Spawning probs

[indio]

AL, any reason spawns wouldn't be working with the new haks? They're probably unrelated to the alfa_acr01.hak, but my spawns no longer work. Can't figure why.

[AcadiusLost]

Odd indeed. Honestly, haven't used that hak in quite some time, since we've been working on the NWNx4-enabled ACR getting it ready to roll. The ACR hak I bundled with the CC haks was /supposed/ to be the latest we had before we switched over to NWNx4, allowing servers to test the custom content without having to switch over to SQL-database server dependency.

It may well have some conflicting files in it, though. Have you confirmed that switching back to the older one fixes the spawns?

Also, have you tried entering the module with a DM avatar to check for any spawn system error messages?

[indio]

Good idea.

"Goblins - Low should be active but is not yet spawned" - from the DM client. Fascinating.

[indio]

Oh, it's ok. They're appearing now. I think I changed the start time of my mod to early morning, so commoners weren't appearing till 9am.

Thanks for thee client suggestion...that's really good debug info that I've never seen before.

[AcadiusLost]

Your DM avatar should arrive with a widget to turn it off as well, as I can't imagine trying to DM amidst all that noise.

Reminds me, I should default it to "off" before the next ACR release- so it doesn't become a hassle for the Beta DMs.

[indio]

"Goblins - Low should be active but is not yet spawned"

What does that actually mean AL? My spawns, even the ones not set to spawn duirng daylight hours, are not all spawning it seems because of something to do with this message. Commoner spawns are ok, but some spawns (like my start area merchant and mobs) just get this message.

[AcadiusLost]

I'd have to see the rest of it to say with more certainty.

Should be Active but is Not Yet Spawned means the test on the waypoint to determine if it should fire came back as TRUE, and the system recognizes that the spawn hasn't fired yet.

Usually it would be followed by something along the lines of "Spawning Goblin - Low", potentially followed by an error of some kind if there was something else interfering.

Might be something else in the settings on the spawn waypoint- check the spawn random range and radius settings, if those are set, it may be trying to spawn inside a wall or in the unwalkable gutter of an exterior. There are a few other conditions that could also override the "Should be active" imperative- generally it will keep retrying to spawn the point every pseudoheartbeat (6 seconds or so) so long as that remains TRUE, with the spawn point itself still unspawned.

If you want, I can try to poke in with a DM client and look, though without also having the spawn point settings handy I wouldn't be able to say much definitively.

Guess we'll need an IG tool to view and adjust spawn point settings soon- maybe someone savvy with GUI coding could help make a frontend for one, miles better than doing it via conversation with an item (a la omega wand).

[indio]

DM password is nyphithys.

The spawn settings are pretty basic. All mob spawns are set to infinite wth a 4-6 hour delay. Most mob spawns are drawn from group scripts.

[AcadiusLost]

Had a brief look in this evening- Rivermoot seemed to be spawning properly, even after being despawned for inactivity, and returning again. Two lairs I AT'ed into seemed to work properly as well, though one was getting quite a few errors on trying to spawn a "Random Loot Spawn".

The one area I tried that definitely seemed to be nonfunctional was High Hold- the spawn heartbeats were firing, but it wasn't iterating though any spawn points at all in that area, very odd indeed. No wolves, no undead, no sculptor, no townsfolk or guards. Could it be an issue with the area events not being set properly? Strange, because I've seen that area working before. Looking at the waypoints in the creator, there were many that seemed to be unnamed (came up as blanks in the chooser). Not sure how many of those are spawn points. For debugging, might be useful to rename the instances of spawn points so you can tell them apart in the spawn system logging- for example Rivermoot has a giant pile of "Example Day Spawn" points, presumably for the commoners and trademen in the town center, but if the waypoints had names, could tell which were which. Probably not the best example, since they were working fine.

Sorry I don't have anything more definitive to offer at this point.

As an aside: did you import the alfa_pctools.erf from the http://www.alandfaraway.org/downloads/N ... /builders/ folder? I can see PC tools in the context menu, but it doesn't seem to be bringing up the custom GUI for me.

Also: the 5-part PWC works fine, though some may not be familiar with the multipart download assembly process.

[indio]

Much obliged mate. I'm in the process of renaming the waypoints now that I've poked around in the DM client a bit.

I'll take a look at High Hold, which was the area that didn't work for me either.

By the way, I love the way you've done the system. Getting spawn messages about what's happening and when is actually very useful, especially the despawn messages. Once I've got some server traffic again I'll start monitoring how performance is impacted with areas spawned and then with areas despawned, just to see if we can tweak anything. Very useful.

[Kaosodin]

hey guys, having a bit of a spawn problem my self, i think i undertsand how to set up the WP's for mobs now.

but my problem, nothnig is spawning...... or do i have to be runnung in server mode with connection to the ALFA Sql stuff?

what i mean is, are spawns totaly server side? if there not spawning means i did somethnig wrong?

or do i need to be "connected" to the rest of the worlds and what now....

hmmmmm.... hit me up with the answer, thanks

kaosodin

[AcadiusLost]

Apolologies on that, should have forseen the problem when we were talking earlier. While the spawn system itself isn't dependent on the persistency systems, I suspect it's not completing the module's initialization after loading the module (instead just continuing to try to find the persistency database).

The most complete solution would be to have you install a local MySQL database for your test module to associate with, that way you can test away and track the persistency data written for quests, and the like. I've helped Wynna and Teric set up these so far, and they seem to be fairly painless- I'll give you the cliff notes version in advance of the tutotial I haven't found a chance to write yet.

1. Download MySQL server (free edition) http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.0.html#downloads

2. Install the server with the following options: (not necc. in this order)
-Manual configuration
-Developer Machine
-Decision Support
-Mutifunctional DB
-Disable TCP/IP
-Enable Strict Mode
-Install as a Service

3. Remember your root password. Once you've activated the MySQL server process successfully, open the SQL command line client from the start menu - log on with the root password you defined during installation of MySQL.

4. Once you have the prompt, type: "CREATE SCHEMA nwnx;" then enter. You should see a "1 row affected" message. You've now set up your database.

5. Go into your NWNx4 directory, open up the xp_mysql.ini file. You'll want the following settings to get it pointed at your local DB:

Class = SQL

server = localhost
user = root
password = (whatever your root password is)
schema = nwnx

loglevel = 1 (or 2 if you want to see everything)

6. Might be worth confirming in xp_sqlite.ini that Class = SQLoff

7. Now launch your module with the NWNx4 GUI, and you should have database connectivity. If you use an SQL browser, you should be able to see records for your server, and much more as you begin to test.

Hope this works, let me know (since this was from memory, no guarantees)

[Kaosodin]

OMG, if that was from memory..... thats pretty good, hehe.... ok i will do what you said....cool, thanks again friend.

[Kaosodin]

ok during the database setup i got to the point where it says press enter to execute, and i do, and it goes through a few of the configuration steps. but gives me a error stating "the service could not be started Error 0"

is this a big deal?

[AcadiusLost]

I think Teric got that the first time around - wish I knew the why and how of it- try going through the server configuration again (start menu -> MySQL ), if that doesn't work, try reinstalling- that seemed to fix it for him.

(I did look up the link, that part wasn't from memory)