Oops, I've got the files and have generated paths. About to go to Uni, so i'll upload tonight if possible.

There will likely be a few issues though...
1) Where the heck are "legal" and "illegal" defined If it's the solararch.ini file for jumpgates and the variety of jumpholes, then I'll need to work on this more at some point to parse that and match up the jumpy thing in the systems file to that, to find out whether it's a legal or illegal. Right now, if it's not a "jumpgate" then it's designated an illegal path

2) On servers, in multiplayer, can you not plot a path from NY to say... Omicron Theta if you know the systems already? If so, it's using a different file.

WRT to plotting to the star - I came across this issue if it says there's a path, but there isn't... or something along those lines. For example, it actually ignored (i only tested in OpenSP) the fact there were jumpholes and plotted by jumpgates... so plotting from Li01 to Kyushu with the normal legal (jumpgate) path was correctly plotted.
However, swap in the systems_shortest, so that it'll jump from Shikoku (Ku03?) straight to Kyushu (Ku02) in the path,and it still sets the waypoint to the Ku01 jumpgate (from Ku03), when you enter there are no more waypoints visible although they reappear once you jump into Ku02. I assume that it didn't find the corresponding jumpgate to Ku02 it was expecting, and so then checked the Ku03 -> Ku02 legal path (instead of the saved path Li01 -> Ku02) and saw it had to go through Ku01, so referenced the jumgate? Stabbing in the dark here...

I got the "centre" star when a path was just plain bandicoot... if there is no jump reference to a system called, then it plots the star. Needs more investigation, but i've been busy doing other things (erm, playing games - sorry, got sidetracked :/) recently.

Will get back on it tonight/tomorrow.


Edited by - Chips on 10/5/2007 3:26:26 AM

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On servers, in multiplayer, can you not plot a path from NY to say... Omicron Theta if you know the systems already?

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No, you can't. Nor can you sit in Omicron Alpha (which only has holes) and plot a course to anywhere without the 'no best path'.

Of course, what we are hoping is that you can remedy this.

We have a pure vanilla server up at 72.232.124.90, feel free to pop in there for vanilla testing. We have 5 admins, just tell them you need help and they will (posting this on our private boards). I will turn you friendly with everyone and give you a full map so you can test vanilla settings with no problems. Best times for me 11:30pm EST - 3am. Other admins are on during the day. We just started this server so not a lot of activity yet, perfect for your testing.

Edited by - DwnUndr on 10/5/2007 10:19:22 AM

Chips wrote:
>if it's not a "jumpgate" then it's designated an illegal path[.

This is correct and mandatory as you have already discovered. The "plot waypoint-path" function is hardwired into the game, and requires that the paths in legal_path.ini traverse jump-gates only, not jump-holes. If you insert a path that depends on a jump-hole, the pathing algorithm fails in an ugly mess (plotting directly into a star).

DwnUndr wrote:
> what we are hoping is that you can remedy this.

Unfortunately, that is impossible. The algorithm is hard coded in the EXE. While it's possible to hack the exe to flip variables, it's not possible to hack procedural stuff.

If you had access to the source code, you could change it and recompile. That would be the only way to make it possible to plot a course from/to Omicron Alpha for example (which only has holes).

I'm satisfied with the "no best path" attempting to plot from a jumphole system to a gated system.
I'm glad you saw that bogus "star path" too. (I was actually dumb enough to try it...and got burned up)
I do remember however, during the story line, if you're in a jump hole system when you level up for Juni to contact you (in SP) .. a nice path is set for you all the way to her location.

I have confidence that you will get it sorted out. I feel almost certain that it's something just simply overlooked...that causes the CTD when mapping from one system to another (through legal paths) .

You know, I remember something from a long time ago. In one of the early Monkey Universe mods (1.87 maybe?) they had a clan system called Canada with a planet in the middle and two tradelanes running to it. If you jumped into the system and laid a path it would refuse to use the tradelanes, it would only show you a straight line. Someone commented that it was because the tradelanes crossed the exact center of the map so it threw off the path generator. Has anyone heard of this before? As far as I know it never caused any CTD though.

In Vanilla Freelancer and some mods...
Even if I couldn't map from, let's say Manhattan to Omicron Alpha...
I could map all the way up to the first jump hole to Tau-37, where the legal
path ended there in Tau-31 just beyond Java Station.
-------------------------------------------------
That's the first time I've ever heard of a mapping problem with a planet
in the center of a system.

Rankor writes:

> during the story line, if you're in a jump hole system when you level up for
> Juni to contact you (in SP) .. a nice path is set for you all the way to her location.

Yes, this is a separate search, which uses system_shortest_path.ini

This path file is only used when setting mission-critical paths. When the player is setting paths manually, shortest_legal_path.ini is used instead. Thus you can get "no best path" when you're in free-play mode, but you always get a valid path when you're in mission mode.

> In Vanilla Freelancer and some mods...
> Even if I couldn't map from, let's say Manhattan to Omicron Alpha...
> I could map all the way up to the first jump hole to Tau-37, where the legal
> path ended there in Tau-31 just beyond Java Station.

Yes there is a legal path from Manhattan to Tau-23. (That's where the Tau-37 jump-hole is.)

Again, "legal path" very simply means that you can go there using jump-gates only.

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This path file is only used when setting mission-critical paths. When the player is setting paths manually, shortest_legal_path.ini is used instead. Thus you can get "no best path" when you're in free-play mode, but you always get a valid path when you're in mission mode.

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So I guess substituting the contents of system_shortest_path into the others won't allow us to use those same paths? I will have to test this when I get home tonight.

Edited by - DwnUndr on 10/6/2007 12:48:35 PM

Correct: when the player is trying to set a waypoint-path, but the shortest_legal_path.ini gives a path that would require going through a jump-hole, the game will not understand, and will fail ungracefully.

So it's beginning to look like we should add at least one jumpgate to every system?

I see no reason to recommend adding jump-gates to every system.

If for some strange you want all your systems to be legal (and to be inter-system-path plot-able), then you should add a jump-gate to every system.

The presence of a jump-gate just means the system has been "colonized by Ageira," which means it's path-able from your Ageira Navmap Computer.

Obviously the regular (un-modded, "vanilla" version of the game has several secret systems, reachable only by jump-holes. The lack of jump-gate is supposed to confuse the onboard computer, thus the "no best path" message.

There would be at least one good reason to add jumpgates
or replace a few jump holes with jumpgates.
We're further down the road into the future and colonization has spread
as the population has grown. Perhaps we've found some new systems
which already have the ancient alien jump gates in them and we simply
(perhaps unwittingly) opened up the path to them.
(now that opens up a can of "worms" as well as additional adventures, missions
and story possiblities)

Hey, Chips!!!

Where are ya, pal??

STOP playing shootem-ups by yourself and get our utility finished, 'urry up!

Blimey, O'Riley!!

Roleplay: - the art of self-deceipt!

Whilst visually going through the paths created, i've come across a problem.

Some paths are just plain missing. Need to look through the code again to see why it's not registering a path from Bw01 to other systems for example.

*edit* Actually not true, they are in the output just fine. Confusing, gawd knows

Will have to overhall the code eventually anyways. When? Dunno, back at uni and work is already piling up. Final year you see, got a project on Agent Based System to Model Civil Violence

**edit 2**
Had idea on how to factor in the distances for jumps. Bredth first, but this time factor in the distances between jump points. Have an overlaying "shortest distance" at the start, which is set to a HUGE number. Then, whenever a valid path is found, compare distance of this path to the "shortest". If it's less than this - make it the shortest and continue (obviously record route too!)
Exits once every path it's currently examining is greater the current shortest value... that means they'd need to be a way of recognising the "depth" you've reached on the search - and as a new depth is reached where every previous node on the depth of the search tree is greater in dist than shortest, it exits.

Make sense? Probs not

Edited by - Chips on 10/9/2007 6:36:53 AM