I have three small problems which I would appreciate help with.

1: When I attempt to make a weapon submunition into three submunitions, it doesn't do it. It only gives me one submunition.

2: When I attempt to assign my own graphic to this submunitioning weapon, it refuses to do it. It uses 200 rather than using the graphics I am trying to give it (202).

Basically, the setup is that weapon 133 is submunitioning into weapon 132. Both 133 and 132 have the same graphic set (3, or 132.)

I know it is submunitioning into weapon 132, but it refuses to give me more than one submunition and it uses graphic 200 rather than 202, even when I delete graphic 200. What gives?

3: When attempt to add a planet to a previously empty system, it doesn't appear. Everything is set up correctly, but the planet doesn't show up. It shows up on radar, but that's it. I can't even target it.

This post has been edited by Shlimazel : 07 May 2008 - 07:31 PM

Ok, what the hell is this? Now all of my weapon graphics are using graphic 200. They were all working just fine a minute ago, but now for some freakish reason they're screwed up. I just saw a missile fly by, using the blaster bolt graphic. Before all new planet graphics were screwed up. Now it's all new weapon graphics. What gives? Is this a glitch with MissionComputer 3.3.3, or a glitch with my plugin? I'm freaked out.

{edit}

All right. That was one hell of a scare. It looks like that file (aproximately two or three months of labour) is totally screwed. I did, however, thankfully, have a backup. But I am still concerned that this could happen again. What happened? Does anyone have any ideas as to what it might have been?

This post has been edited by Shlimazel : 07 May 2008 - 07:46 PM

I am glad / not happy at all to tell you that it has nothing to do with Mission Computer (that I know of). This had happened to me before when I was adding on to stuff myself. Basically what happened is that your file became corrupt. I have experienced the spob being there but NOT being there thing and the ominous weapon shooting every wep graphic at random! :laugh:

What worked for me was to make a new plug in file and copy the resources I had made over to it. This seemed to fix it for me but may I recommend you break the plug up into several smaller ones. If they are smaller, there is less being saved and less chances for a mistake. Also, if something goes wrong it is a small part of your overall masterpiece. Hope that helped,
Vengeance

Resource forks have a size limit of 16MB, so if you're getting close to that you should spilt into smaller pieces (does MC have a warning for that?). Also, get MC4 - it's more stable than MC3, despite still being in alpha.

This post has been edited by Guy : 08 May 2008 - 07:43 PM

@guy, on May 7 2008, 10:29 PM, said in Some now much larger problems, and maybe even a glitch.:

Resource forks have a size limit of 16MB, so if you're getting close to that you should spilt into smaller pieces (does MC have a warning for that?).

There's one in the documentation, but having heard of several cases like this recently, I think I may add a warning whenever you save a file over a certain size. What would be a good cut-off - 15 MB? 14?

I'd say 14 and 15.

Don't suppose you can detect when it's getting too big before they save?

Maybe you should detect wanted filesize before the save, and offer to split the new to-save resources into a new file. That would be an amazing improvement.

@guy, on May 8 2008, 09:13 PM, said in Some now much larger problems, and maybe even a glitch.:

Don't suppose you can detect when it's getting too big before they save?

It has to be tied to either open or save - otherwise, there's nothing to measure. What I've done is to institute a warning at 14 MB, and a more strongly worded one at 15 MB. I'm not going to do auto-splitting of files, because the resources should be divided intelligently according to what they mean, rather than arbitrarily.

Does the 16MB limit apply to Windows .rez files too?

No I don't think so, but you still need to keep them under 16MB for the sake of Mac users who will be converting them.

@David: Were you going to show file sizes in the info dialog? That would be useful for quickly checking how close you are.

This post has been edited by Guy : 09 May 2008 - 10:17 AM

@nonconventionally-creative, on May 9 2008, 09:31 AM, said in Some now much larger problems, and maybe even a glitch.:

Does the 16MB limit apply to Windows .rez files too?

.rez has much higher limits, being a much more recent creation, but still it would be highly disingenuous to release a plug-in which couldn't be converted to Macintosh format.

@guy, on May 9 2008, 11:17 AM, said in Some now much larger problems, and maybe even a glitch.:

Were you going to show file sizes in the info dialog? That would be useful for quickly checking how close you are.

The issue is that because of the way that file-caching works, it's difficult to give a meaningful size while the file is open.

Hm, could you read and remember the size when you open the file then again on each save? Actually it really isn't that important, the warnings should suffice.

The file is only six megabytes, so it must be corrupt. Thanks for the advice, guys, I think all is better now.

Actually there's still a bug-I had a spob in a system at one time. I deleted the spob, however I cannot get the spob reference in the syst resource to go away. I copied all of my resources over to a new file.

Ugh. And now it refuses to allow my weapon to submunition more than once.... I must be cursed. I think I need to take a break.

This post has been edited by Shlimazel : 10 May 2008 - 04:24 PM

Is it at all possible that there are multiple copies of your plug-in's data installed in your game folder - perhaps an older version dropped in Nova Files by mistake - and the effects you're seeing come from conflicts between them?

@shlimazel, on May 10 2008, 03:24 PM, said in Some now much larger problems, and maybe even a glitch.:

Actually there's still a bug-I had a spob in a system at one time. I deleted the spob, however I cannot get the spob reference in the syst resource to go away. I copied all of my resources over to a new file.

If this is still in MissionComputer, and the problem isn't as I suggested above, can you describe the steps you've taken, and what results you see?

I've just tried the following procedure:

• Open the data file.
• Delete spöb ID 137 (Port Kane) from the main document window.
• Open s˙st ID 128 (Kania). Since the referenced spöb is absent, it appears as a blue circle marked ‘spöb 137’.
• Click on ‘spöb 137’.
• Click on the Remove Planet button, select ‘Remove from System’, and confirm. The planet disappears, and is put in italics in the list.
• Close the window.
  I tested this in both 3.3.3 and 4.0a6, and in both cases the spöb reference was properly deleted.

@guy, on May 9 2008, 09:34 PM, said in Some now much larger problems, and maybe even a glitch.:

Hm, could you read and remember the size when you open the file then again on each save?

The problem is that no matter whether I report the size of the saved file on disk, or that of the file in cache containing unsaved changes, there's a possibility of misleading the users depending on whether or not they end up saving the changes. I think the warnings are the most appropriate way to handle the issue - except when it presents a clear danger, reporting the file size is really more the Finder's responsibility than MissionComputer's.

Quote

Is it at all possible that there are multiple copies of your plug-in's data installed in your game folder - perhaps an older version dropped in Nova Files by mistake - and the effects you're seeing come from conflicts between them?

No, I'm afraid that's not it.

Quote

If this is still in MissionComputer, and the problem isn't as I suggested above, can you describe the steps you've taken, and what results you see?

I've just tried the following procedure:

• Open the data file.
• Delete spöb ID 137 (Port Kane) from the main document window.
• Open s˙st ID 128 (Kania). Since the referenced spöb is absent, it appears as a blue circle marked ‘spöb 137’.
• Click on ‘spöb 137’.
• Click on the Remove Planet button, select ‘Remove from System’, and confirm. The planet disappears, and is put in italics in the list.
• Close the window.
  I tested this in both 3.3.3 and 4.0a6, and in both cases the spöb reference was properly deleted.

Alright, first of all, I'm pretty sure I deleted the spob via Remove Planet > Delete Planet Entirely. I could be mistaken, I may have deleted it from the plugin directly.
Then I used Remove Planet > Remove from system.
It disappears and puts it into italics in the list.
I close the window, and reopen the Syst resource.
The spob, however, has not been removed. It's still there. The evidence suggests that I can continue removing it as long as I want to.

Here is the error I see in the debuglog; warning: ignoring reference to nonexistent stellar ID 140 in system NS-1 (131)

Also, another thing; I have been trying to make a weapon which submunitions into three separate bolts, but the weapon doesn't want to submuntition. At all. And certainly not into more than one submunition. The strange thing is that it looks like it is submunitioning (I've witnessed it disappear and have another bolt appear in its place, as if it had submunitioned) but it can't actually be submunitioning.

Perhaps I could send you the file and let you take a look at it?

This post has been edited by Shlimazel : 10 May 2008 - 06:03 PM

@shlimazel, on May 10 2008, 07:00 PM, said in Some now much larger problems, and maybe even a glitch.:

Alright, first of all, I'm pretty sure I deleted the spob via Remove Planet > Delete Planet Entirely. I could be mistaken, I may have deleted it from the plugin directly.

That shouldn't make any difference - if anything, a problem is more likely with deleting the planet directly rather than from the s˙st editor, which is why I tried it that way.

@shlimazel, on May 10 2008, 07:00 PM, said in Some now much larger problems, and maybe even a glitch.:

Perhaps I could send you the file and let you take a look at it?

That may be a good idea - I can at least check whether the problems have anything to do with MissionComputer. Is it small enough to post to the forums?

No, it's around 24MB. I could upload it to my file upload service and send you a link to the file. Would this be OK?

Do what I did for when I asked about my plug. Make a new plug file and copy over everything except the desc's and graphics. This makes it A LOT smaller and you compress it making it even smaller. You should be fine.

Maybe he deleted the spob and the syst thought it was still there so when it went in game it had 2 of the "Nova's" planets there but there can't be 2 of the same planet so 1 wasn't REALLY there?

And why do I keep putting text in bold to talk. You guys know what's important.