Minimum race requirement?

[ZeroGScott]

Quick question, has anyone made a mod with less then 20 races? I tried adding just 2 or so and the game would crash until I added 20 races. Is that a hard coded requirement or is there some undocumented requirement/setting I need to change to allow less races. Does anyone have any experience with this?

I mainly want to understand why 20 is the arbitrary number and if anyone else has made a mode with less then 20 races.

Thanks in advance.

[HeinrickArchsider]

You will need to edit the race biases file with the information about the new races you are adding.

Be warned the race biases file is vary picky about the syntax and being off by even a little bit will cause your mod to fail.

[ZeroGScott]

Yes I edited the biases file and made sure it aligned well but still have this problem. To be clear I can load the theme without a crash, setup a game as normal, then when it begins to create the game it crashes. Thanks for the reply as well!

[HeinrickArchsider]

Could you post the crash log? or is it just a CTD?

[ZeroGScott]

Unfortunately I can't post the image since I'm so new and can't post till 7 days after my tenth post. Is there a log file created somewhere I'm missing?

[Bingeling]

There is a crash log in the folder above the SaveGames folder. Looking at the usually rather short call chain can give a hint of what fails since the method names displayed make sense.

It should be in something like: Documents - My Games - Distant Worlds Universe - 1.9.5.12 -

And have crash in its name and be a text file.

[ZeroGScott]

Well I couldn't find any crash text files at that location. It doesn't crash to desktop so it probably doesn't make a crash file. Its a very long error message, it fills up most of the popup window, I can't make sense of any of the calls or variables, or at least anything that would hint what the problem is. Thanks for the help.

Guess I could type it out. [8|]

[ZeroGScott]

Error Details:

System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Index was out of range. Must
be non-negative and less then the size of the collection.
Parameter name: index
at System.ThrowHelper.ThrowArgumentOutOfRangeException()
at System.Collections.Generic.List'1.get_Item(Int32 index)
at
DistantWorlds.Types.Galazy.SetupAlienRacePopulations(EmpireStartList
empireStarts, Int32 aggressiveRacesRequired)
at DistantWorlds.Types.Galaxy..ctor(Int32 galaxyRandomSeed,
GalaxyShape galaxyshape, Int32 starCount, Double colonyPrevalence,
Int32 lifePrevalence, Double creaturePrevalence, Double
piratePrevalence, Int 32 pirateProximity, Int64 startStarDate, Double
baseTechCost, Double hyperdriveSpeedMultiplier, Int32 age, Double
aggressionLevel, Int32 maximumEmpireAmount, Boolean
spawnNewEmpire, EmpireStartList empireStarts, String
applicationStartupPath, String customizationSetName, Bitmap
galaxyBackground, Bitmap[] cloudImages, Double difficultyLevel, Int32
sectorWidth, Int32 sectorHeight, ResourceSystem resourceSystem,
Boolean allowGiantKaltorGeneration)
at DistantWorlds.Start.OYWJFHBRu7(GalaxyShape ,Int32 ,Int32 ,
Boolean ,Double ,Int32 ,Double ,Double ,Int32 ,Double ,Double ,
Int32 ,Double ,EmpireStart ,EmpireStartList ,VictoryConditions ,
EmpireVictoryConditions ,EmpireVictoryConditions ,Boolean ,
Boolean ,GameStartResets )

[Bingeling]

How to try make sense of it. Start from the top.

ArgumentOutOfRangeException. It tried to fetch element 42 and there was only 40 elements. Or something similar. The numbers I wrote are random.

At ThrowHelper? Not interesting

At Collections? Not interesting, this is inside the programming lanugage.

At DistantWorlds.Types.Galaxy.SetupAlienRacePopulations - Aha, it was related to creating populations of alien races or similar. Notice it starts with something referencing Distant Worlds

So I can hazard a guess. Something is off when it comes to the alien races. Check that there is no pointer to "race 20 if there is only 19 races", or some other errors with number of commas per line in race setup.

When looking at those, the top line with "Distant Worlds" is the first interesting ones, and the below tells a story of how it got there.
The top line can sometimes be a helper function, if so look one step down.

[HeinrickArchsider]

Basically what bingeling said, your mod is trying to call on something that doesn't exist. OR it's trying to call on something that is out of range meaning past the minimum or maximum variables

It would really help if you could figure out a way to post the files you are modifying so we can look at them direcly.

[ehsumrell1]

SetupAlienRacePopulations(EmpireStartList
empireStarts, Int32 aggressiveRacesRequired)

This also tell me that there needs to be an aggressive race included in the
biases file (Insectoid, Shakturi & probably Ancient Guardians at the least)
something the hard-coded game logic needs to see. Most probably in concert
with one of the games storylines. Just a reach. I never tried to make a mod
with less than 12 races though.
[:)]

[ZeroGScott]

Why would it load at 20 though if this was the case? I'm using a duplicated race file that has the same settings so I haven't added an aggressive race with it, but I also DID change one of the races to aggressive as well just to be sure of this since I noticed that error string as well and it didn't fix it. I also tried adding just the Shakturi files as well with no change. So I don't think its something that obvious. I'm still fiddling with the files though.

I'm trying to figure out a way to give you guys access to the files so you can isolate my modding ignorance. Stand by...

[HeinrickArchsider]

Just post the link to the file download and use () around some of the point in the link to trick the board

[ZeroGScott]

Anyone willing to poke around with my basic file setup can just send me a PM with your e-mail address and I'll send you a zip file.

Can anyone else try and make a quick mod with only 2 races and able to start a new galaxy? Mainly to confirm its not something on my end.

[yummie]

If you scan it and put a report of the scan up, i'd be willing to look at for you and help get it working. But want a virus scan before i do.

[HeinrickArchsider]

Already checked the file it's clean. Im pretty sure its a issue with not having enough races but not really sure.

[yummie]

Probly with biases or messed up one of the inputs for the race, it might be in wrong spot, or your lacking a vital input. That happened to me earlier while i was writing the files. Order does matter. Plus might of labeled it wrong in the save. There are several ways to mess it up. I would have to look at it.

[HeinrickArchsider]

Here's the stuff he sent me.

[yummie]

Ill look at it give me a few, ill look at it

[yummie]

He wrote baises wrong he needs to remove everything after3-21 its expecting more races thats why its crashing. Ill start it up and see if it works and also read through the rest.