull, server crashed. Players had no such effect.
Just saying this to help you test your surs more quickly, at least for this effect.
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StarTrader wrote:
OK - have you all tried extended testing? Give your ship and sur to NPCs attacking a base and let them be killed in waves until you get a crash. Or hopefully not.Irrespective of how many surs we have made, none of the ones I have made with sur builder worked for more than 2 hours for me. Of the many surs that I made manually, using Sur Splicer, most of them worked from the first try and continued to work.
In this case with the Sur Builder surs, the problem may not show in the game for a long time, because we probably would not blast the same number of the same type of ship before going to another system.
But then there are rare crashes maybe many days apart, and we don’t know the reason.
So in my case I want to be sure the surs are not the cause.
Since I can run the same testing encounter cleanly for more than 12 hours using vanilla surs, this means I can test my surs, one at a time, in the same encounter and if it fails within an hour then it is a bad sur.
This is what is happening, so I would be very grateful if others can test my ships and surs in the same way and confirm they fail (or do not fail).
It is in all our interests to find out why the surs are not reliable, so that the kings of progamming among us can have more information to make a better sur generator tool - unless other modders don’t want one?
Thanks guys.
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So, just to give you some more information, I ran four LS sur generated ships in a system, in groups of 20 by themselves, for 6 hours where they continuously blew each other up without a crash.
I’ll download your models and surs and see if I get the same results.
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Thanks Sushi.
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To speed things up a bit for me…
Would anyone please make me a pair of surs for the two ships in my zip using Sur Builder and let me have them back so I can test them?
Thanks.
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There you are.
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Many thanks, Quarks! Phew, you’re a fast one on a good day!
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Quarks -
I am sad (but also glad) to say that…
Sadly both surs fail within 3 to 10 minutes in the same way mine do!
I tried them one at a time, and ran the test 3 times for each sur. Same system, same encounter, just changed difficulty to select the right ship and sur.
Very many thanks for making them.
Hopefully Sushi can also confirm that mine fail on his machine, and I’ll see what I can do to take it on from there.
Many thanks in advance guys.
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Started the NPC test now. It’s just an empty system, with one base, and those two models and surs continuously blowing each other up.
edit: 1hr30min in : no crashes
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Since I have this problem, too…I just jeplaced the li_fighter’s model with Startrader’s ship and edited the loadouts, then edited the manhattan pop zone, nothing else. So usually there should not be any problem.
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It certainly is weird, every single ship in my mod (there are no vanilla ships) use surs made with the sur tool, and I’ve not experienced any crashes of any kind at any time. Doesn’t mean it can’t happen, just fortunately hasn’t yet.
Does this happen with every sur you make ST or is it isolated to a few particular ships?
Going back to what was mentioned earlier about crashes potentially happening because the hull sur was poking through the shield bubble and getting hit first, wonder if you have checked whether this might be the case in this instance, probably have because your meticulous, but I thought I’d mention it anyway.
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Forsaken wrote:
ST, no offense to your abilities or anything… but are you absolutely sure it isn’t just a SUR issue?No offence taken at all, I need all the help I can get to find the cause of this problem. If it’s a method problem then I need to find it.
I’ve been struggling with surs for a long time, and many work right away when I use the Sur Splicer method. Others crash right away on launch and are easy to remake. That can be strange, as remaking the same sur from the same parts often works!
I don’t have the problem others have with some parts of a sur not registering hits, this I think is naming problems that I solve by careful naming during the process.
Other methods and also some of my efforts with Sur Splicer run for a while but just refuse to run clean for a long period no matter how many times I optimise the ship groups and remake them.
By optimise I mean I remove thin bits and booms from ships to ensure only the big chunky sections remain for sur building.
So I have been doubting myself, and this is why I have asked others to test the same surs, and Quarks made a new set for me which also failed in the same way mine did - so either we both have bad environments or there is a problem with sur generation.
I have used two PCs for sur building and testing, one is my laptop and the other is a desktop. Same results, a good sur is good on both and a bad one is bad on both.
This particular problem is odd because it takes a long time for a sur to fail, the FLServer.exe crashes. I test them one at a time, there are only these test ships used by NPCs (DevilRay and Manta) and a base ship that kills them. I have some other Nephilim ships that I have made surs for (Moray, Lamprey, TripleSkate) and those fail in the same way, so I am just using these two for testing now.
When I put vanilla surs on the test ships too then the game runs for 12 hours plus with no crashes.
If we can isolate the cause of the problem between us then I’m hoping LS might melt a little and fix it for us, or another expert might generate a new tool or exporter.
But without isolating the precise cause of the problems, if it was me I would not be interested either.
LS hinted at internal lines in the sur, and Bejaymac many years ago fiound the same problem when using the exporter v1.1 (and v1.2 was worse). This is connections between lower-order vertices, which causes the sur shape to be concave and not convex throughout as it should be.
So - if a couple of others would please test the same two surs that I attached and confirm they are clean or crash, and perhaps if you would also test the new surs that Quarks made for me, we can take it from there.
I have used the manual method with Sur Splicer with the best success, other methods are faulty including Sur Builder, which is so close that it is a sad thing.
What is my ultimate goal? A guaranteed method or utility that everyone can use to make good surs quickly without the sweat and tears that I have to go through each time.
All testing and confirmation of good/bad is very welcome, fixing these difficulties will benefit all modders.
Sushi’s 1.5 hours looks promising that the surs are in fact good and it might be my PCs and Quarks’ PC setups.
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Tested for 5 hrs, no crashing. I had to stop because I wanted to use my computer for other things. Not sure what’s up, but the surs are fine with my setup. To review how I tested this:
Empty system. Nothing in it except ambient light.
One base to undock from
Just the ships in questions attacking each other for 5 hrs. I was flying one of them as well.That’s it. 5hrs, no crashing, no errors.
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Sushi, many thanks.
There is another angle I am trying to isolate if you have the time please:-
My crashes happen by a single NPC faction attacking the base ship, and adoxa has narrowed the crash to a possible munition collision.
This doesn’t sound completely convincing to me.
My theory is hull to hull collision, maybe when an NPC with the sur crashes into the base ship hull. It does not crash when I use the same base ship and use any vanilla sur for the NPC faction with the same DevilRay or Manta ship.
Could you please use one faction with the DevilRay or Manta, one at a time, and make them hostile to your base, let them attack it and be killed by the base please?
I really would appreciate you testing this method, it is such an intermittent problem - if it fails for you in this way then we can be almost certain it is a ship to ship collision problem that happens so rarely.
By the way - I am assuming you are not using any error-preventer hack?
Thank you.
