New race = mass string crash

from Sins Forums

So, I decided to try to add a new race. Did some forum searches, yielded some results, set to work.

 

First of all, the error;

 

Text FileArchive missing Label.

File: C:\Users\Botemaster\AppData\Local\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Mods-Entrenchment v1.041\In The Admiral's Service\GameInfo\CAPITALSHIP_PHASEBATTLESHIP.entity
Label: renderShield
Line Number:237
Line Contents:maxAccelerationLinear 100.000000

If I skip this the game proceeds to give me thousands of similar label errors on files I haven't ever touched or files that worked previously before.

 

What I did:

I cloned PlayerPhase and changed the name string,

raceNameStringID "IDS_PLAYERRACENAME_XY"

Changed one ship to a new ship I added,

    frigateInfo
        Page:0
            count 6
            entityDefName "Xy_Vallus"

 

Leaving the counts exactly the same (I replaced the Scout)

For the Vallus, I took out the Phase LRM frigate and changed the weapons. I changed the name to Xy_Vallus and description to Xy_Vallus_Disc.

I added these three new string labels to the English string file and upped the number by 3 accordingly.

I took out GalaxyScenarioDef and made the following changes;

playerTypeCount 5

playerType
    designName "Xy"
    entityDefName "PlayerXy"

    groups 7
        group
            condition
                type "PlanetOwnerIsRace"
                param "Xy"
            owner "PlanetOwner"
            colonizeChance 1
            items 3
                item "Phase:Module:FrigateFactory"
                item "Phase:Frigate:Constructor"
                item "Phase:Frigate:Constructor"

 

To complete the task, I added both Xy_Vallus and PlayerXy to entity.manifest. Upon spending about three hours trying to fix the errors, I also added Xy to the strings accordingly, but this has done nothing to fix or change the error. I have rebuilt the files several times with no change in the error. If I remove the two files from the manifest I still get the error. I removed all saves and recordings, but still got the error. I eliminated the Vallus from the equation but this did not fix it either.

 

I have to make note that most of the race information I found was fairly old, and as there doesn't seem to be any single collection of updated information, I am certain that I have either done something wrong or something has changed between versions that invalidates what I have done. Or there is something retardedly simple that I'm not getting.

I'm ready to do the voice acting and everything for my new race's advisor but first I want to make them actually work.

omg plz halp

modding
13,597 views 19 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

basically you took out a line that the game deems critical

had this issue myself

its really not that critical but the game gets grumpy about it

just go back to the originial file and rework the code so that you only replace lines and not remove

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

I haven't removed any lines... not that I know of, anyway. I've added my strings and entities onto the ends of both related files, and inserted the appropriate code for the GalaxyScenarioDef rather than removing anything (which I didn't need to do anyway).

 

I thought that it might be some obscure like that but I don't recall having ever actually deleted lines...

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

possibility of adding can do so as well, the game gets picky like that

like for instance, even though an ability may have only one level, it wants three levels recorded, and if you add a fourth level you get the same issue, its wierd sometimes

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

I was just about to critique your entire post and tell you what you may have skipped. Judging from the error, you probably didn't skip anything, but rather forgot to include things you did do in your post.

The error indicates you forgot to add something to your files.

renderShield TRUE

This line should be between these two. . . like this.

 

ShieldMeshName "Shield_PhaseBattleship"

renderShield TRUE

maxAccelerationLinear 100.000000

 

Here is how to interpret your particular error message. It may come in handy in the future.

 

Text FileArchive missing Label. The game knows precisely the problem, but it isn't going to fix it for you.

File: C:\Users\Botemaster\AppData\Local\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Mods-Entrenchment v1.041\In The Admiral's Service\GameInfo\CAPITALSHIP_PHASEBATTLESHIP.entity The game is telling you precisely which file contains the error
Label: renderShield The game is telling you what is missing
Line Number:237 at this line
Line Contents:maxAccelerationLinear 100.000000 and this is what is here instead.

The repetition of the error is because it skips to the next line looking for the missing information. If it ever did find it, it would then look for maxAccelerationLinear until it reaches the end. This is why everything must be in proper order.

My conclusion is that the file for your ship (and possible all your ships, but only the ones you added from Forge Tools) is very old. You probably took them directly from forge tools, and forge tools directories have not been updated for some time.

My suggestion is that you visit this link: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/353296

If a new version of your preferred type of sins is released, here is what you do. Take the new conversion file from the Sins Main Directory (ie: ConvertData_Diplomacy). Paste it in the GUI converter directory. Rename it to the new version of your preferred sins (ie: ConvertData_Diplomacy.95, this is Beta 3 which has not had its ConvertData updated into the GUI). Then copy and paste, for this example, the Diplomacy folder (which is in the Sins main directory) into the "Mods-Diplomacy v0.95" folder, which is the directory for the latest version of Diplomacy, appropriate for this example. 

Check your download directory to see if you already have the appropriate converdata you desire. It recognizes which to use based on which version of mod directory you have (based off the directory's name, I think, not sure.) Anyways, that's how it's worked for me.

You'll now have all the appropriate files with no errors, up to date, to mod at your own whims. I personally make the entire files from scratch.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Hmmm. I wonder if there's some change between versions that demands some alterations of the steps I've taken to get the race to work correctly. I just can't find any information about that, though. This game gets pretty perplexing sometimes and I've only just begun playing around with it.

I'll try moving my code around, but there's not really a lot I can do considering I haven't even done that much to begin with.

 

/e Oh, someone posted right as I did. I'll check this stuff out.

 

/edit 2

Okay, I'm kind of curious; why is it giving me an error about this ship now, after I've been using this file for several days without issue?

It is indeed missing that line, and this is an old file... but it didn't cause this problem before. Odd how that works. I guess I'll have to rebuild the data.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

This game includes a few new lines or less in some updates for a group of similar entity files, or any other sort of files. When the game updates, copy/paste your mod into the new directory, and you should eventually be able to interpret what the error popups mean and update all your files in less than 30 minutes.

 

That particular addition occurred a while ago. Perhaps you unknowingly recently updated your game. The renderShield code was added sometime around late Summer. Most things, even things without shields, make this value as TRUE. Rarely is it FALSE. The latest Forge Tools came from before this line was added.

 

Oh, and make sure you actually run the program, after having done all that copy/pastya/rename stuff. Select the mod folder.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Well it only started giving me the error after I started trying to add the new race; I had the ship working late last night when I was playing about with the beam textures. Perhaps it's possible the game can work without that in the ship file, but the other files such as the GalaxyScenarioRef are grossly outdated and are causing problems. In any case I'll get the updated files and rebuild these ones.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

I am not sure how you would run without the renderShield TRUE in any ship entity file for so long. The game either chose to ignore your ship entity for some reason, or you only recently unknowingly updated.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

I was at 1.041 Entrenchment for the durations of all my tests and haven't run Impulse or used multiplayer since then.

I don't know how that works, either. But that's what happened. *shrug* If I can just get it working again I'll be happy.

 

/edit


Excellent! I've got the game to load although now it's throwing me errors about triangles for several of my meshes that were, again, working perfectly fine previously. It also throws me "Failed to convert 'PlanetOwnerIsRace' to an enum value."

 

Despite this, my race loads, though without any of the objects they're supposed to load with (I suspect because of that error). I think I can fix that.

Not sure about the mesh errors, though. Those are weird...

In any case, thank you for your assistance - now we're making progress.

 

The Vallus.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

Did you have the ship added to a race before making the new race? I think when it loads that it only checks those frigates that is registered in one of the race files. An example is that if you have an ability that refers to a buff that doesn't excist it won't say anything when loading the mod. Then if you hover your cusor over the ability ingame you will get an error telling you that it couldn't find the buff and then minidump.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

What were the mesh errors?

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

gruntmaster -

Until I added the Vallus, all of my previous ships were just replacing vanilla ones.

Aractain -

Something about verticies overlapping on triangles or something. I suspect it's from a few of the extrudes and can possibly be welded. Some of the errors were also related to the weapon pivots which I fixed manually - porting from 3ds max to XSI really screws with the pivots (and the tangents as well, it smooths the crap out of the model and when we try to fix it we get a bunch of strange white lines appearing on edges, and my friend doesn't really know anything about XSI so fixing these problems is very difficult).

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

Make sure you get to the bottom of all those errors. They can cause a minidump over time.

Sins models cannot have any overlaps, or they will eventually do some motion near something else which will cause a minidump. Two things to note when making sins models. . . 

1: If taken from another source (not from scratch), they must be heavily simplified in comparison.

2: No collisions (or overlapping) allowed. lol

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

We have ironed out most of the errors. Some were from ngons.

Now we're just having weird problems with one of my ships having strange holes in it for some reason.

Also, tangents. Dear God tangents. They either smooth out the model to crap or you can play with them and fix the smoothing but then they make a ton of these weird lines.

Yeah, we're not really liking XSI.

 

argh lines

But hey, I've got a ton of sound effects made already and a portion of my sound track figured out, as well as a ton of custom particles, some with my own textures, some with Bailknight's. If there's anything I'm good at with this game it's making glowy explodey stuff.

Unfortunately, Particle Forge has a habit of doing this;

and there is NO WAY TO GET THE WINDOWS OUT OF THE TOP AAAAAAARGH man I've tried everything from changing resolutions to moving with keys to flailing around and screaming while bathing myself in the blood of a million virgins. Those windows just don't want to get out of their perch up there.

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top

I had the same problem as you with particle forge and the solution is quite advanced. Ok hold on what you have to do is... press on the bar on the right and lift it up! It took me like days to find out that, that was what I oversaw xD.

Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top

Im seriosuly confused about those white dots myself, I saw a refrence to them being a driver issue once? They arn't something wrong with the model though (as far as I can tell).

 

Its an anti-alising artifact.

Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting gruntmaster1, reply 15
I had the same problem as you with particle forge and the solution is quite advanced. Ok hold on what you have to do is... press on the bar on the right and lift it up! It took me like days to find out that, that was what I oversaw .
End of gruntmaster1's quote

omfg are you serious I never noticed that white bar YET IT'S SO OBVIOUS ARGH. That's a pretty retarded oversight comparable to some of the ones I made in my starcraft days. Sheesh.

 

Aractain > Well that's both good news and bad news. The good news is that we can keep using the new tangent system if it's not the model's fault. The bad news is I have no idea if the driver issue is widespread or will ever be fixed.

 

Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting IskatuMesk, reply 17



Quoting gruntmaster1,
reply 15
I had the same problem as you with particle forge and the solution is quite advanced. Ok hold on what you have to do is... press on the bar on the right and lift it up! It took me like days to find out that, that was what I oversaw .


omfg are you serious I never noticed that white bar YET IT'S SO OBVIOUS ARGH. That's a pretty retarded oversight comparable to some of the ones I made in my starcraft days. Sheesh.

 

Aractain > Well that's both good news and bad news. The good news is that we can keep using the new tangent system if it's not the model's fault. The bad news is I have no idea if the driver issue is widespread or will ever be fixed.

 
End of IskatuMesk's quote

Yeap I am serious, both about the solution and that it took days for me to "solve" it myself xD

Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top

This just makes me feel so silly. I spent so much time trying to fix that... and I was so depressed when it showed up again.

 

I mean, what makes it even worse is that I sent that screenshot to several people - including a guy who is in commercial work doing network programming and such - and they had no idea. No one noticed the vertical bar.