Quick question re: NPCs and jumphole/gates

robocop

We’re experiencing occasional server crashes and suspect they may have something to do with the Nomads attempting to use the jumpholes. Is that possible?

Here’s our nomad settings in faction_prop.ini

[FactionProps]
affiliation = fc_n_grp
legality = unlawful
nickname_plurality = plural
msg_id_prefix = ignore
jump_preference = jumpgate
npc_ship = MSN13_Nomad_Fighter_Populator
npc_ship = fc_n_no_fighter_d19
mc_costume = mc_fc
firstname_male = 229608, 229608
firstname_female = 229608, 229608
lastname = 229608, 229608
rank_desig = 197140, 197140, 197140, 10, 15
formation_desig = 197808, 197820
formation = fighters, fighter_guild

jump_preference is set to jumpgate. Does that mean they won’t attempt to use a jumphole?

I only see three settings for jump_preference: jumpgate, jumphole, and any

Short of making sure no nomads populate near the jumpholes, is there a way to prevent them from using the jumps?

Skotty

I would say this can’t cause a crash. If there are no fitting jump holes/gates, they just won’t jump anywhere.
Could also be some broken patrol path or missing NPC.
There is just one thing you can be sure about: If Freelancer Server crashes, its in most cases caused by anything NPC related.

You should try to isolate the trouble-causing system file and then look what is inside it that is NPC related.

J.R.

Same opinion here.
Check the patrolpaths first. I experienced a couple of crashs in the past because of the path was too far from a base or a jumpgate/jumphole.

Something I realised in your post is the names of the faction.
AFAIK–-> Nomads dont use Male names…
But on the other hand you did define a “IDS-range” for the names that doesn´t do prompt anything… so… maybe its just my brainfart.

robocop

the names edit was to allow for missions against nomads without messing up the dialogue (text) during the missions offer. That’s not the problem.

The issue seems to be when a cloaked player ship is loitering around the nomad battlegroup (battleship, gunboats, fighters) for a period of time near the jumphole. The issue does not appear to occur when loitering around the battlegroup near the planets.

This is in the lower unknown with planets gammu and primus.

There are no patrol paths in the system.

Skotty

robocop wrote:
The issue seems to be when a cloaked player ship is loitering around the nomad battlegroup (battleship, gunboats, fighters) for a period of time near the jumphole. The issue does not appear to occur when loitering around the battlegroup near the planets…

In normal cases, Nomads are always attacking you. If NPCs are attacking you, they don’t tend to dock somewhere.
In this case they could dock.

One possible fix, if it is caused by the jump hole: Don’t allow NPCs to use it by adding it to initialworld.ini.
Just add this in the [locked_gates] section:

npc_locked_gate = 2618356613	; Ew06_to_Hi02_hole

robocop

That’s probably the ticket. I’ll give that a shot.

NosFi

We also had crashes caused by missions against nomads on our server.

After a lot of testing we found that:
Missons give you neutrality to nomads that are not part of the mission.
Sitting idle next to a nomad cap spawn (BS, Gunboats and fighters) while being neutral to them caused random crash.

We never solved that problem but my last guess was that the nomads try to hail you when you are neutral to them and i think that triggered the crash.

J.R.

Nos#Fi wrote:

… my last guess was that the nomads try to hail you when you are neutral to them and i think that triggered the crash.

I´m pretty sure that this is not the issue. Nomads don´t scan / hail nor respond to your hail even when your rep is “green” towards them.
maybe the crashes aren´t triggered by the nomad-NPCs but something else ??? Sure… Its hard to find the bug when the chrashes accur only ramdom… But these are just my two cents. Hope you´ll find a solution for this. Greetings
J.R.

FR

2 things you might want to check:

#1
I experienced strange crashes after changing those npc settings

…
firstname_male = 229608, 229608
firstname_female = 229608, 229608
lastname = 229608, 229608
rank_desig = 197140, 197140, 197140, 10, 15
formation_desig = 197808, 197820
…

especially rank + formation design.
I had changed quite a few and just switched it back.
Might have been a spelling error also.

#2
Using moors.dll i encountert crashes, when NPCs tried to use a JH,
which was ‘to small’ for their ship (berth jh with moors shipy).
This was solved by adding NPC only berth ship.

Vital

Skotty. wrote:

There is just one thing you can be sure about: If Freelancer Server

Yeah, the most likely cause