This is a popular one in the support email. If you define command points for something you have to define the corresponding squad defs. Its like defining N many elements in an array and then not filling them out (a very common operation in many of the Sins data files). Not filling them out will crash the game.

If I'm understanding this right (and I assume I am), this sort of thing is why people complain about the more arbitrary hardcoded limits. I wish the capitalship entitytype was available for usage outside the cap factory so people could circumvent all this craziness (padding frigates out with duplicate squad defs just to get a certain # of squadrons to work??? why is # of command points linked to # of types of fighters in the first place?). It's already a pain in the ass to port stuff to Entrenchment and it seems like a one step forward two steps back sort of thing for these sort of things to pop up. Or people can work around it by using a passive buff to add fighters, but since you're limited to 5 abilities and to do any heavy, TC-level changes to ship-based gameplay requires at least a couple ability slots, that's not really an option.

Re; it being AI only: that's fine I guess, but can you imagine working on a TC mod for 1-2 years, incorporating all the Entrenchment stuff into it, etc, then saying the thing's MP-only because the AI can't build strike craft properly? To me that seems hilariously broken.

I'd imagine the same squad def would be broken, so you'd probably have to rename one. But to impact usability like that is crazy.

I've tested it with 4 squad types and 2 command points, and it didn't crash.

So as Dolynick thought, duplicating the squadtypes (ie 2 slots of fighters, 2 slots of bombers) fixes the bug... upto 4 command points anyhow. I haven't tried any command points greater than 4 though.

then maybe consider that i was suggesting removing the empty squad defs?

Sadly, this also causes problems of a different sort:

The game will freeze (not minidump) when either a player or the AI attempts to build strikecraft on a carrier set up like that.  It appears that each squad def does have to be a unique entity from the others.

-dolynick

Changes to what?  I know you are having trouble with my SG-Races mod but this particular bug has been worked around in the current release version of that mod.

-dolynick

I took another shot at workarounds to this issue and discovered another important little bit about it.

Once you fill in all 4 available squad definitions, you may exceed the # squad defs >= command points limit.

So, to rehash the issue:

-With two available squad defs filled in, you may only have 2 or fewer command points on a frigate.

-With three available squad defs filled in, you may only have 3 or fewer command points on a frigate.

-If all four squad defs are filled in, you may have as few or as many command points as you see fit.  I tested with 4, 8 and 12 command points and it works fine.

Blair mentioned to me that it had to do with array lists being used for squads.  It would seem that if there is an blank entry in the array list of squad defs and the command points are high enough to allow building of more squads than there are types definied, the AI will cause the game to minidump.  If there are no blank entries then the AI has no issues with any number of command points.

Once again, this only applies to entity type "frigate" entities.

-dolynick