Matrix Games Forums

Hey guys, I hope you can help me with this one. I'm on Day 2 of Nightfall, but every time I go to the mission selection screen, there is only one mission, which flickers very rapidly. I've tried transferring to every ship/squadron, too, and nothing fixes it. The Custom and Single missions work fine, though; the problem is, I just made Grand Admiral, and I'd like to use its privileges in the campaign. Thanks.

Can't anyone help?

Hi,

Starshatter Dynamic Campaign

The dynamic campaign engine in Starshatter is a mission generator.

Conceptually, it is just a really sophisticated version of a random mission generator like you would find in Privateer or Star Wraith. Each mission is designed to meet objectives in the larger campaign, and events that occur during a mission have a lasting impact on the state of the campaign.

But the missions themselves are played in isolation. The simulation environment is active only when you are actually playing a mission, not when you are looking at the campaign screens. There is no "ongoing world" that you join and leave as there is in an MMORPG.

The reason for this design is time scale. In the real world, fighter pilots typically fly only one or two missions per day. In Starshatter, a typical mission lasts from five to fifteen minutes. If the game were to let you fly a mission every ten minutes, the whole war would be over in a simulated day or two - an unrealistically short period of time.

NOTE: Instead, the campaign engine plans missions to occur at hourly intervals. When you are in the campaign screen, you can easily skip ahead an hour or two of simulated time to get to your next scheduled mission.

If this doesn't solve your problem... I don't know what can be done.[:(]

The dynamic campaign and how it actually works is still pretty much a mystery.[:'(]

The problem doesn't seem to have anything to do with the time scale, but in the upper right corner, where the day and time (hours, minutes, seconds) are displayed, it's on Day 1 (instead of 2), with 00 hours, 00 minutes, and around "_189364780" something seconds; maybe this has something to do with the fact that when I go into the "Missions" screen, the mission that is displayed is flickering rapidly and cannot be selected.

Sounds like it isn't advancing appropriately to the next mission. [&:]

I too am having this exact problem. The only possible reason I can think of is the fact that I am using XP x64 edition, but that really shouldn't be a problem...

I know you prolly already tried this, but have you tried restarting the campeign, i'm pretty sure your rank ispersistant... at least to the point of starting the campeighn, but don't quote me on that as I haven't been in your situation...

Yup. I've also tried to reinstall the game, to update my video card drivers, and also to manually set affinity for only one CPU core. I have no idea what could be causing it. I certainly hope it can be fixed on my end, since there are obviously not many who experience this problem.

It would be interesting to hear from zmohner again. Perhaps he has found a solution.

I'll just post my relevant specs:

AMD A64 X2 4200+
2GiB RAM
Geforce 7800GTX (tried with both 84.25 & 84.56)
Shuttle SN25P
Running Windows XP x64 edition.

Sorry fellas, I haven't gotten anywhere on this. I'm really hoping it isn't a 4.0.3 issue, because my computer isn't equipped to handle 4.5.0. If only Milo were here, I'm sure he'd have a solution (wistful)...

I've got the same problem with both 4.0.3 and 4.5.0, so hopefully any solution should work for you too (if we ever fint such a solution [:(])

Edit: I have uploaded the errlog.txt file here. I am guessing that all the stuff that goes something like this:

CMF CreateMission() request: Patrol (no target)
CMF Created 003 'MSN-003 Patrol' Patrol

Campaign::ExecFrame() deleting expired mission 3 start: 9000 current: 5468
Mission::~Mission() id = 3 name = 'MSN-003 Patrol'
ERROR - Campaign::GetMissionInfo(0) could not find mission
ERROR - Campaign::GetMissionInfo(0) could not find mission
ERROR - Campaign::GetMissionInfo(0) could not find mission
ERROR - Campaign::GetMissionInfo(0) could not find mission
ERROR - Campaign::GetMissionInfo(0) could not find mission
ERROR - Campaign::GetMissionInfo(0) could not find mission

may have something to do with my problems? Just thought that maybe, just maybe there were some modders here that had some idea what this could be. (note: the errlog.txt is from version 4.0.3, but the exact same problem also occurs in 4.5.0).

Also, in the start of the file my OS is recognized as win 98, while it is in fact XP x64 ed.

well, onyl other option is to try starting a new pilot, i suppose, I'm not sure though.

Hi,

It's sad but true, the dynamic campaign and its inner workings were never opened up to us players or modders officially.

Those that planned upon making a complete mod makeover were probably given details.

The dynamic mission generator is obviously failing to create the expected mission. Why? There is mention of (no target) and (deleting expired mission 3 start) for some reason in your error log.

Milo could probably figure it out.

But I think Milo is a myth. A ghost. I even think he is mentioned in the Da Vince code[:D]

i just bought this game (the cd version)and im haveing the same problom.  its present in version 402 as well. ive updated to 450 now and it still has this problom. the missions work fine untill i try to load a saved game. then i just get the flickering mission. i see that the mission type changes so its like it trys to make one then stops and trys to make a different one. this kind of sucks because i cant play the game if i cant save my game. i noticed that there is an e-mail address for milo in the 450 update readme file in the game directory. should i or someone else try to e-mail him?

ryan

This has to be really frustrating to anyone desiring to play the games campaign. [8|]
 
Perhaps problems such as this was the reason the dynamic campaign information was never really made available to modders. I've never played past the simulations training mission. I jumped right in to modding. [:D]
 
Now I am dubious of even trying to play the games campaign. [:(] 

the date on my dvd style case is 2004. i dout that another patch fixing this problem will be released on a game thats over a year old(at least thats how things usually are). so unless there is something i can do to fix it im afraid i wasted 52 bucks. its a shame too  because i love what i can play. now im really regreting my decision to get the 12 doller shipping instead of the 7.

theres alwayes the sequel to look forward too at least (there still making that, right?)

That's the rumor.[:'(]

hey  zmohner, if you got all the way to nightfall without haveing any problom did you maybe update or install something that could be causing this?

Has anyone tried emailing milo directly?

i thaught about it, but thats as far as i went

I can't think of any update that I did that could have caused this; I even uninstalled the few mods i had, reinstalled the game, and...still didn't work.  A few days ago, I upgraded my video card, installed 4.5.0, and...it still didn't work.  I've tried everything I could think of.