Thursday, September 29, 2011

NCCS v0.8, Upcoming, Part IV

Otherwise titled: delays.

For those who don't follow the sometimes meandering comments in other posts, an issue has developed with the sorters.

An unresolvable one, as far as I can tell.

I set up some diagnostics and resetter functions. The quest runs, the dialogue command to the quest script works... and then nothing. The script hangs before any actual sorting takes place. The problem is it's not a code issue.

The script worked 100% until just a few hours of play time ago. I'd guess somewhere around the fifty-two hour mark. Since then, it dies every third or fourth use; and the only way to get it back up is to clean save. Annoying at best.

Tried stopping and starting the quest, tried forcibly resetting the sorting variables. No luck. It's in the script itself, and it seems to be corrupting in the savegame. Clean save flushes all this data, so the script is entered anew when you re-add the plugin.

Trouble is, there isn't a whole shit ton I can do about the issue. I'm already not re-using saves -- I create a fresh one each time, and periodically clean out all the old ones for space's sake -- and there's no real way to reset a script from within the game. Quests? Sure. But a script is a script until and unless it's removed and added again.

The other two sorters still work fine. For some reason, the game just hates the reloading sorter. Ironically enough, it's the smallest of the three -- but not surprisingly the one I use most. Just goes to show the universe still hates me.

About all I can do is switch to NCCS; see if that reloading sorter craps out regularly too.

This is another case when more information would be very nice. I know the script is the link of failure in the chain, but beyond that? I may as well be throwing darts at a board and attempting to contact dead relatives for tips. Some debug functions in this game would be nice. Except that they'd... y'know, not work. The debug mode would insta-corrupt saves, or refuse to print logs, or something else to make it totally useless.

4 comments:

  1. Did you not post a similar issue with another mod recently? This does sound familiar, and I think the time frame is similar as well. I can't imagine how frustrating this is getting for you. The game engine seems to be tossing hurdles and road blocks into your path at random intervals.

    I wonder if the coding in the game engine itself isn't causing data corruption within the save files. I assume that if that is the case, there would be nothing one could do to fix it.

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  2. For those who don't follow the sometimes meandering comments in other posts, an issue has developed with the sorters.

    It's mentioned in the comments of the last post, and I talked about it a bit in the post before that.

    Poor coding wouldn't be unprecedented for the games.

    As I've mentioned before, when Bethsoft released Shivering Isles for Oblivion, it came on the disc with a massive flaw that corrupted every save game you used with it to the point that after awhile, they weren't even loadable anymore.

    It would not surprise me an iota to find out that NV has something similar going on; albeit at a much slower rate. I do know from experience in three or four games now that stability is inversely proportional to how many hours are on your set of saves. Prior to 12, it's near perfect. Until 25, it's great. From 25 to 50 things go downhill fast, and once you top 50 you're essentially tempting fate.

    Whether there's something anyone can do about it... well, that's largely subjective.

    In a world where NVSE exists, someone can do something, yes.

    That someone just isn't me.

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  3. Sorry, I actually do read all the posts, I just have a tendency to forget what the topic was after reading through a long list of comments that tend to branch off in several different directions at OH! Shiney Thing!

    Our favourite Neko isn't the only one with that issue it seems...

    I guess someone with enough time on their hands and understanding of coding could fix the issue, but releasing the fix to the public would most likely fall under the category of "illegal". Mod the game we can do...touch the source code, not so much unfortunately. Would make for a better game most likely though :)

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  4. I don't know. It's against copyright to mod and re-release the executable, yes; but something akin to NVSE's "loader" is legal as far as I know.

    The trouble is, while I somehow (even I don't understand how) learned to script, I'm useless for real programming. To me, a C++ compiler may as well be Mandarin for all I can make head 'r tail of it.

    The people who do have such skills, either can't do it or don't care enough to -- which in the end amounts to the same thing.

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