Very annoying!

Ok, so I'm in Pattern_Buffer and I finally figure out how to blockade the Yard gate properly so the corrupt Darwinians won't get away (i.e. the right places to put the armor). I get it all set up, and then for insurance against crashing, I leave and come back. And what do I find? all my armor are in different places, all much closer to the gate! Now when the corrupt darwinians come through they'll be able to get a foothold (by taking over battle cannons)! I don't want this at all! Now I'm going to have to destroy all the cannons and start again! What on earth happened?!?

Ok, this bug is worse than I thought. The armor didn't just move closer to the port, they moved into a configuration I had previously that didn't work out. And a triffid and some virii I killed came back to life.

Apparently, when leaving the area, Darwinia didn't bother to save my progress, so when I went back it brought me to a previous save point (of course, I have no idea how it decides to save progress during gameplay). So I guess what I'm saying is the bug is when leaving an area, it's possible for Darwinia to not save the current progress. And that's very frightening - I no longer want to play an area unless I know I have the time and inclination to finish it.

This issue has never cropped up in the beta, which is strange. Darwinia is supposed to save level progress when you leave a level. How exactly are you leaving levels? Just returning to the map, then exiting?

Yeah. After I got the battle cannons set up right, I decided I didn't want to risk crashing and losing progress (heh, ironic, that) like what happened to me on Yard twice. So I hit esc and selected Leave Level. Then I went right back in, and I found I lost progress.

I also hit a crash in the Yard. (After fighting the gesture system for 90 minutes -- see previous post.)

My plan for tomorrow night is to quit out of the game entirely every 30 minutes. Also, to make backups of my save file. (It's under "Library/Application Support/Darwinia" in your home directory.)

Also, to not bother with the battle cannons. I can't figure out how to set them up against ants. Got a lot farther with suicide squads and grenades.

The battle cannons and armour suck for the Yard level, but they are very useful elsewhere. The armour can be used to complete the Escort level without destroying a single virus, and (SPOILERS, HIGHLIGHT BELOW)
The battle cannons can be set up round trunk ports in the pattern_buffer to stop the infected Darwinians gaining a foothold.

Also, it's armour not armor.

I'm not from the UK. I'll call it Armor if I bloody want to.

I hate to be a stickler for this, but in the game it's called Armour, and since it might cause confusion (even if the chances are very slim) then it should be called by its proper name. It's Introversion's decision, not yours

Agent_Vast, on Apr 5 2005, 12:25 PM, said:

The armour can be used to complete the Escort level without destroying a single virus
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Erm, how? The armour can be destroyed by the virii. Or can armour go over the sea?

Armour goes through the sea. Move the radar on the left island so all the darwinians end up on the right starting island and just ferry 'em over.

I completed it without killing a single virus or losing a single darwinian.

Update on the original topic: It turns out it wasn't failing to save my progress, instead it's some weird bug with armour. I went back to the Pattern_Buffer again after I had beat it and the Receiver, and the Triffid (near the biosphere port) was back again, and my battle cannons (at the yard port) were screwed up again. It's like, when I destroyed the battle cannons, it didn't remember that I destroyed them, but it also doesn't want to put too many battle cannons in one area so it basically re-creates the old battle cannon setup and part of the new one.

Yeah, Darwinia has a screwy save system.

If it's anything like Uplink's, I'm not surprised.

I have had a similar difficulty with 1.4.2. When I leave a level and come back after quitting out of Darwinia, all the virus I've cleared out will be removed, except for the triffids. The triffids will be restored, at least in Reciever and Pattern Buffer, which were the levels I looked at. As may be expected, this can be a problem if, due to unfortunate circumstances, real life requires attention in the middle of a level.

-Gryfalcon

I believe this is due to the "dynamic" field in the level files, I'm sure that anyone who has a bit of time can go through and enable it for all the triffids.

@prophile, on Jun 10 2006, 03:29 PM, said in Surprising armor movement:

I believe this is due to the "dynamic" field in the level files, I'm sure that anyone who has a bit of time can go through and enable it for all the triffids.

There really isn't a dynamic 'field' or 'toggle', though the editor makes it appear that way - each level consists of at least 2 files - a map file, and one (or more) mission files. Everything in the map file is loaded every time the level is loaded. Dynamic buildings, and all enemies, have their entries placed in the mission file instead (Keep in mind that Triffids and Anthills are technically buildings, and can therefore be placed in the map file by accident when making a mod). The mission file is copied to your profile directory on saving (reprogramming a control tower, or, in theory, leaving a level), and any enemies killed are removed from the file before it is saved to the profile.

AFAIK, there are no triffids in the map files for any of the levels anymore (I just checked Pattern Buffer and Receiver). I was checking the win32 data files, but those files should be the same for both the win32 and mac v1.4.2 patch.

What about the 'Global' field - I'm guessing that triffids have to be global?

@prophile, on Jun 11 2006, 11:45 AM, said in Surprising armor movement:

What about the 'Global' field - I'm guessing that triffids have to be global?

The global field is just a toggle. It indicates that the status of a building should be stored in the game.txt file. So, if a building is not global, it never ends up on game.txt, and cannot be used for mission objectives. That seems to be the only thing that changes. Thus, triffids do not need to be global.

xander