pork-free campaign editing?

Campaign editing

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toonces
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pork-free campaign editing?

Post by toonces » 2008-11-16 17:44:21

Hi all.

I'm having a real problem with killing my Falcon installation while editing campaigns. Specifically, I am editing the Nevada theater for Falcon 4 Red Viper.

This is the second time this has happened. I opened up my campaign file in TacEdit (redflag2/save0). I had previously edited this particular file, adding some Phantoms and aggressor A-4s adn F-5s. I also played it and it worked previously.

So, last night, I opened in Tacedit. I deleted two OPFOR armor battalions. I added 2xF-4S to Bluefor and 1xF-4B to OPFOR. Saved in tacedit. Closed. Opened Falcon 4 and got a CTD on start up before the opening screen came up- literally like 5 seconds after double clicking on the RV icon.

Since this has happened before, I had backed up all the original Nevada Red Flag folders. So, I re-named my hacked on, put the original back in place. Still CTD. Went into Tacedit and removed the edits I did...still CTD. Went to F4Patch and changed my starting theater...still CTD. Repeated all of these processes with different angles...still CTD.

Finally, I concluded the install was porked and did a full reinstall.

This in and of itself is painful, but not heartbreaking. But the thing is, I have alot of customized edits to my cockpit folder, editing the .gifs, installing the pits for other planes (like putting the Mirage pit in for the Kfir, etc.) So whenever I kill the install, I have to reinstall my core game, cockpits, then all the theaters, then figure out my edits...reconfigure my controllers, campaign settings, TrackIR...

So, my question is if there is a way to edit my campaigns, but have some sort of backup to save the installation in the event I pork things. I have no idea why Tacedit killed my campaign this time- the edits were truly benign.

Thanks,
Toonces

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Re: pork-free campaign editing?

Post by Sherlock » 2008-11-16 20:03:06

You didn't say that you rebuilt the squadrons and fixed your objectives before saving. If you do these you are much less likely to get a CTD on loadup.
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Re: pork-free campaign editing?

Post by Snake Man » 2008-11-17 08:46:36

Topic moved to more proper area.
toonces wrote:I'm having a real problem with killing my Falcon installation while editing campaigns.
I've been using TacEdit from 2000, to this date it has never broken my F4 installation.
I opened in Tacedit. I deleted two OPFOR armor battalions. I added 2xF-4S to Bluefor and 1xF-4B to OPFOR. Saved in tacedit. Closed. Opened Falcon 4 and got a CTD on start up before the opening screen came up- literally like 5 seconds after double clicking on the RV icon.
You forgot to rebuild squadrons (if what you said was precisely what you did).
Went to F4Patch and changed my starting theater...still CTD.
Huh? You can change theaters from that thing, didn't even know. Anyways, change theaters from the ingame theater selector and not in any patcher.
So, my question is if there is a way to edit my campaigns, but have some sort of backup to save the installation in the event I pork things. I have no idea why Tacedit killed my campaign this time- the edits were truly benign.
Well first you need to establish did you have the correct theater selected and you edited the same campaign files (as you referred to the changing theaters).

Then you need to absolutely sure Tacedit is editing the correct campaign for you, don't just click open and double click on the shown save0.cam file, make sure from the file browser that it really is on the CORRECT DIRECTORY and not in somewhere else. Tacedit to my knowledge, loads the file directory of last loaded campaign file, even though you have properly configured the File -> Properties -> Theater Directory (not sure though). At least for me, its been several times with my many theaters that when I load .cam file, tacedit points to a different directory than I thought it would. This is the reason why I check the theater/campaign directory each and every time I load a campaign file.

Other than that, there is million reasons how you can make your campaign to crash, as Sherlock pointed out, use rebuild squadrons and check objectives etc features. If you just add/remove squadrons then only thing you need to do is to rebuild squadrons.
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Re: pork-free campaign editing?

Post by toonces » 2008-11-18 18:44:38

Ok, I did indeed forget to 'rebuild squadrons'. Funny, this didn't cause a crash before.

Also, it is possible I got the paths confused in Tacedit. I didn't close it in between opening up the different saves (in other words, I browsed through the different saves until I found the file I was looking for, and I know that Tacedit can be fickle with things like that).

Still, what really confounds me is why I can't replace the messed up saves with the backed up saves. Once I had killed my save file, there was no way to restore it to its original state.

This has happened once before. I went into F4Patch in desperation. It was my hope that Falcon was loading up my 'last' campaign which would be the corrupted Nevada theater I was editing. Since it was corrupted, the game was crashing on startup. Without getting to the first splash screen, there is now way to change theaters to a non-corrupted one. So, I went into F4Patch to change theaters hoping that it would load a non-corrupted theater and I could work from there. That didn't work.

I guess the take-away is to be more careful with my editing technique, but I would strongly prefer to have a way to restore a backup file in the event I blow up my theater file through faulty editing.

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Re: pork-free campaign editing?

Post by toonces » 2008-11-25 05:14:15

Snakeman,
Please see the following thread: http://www.freefalcon.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14157

I've once again killed my Falcon 4 installation. I kept very close notes this time, as you can see in the Nevada thread. The campaign was actually working; I flew several missions, took screenshots, etc.

I stopped to post that thread in Nevada, and when I started the sim again, I'm getting a CTD on startup.

If I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong, I'm going to have to give up on this editing business. I can't keep uninstalling and reinstalling Falcon every week :(

Take a look and let me know if you have any ideas what's up.

Thanks,
Toonces

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Re: pork-free campaign editing?

Post by toonces » 2008-11-25 06:30:03

Ok, I got the campaign/sim working again. I went into F4Patch and removed my Aeyes F-4 Phantom pit.

I don't know why this was a problem (the Phantom isn't even in my Nevada campaign) but the sim is working right now so I'm happy and I'll just leave it at that.

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Re: pork-free campaign editing?

Post by Snake Man » 2008-11-25 11:08:15

toonces wrote:I've once again killed my Falcon 4 installation.
I stopped to post that thread in Nevada, and when I started the sim again, I'm getting a CTD on startup.
If I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong, I'm going to have to give up on this editing business. I can't keep uninstalling and reinstalling Falcon every week :(
Trust me on this; you cant damage your F4 installation with Tacedit (if you edit in Nevada\ dir only).

Just take it easy and go slow, don't go browsing the falconroot\campaign\ dir with Tacedit and you'll do just fine. There are million reasons why campaign CTD's, most of the times its overwhelming task to track down / understand whats bugging if you don't have much experience, when you fiddle with F4/campaigns from 2000 like me, sometimes you get that Matrix Neo thing when you just "understand" how it works. OK bit gooky comparison but you'll get my point.

Also one thing is that edit few things then test, then edit more. Don't edit 3-4 hours straight of several different edits into the campaign and then go testing as that time you have several variations which might cause a bug. Just edit one thing, test, if it works then proceed. Saves a lot of time in the long run, believe me.

Again if you have any questions, shoot away and we'll try to help you out :)
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Re: pork-free campaign editing?

Post by toonces » 2008-11-26 04:40:21

Well, I'm crashing again. Same thing as last night. Sim was running fine. I booted up, took a bunch of screenshots. Then I took a break, posted everything to the net. When I booted the sim up again, it started crashing again. Unfortunately, F4Patch has no effect this time around.

I posted the crashlog at freefalcon.com. I don't know how much help I'll get since they're pretty up front about not helping folks that hack their install...but I remain hopeful anyway.

Last resort, I'll back up my current Nevada install, reinstall Falcon, reinstall Nevada, plug my edited campaigns and skins in, and see what happens. Not tonight though.

I'd really just prefer to track down what parameter is messing up my install. I don't 'think' it's my Nevada edits.

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Re: pork-free campaign editing?

Post by Snake Man » 2008-11-26 08:05:56

Okay the next time you got fresh F4 install (or even now when you got it working), RAR up the whole directory and save the packet as backup. Now, every time you mess up the install, then just delete the whole dir and unpack the RAR and you're done. Takes about two minutes depending on your computer speed, much nicer than reinstalling whole Falcon.

You can also copy paste the dir to some other location, but I'd prefer rarring it up, much smaller packet and no files can be accessed in the backup location.

Also as a tip if your F4 crashes as soon you run it, make sure your registry says Korea in the "curTheater" registry entry, perhaps you indeed broke the user made theater you were editing last time around, dunno, might help.
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Re: pork-free campaign editing?

Post by toonces » 2008-11-26 17:59:55

Snakeman,
Thanks for the tips. I'll see if I can figure out how to do that tonight when I get home- I reinstalled last night. I tried reinstalling RV over AF this time around (certainly can't hurt...).

Then I reinstalled vanilla F4 and installed OF over top of that. Now I have a dual install. Been meaning to do that anyway- I haven't tried OF yet.

Now, I posted the crashlog at freefalcon and someone replied that it's an error with the vehicle.lst file. It was only a sentence, and I didn't understand all of what he said, but perhaps it holds some keys to the error in my editing. In other words, maybe something I'm adding with Tacedit (hard to imagine since all the planes are 'normal') is corrupting the vehicles-in-sim file and...well, that's about as much as I can guess at.

Take a look. Let me know what you think.

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Re: pork-free campaign editing?

Post by toonces » 2008-12-02 05:29:56

For closure, this appears to all have been due to a corrupted ckptart folder. I'm up and running after restoring a clean ckptart folder. I may just stop cockpit modding for a while...

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Re: pork-free campaign editing?

Post by Snake Man » 2008-12-02 12:04:20

Wait, are you saying that all your crashing problems have now solved, or just part of them?
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Re: pork-free campaign editing?

Post by toonces » 2008-12-02 17:48:18

Snakeman,
I didn't test my AF install, just my hacked up Microprose install. The Microprose install is working fine across the board.

After I installed the last time, I backed up the whole folder as per your recommendation.

When the install started crashing, I started rolling back changes I had made. Originally I thought it was the A-4 skin. Reversing that didn't work. Then I deleted my cockpit folder and replaced with the backed up version. I had to reinstall my Aeyes pits as well...there was a conflict between F4Patch and the cockpit folder with the backed up copy.

I did that and BAM everything started working again.

Why did the cockpit folder suddenly cause crashes? I don't know. All my cockpit edits were fine for at least a few missions- like that F-117 mission.

Anyway, everything works now, so I'm just going to try not to hack up my cockpits and see how stable the install is now.

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