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Playthrough Test(2022-10-12)...

Mystical Panda

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This is a new playthrough test for the latest SS2 release(the last game became unstable after lvl 50+). The load order is the same as last time, with this instance not having any plugins or scripts updated during a current game which I think caused most of the problem(but this is still the test and debug stage).

In this playthrough I'm using the default City Plans that come with SS2 as no other plans are in the load order, and I have Sanctuary, Red Rocket, Abernathy Farm, Starlight DriveIn and Sunshine Tidings Co-op working on their respective level 1. I'll be adding additional beds and push settlers to settlements as they are encountered 'in the wild'.

To start, I'm attaching a text file from the current papyrus log, filtering for 'ss2'. There a few entries at the beginning where a script is missing? or a few properties don't match. Not sure if this will be of use, but your welcome to it.
 

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The script property errors are caused by editing scripts, recompiling but not updating the properties set on the form with the script attached. Read: CH3 stuff. Don't worry about it.
The log is also populated by a lot of errors caused by race conditions on a new game start. i.e. a function call to an object that isn't initialized yet.

Did the new game start resolve your Rename Anything Enhanced issue?
 
The script property errors are caused by editing scripts, recompiling but not updating the properties set on the form with the script attached. Read: CH3 stuff. Don't worry about it.
The log is also populated by a lot of errors caused by race conditions on a new game start. i.e. a function call to an object that isn't initialized yet.

Did the new game start resolve your Rename Anything Enhanced issue?
That's good to hear. Unfortunately, no- I even tried reloading the names using the holo-tape without success. I believe the last game save eventually corrupted itself with all the in-line updates that was done over the course of that playthrough with the VM de-syncing itself more than once, which I thought could explain the problem. There was a point where the frame rate starting dropping fps abnormally(just the one time- I was away from settlements) until it was around 1 frame a second. This eventually resolved itself, but the water and food icons response time wouldn't show/hide properly- almost as if it still 'stuck' on the same timing cycle that caused the lag. This didn't happen until way into the game at that point.

I'll be coding in an extended report to tie the game session time with the crashes and add a few more to do some 'as it happens' monitoring- nothing fancy, just using the data available in text files. There about three functions I'll need to add... not sure how long it'll take, but when it's complete I'll upload the results. But I do have looking more into the name loading problem here on the 'docket' as time permits... maybe even, if possible, edit a few scripts and/or take a look at the SUP code(if it's available) and see if anything might stand out or help trace where the actual problem is originating from.

As far as SS2, I've just completed helping Jake meet with the Gunners up by Satellite Olivia and everything has worked normally. There's a problem, for me at least, with an incompatibility with BNS(at first glance) and the animation that plays when the ex-Gunner meets Jake at a settlement that was destroyed. From what I can tell, because there's a 'group' of trees in the way, I'm stuck behind that and can't move, therefore cannot interact(get close enough) with the characters. I tried moving myself to myself, disabling the tree but unfortunately the animation had me 'locked in' and I couldn't move. So for that, I just completed that part of the quest using the holo-tape cheat without triggering the animation.

The settlements seem to stabilize on their own(an occasional engine problem with the 4292 value) once I re-visit them with the city plans seeming to get things in order given enough time. Though, each time there's an upgrade when I'm not there, I believe this recurs and is fixed by me having to re-visit the settlement.

Currently, at level 17 and 5-6 settlements running 'under their own resolve'(involvement is none), there hasn't really been any issues except- once settlers starting appearing in Concord I got a ctd just in front of Alyssa's house with Buffout 4 showing a 'loose filestream'. Up until that point, there wasn't any crashes. It did crash once on reload just before her house(after the first one- the house was empty), and if I remember correctly most of these on past games happened when I was coming from Abernathy heading to Red Rocket just shy of Concord. After one of the SS2 patches this pretty much disappeared altogether with the only difference being there were walls up and new objects being placed that I could now see, whereas prior to that there's wasn't any of that visible development other than what's in a few houses and the Concord church.

So, initially, I'm wondering if this has something to do with dynamically placing objects in an open world space which is catching the engine, a plugin dll, or something at the wrong time.
 
It's starting to look like anytime a plot is upgraded in a settlement, a re-visit is in order to re-sync the pipboy values. I'll test waiting more than an in-game day, but I'm pretty sure it's going to stay out of sync for some reason or another. I don't have it configured to only upgrade when I'm there, but once I arrive a bunch of upgrades start happening- not the actual building as there was NO scaffolding present, just the final phase of update taking place and the messages(as though they were hung up) start flooding in.

The case in point was Starlight DriveIn. That one was showing a low bed count along with similar 'issues' with other settlements. So time to re-visit. Once I arrived at Starlight, there was no scaffolding present as nothing was in the process of being built but not less than a dozen messages popped up showing improvements to homes and just about every other type of plot there.

So if the process is: tear down--> un-assign --> upgrade --> re-assign, and there's a check that hangs up that process until I visit(remember I don't have that set) then the numbers will be 'out of sync' on the pipboy until I visit and the process completes.

If there's a 'thread' manager does it, let's say bypass a hung upgrade(re-queuing it as an example), allowing itself to move onto something it can complete?
 
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Quick note... the problem I was having, at least so far, with setters resetting their dialogs and not offering a trade menu, doesn't appear to be present now. So the issue was either caused by some sort of papyrus de-sync(vm cascade failure) or simply continuing to update an existing game save over time.
 
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It's starting to look like anytime a plot is upgraded in a settlement, a re-visit is in order to re-sync the pipboy values. I'll test waiting more than an in-game day, but I'm pretty sure it's going to stay out of sync for some reason or another. I don't have it configured to only upgrade when I'm there, but once I arrive a bunch of upgrades start happening- not the actual building as there was NO scaffolding present, just the final phase of update taking place and the messages(as though they were hung up) start flooding in.

The case in point was Starlight DriveIn. That one was showing a low bed count along with similar 'issues' with other settlements. So time to re-visit. Once I arrived at Starlight, there was no scaffolding present as nothing was in the process of being built but not less than a dozen messages popped up showing improvements to homes and just about every other type of plot there.

So if the process is: tear down--> un-assign --> upgrade --> re-assign, and there's a check that hangs up that process until I visit(remember I don't have that set) then the numbers will be 'out of sync' on the pipboy until I visit and the process completes.

If there's a 'thread' manager does it, let's say bypass a hung upgrade(re-queuing it as an example), allowing itself to move onto something it can complete?
Can confrim this issue. Not a huge problem, just a bit of a pain as I have a rule of no fast travelling, even though I can.

Edit: Forget to mention that the plot upgrades happen even if I'm not in the settlement, I just have to visit the settlement for the data to appear correctly in the pipboy. And I want to have all settlements under my control? Ugh!
 
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I'm keeping an eye on the pipboy settlement values to see if I can find a correlation between what's being built/upgraded and the numbers getting de-synced. So far, I've seen a farm and home upgraded for Sanctuary and Abernathy without a problem(though I was in a settlement- Sunshine Tidings) when it happened without the numbers de-syncing, however, when I was at Taffingtons I saw Red Rocket and another settlement(don't remember right off) upgrading security and a factory along with a "conversion" plot unlock; that skewed another settlement's pipboy values(Abernathy I think) which I had to re-visit to fix.

Sorry for the lack of detail, I decided to try and monitor this after the fact, so I should be more accurate next time.
 
Ok, here's some additional information about the quest where Jake sends you out to help MALA(while in Concord) to kill something(usually radroaches) attacking her...

This time, there were 3-5 radroaches attacking- I kept killing the one who was spawning right next to her over and over and as soon as it died another would pop up and not always the same type of radroach. So I started to wonder... what if the kill count was looking for a particular radroach? or something as there was no quest marker above any of them. So... I looked around and started killing all the other ones EXCEPT the one that kept spawning on top MALA. This actually worked. When I killed the right one, then I could end the quest loop by killing the one that currently spawned next to MALA.

I have no idea about the script, the game engine, or anything else... but it looks like... the script spawns a radroach. Then the engine, mod, leveled list, something kicks a few more in. You kill the one on MALA, the script(or whatever) says a radroach(or creature) was killed... but NOT the one we're looking for. So, in an attempt to make sure the quest doesn't stall and hang everything else up... let's spawn another... BUT the one the quest is looking for is still running around and is unaware of any additional spawns that happened so it doesn't look to the new spawn to kill. Thus an apparent quest loop.

Observationally, that's what I saw.
 
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Here's a before and after screenshot of the settlement status values. Just by visiting it the values drastically change. This post is meant to give a starting point for the symptom before it can be reverse-engineered to the cause. I did note, that there were no upgrading messages that popped up when I arrived and these are taken just after loading in the game... running out of Sanctuary(didn't want to possibly trigger something else by fast traveling inside one settlement to another)... and fast traveling to Sunshine Tidings.

I've got some time now to debug some of my stuff and also try and gather 'play test' information that might help find the root cause for some of this(even if the engine is to blame in spite of every attempt to fix or circumvent it by modding authors/ modding teams).
 

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Next, while in Sunshine Tidings just minutes after the last post, I received three messages - Abernathy had improved one of their homes, another settlement(don't remember which) improved city services and Sunshine Tidings improved one of their homes. You can see the before image where now the Abernathy bed count has a problem... but after just fast traveling there it goes back to normal. From the prior post to now, it looks like the bed count from Sunshine tidings stays the same(at least when it happened while I was there) which is possible depends on what the home improvement was(maybe a bed wasn't added. I'll head back that way after this post and see if the bed count changes(goes higher). Just be a sec...
 

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Ok, here's a bit more data...

If you look at Sunshine Tidings you can see the settlement is short on water. There's a single pump next to an agricultural plot(which, if I'm not mistaken, comes with the plot), but there's a plot I'm standing on that's completely undeveloped. Not sure what the plot is, might be power... but the food production way over the settler load, where as water and power(since the basic SS2 settlement plan's water pump requires it) are short. I'm going to see if I can manually pull someone off food production and assign them to the open plot(to see what it is). Also, the storage was full at 4800, so I manually dropped in some storage containers. I'm not sure how everything works, but automated should drop storage if necessary(include that in the city plan since if npc resource gathering is random...), BUT if designed not to since it's not on the settlement plan, not prevent the plan from completing if there's no more virtual storage space, by having the npcs only scrap and gather resources to completely do each upgrade as they come- focus on one or two upgrades rather than possibly just gathering materials hoping they'll hit the random item they need(not saying it does this- just thinking out loud). Then by that time there's no more virtual storage and one two storage items short of completing the plot upgrade.

Let's tinker around with this a bit and see what comes up...

Edit: It appears the home upgrade at Sunshine wasn't a bed as the count stayed the same.
 

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You can see the before image where now the Abernathy bed count has a problem...
Out of curiosity how many residential plots do you have at Abernathy? I had a huge (30 points in 2-3 in-game days) happiness drop in Sunshine (100 to 70) while I was working on building another settlement. Checking the pipboy showed that I had 7 beds when in fact I have 27. So I fast-traveled to Sunshine and the count straightened itself out, happiness immediately started to go back up and I reassigned all the auto unassigned bored people (if anyone knows if this can be shut off please let me know). Anyway the reason for my question is that I have exactly 7 residential plots in Sunshine. So I'm wondering if it's just a fluke that the wrong bed count in my pipboy was exactly the same as my residential plot count versus my actual bed count.
 
Out of curiosity how many residential plots do you have at Abernathy? I had a huge (30 points in 2-3 in-game days) happiness drop in Sunshine (100 to 70) while I was working on building another settlement. Checking the pipboy showed that I had 7 beds when in fact I have 27. So I fast-traveled to Sunshine and the count straightened itself out, happiness immediately started to go back up and I reassigned all the auto unassigned bored people (if anyone knows if this can be shut off please let me know). Anyway the reason for my question is that I have exactly 7 residential plots in Sunshine. So I'm wondering if it's just a fluke that the wrong bed count in my pipboy was exactly the same as my residential plot count versus my actual bed count.
It's a good question. I'm using involvement = none, and the default SS2 city plans- no other SS2 plans are in the load order. It looks like there' s just a single residential plot and the rest of the beds are in the damaged cabins.
 
That was a municipal power plot and once built the settlement how has enough power for the default city plan water pump. Looking back, I wish I didn't manually drop the storage containers just to see if it still upgraded(completely rule out that variable)- which I believe it would still upgrade as no one was actually assigned to auto-build it. The problem seems to be in 'load balancing'(or prioritizing) the available npcs to required positions or... they're not being assigned properly, or being un-assigned for some reason.

I took one of the settlers off food so it dropped from 51-45 and assigned them to the unbuilt plot(which became a municipal plot). It almost seems like, when settlers arrive, they pile into food production(which is understandable as a stand alone settlement is just that... at an initial point... stand alone) even if there's more than enough food for the given load. Even above what the settlement(city plan at any given level) is designed to support. Perhaps pre-HQ? preparing to share with HQ extra resources without regards to the settlement itself? or if the questline is even to HQ? Here, I have no idea.
 

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It's a good question. I'm using involvement = none, and the default SS2 city plans- no other SS2 plans are in the load order. It looks like there' s just a single residential plot and the rest of the beds are in the damaged cabins.
Thanks. So it seems it was just a fluke. I also have involvement none, auto assign off in both and rarely use city plans. Though I am trying out a few from Gavdaman which will let you directly go to the third level on my current forfeit/test playthrough.
 
A quick side note, NOT playtest related- I wish Bethesda would've re-thought this entire npc with unlimited ammo thing. Not for guns or rifles, but for missle launchers. fat mans and grenades. THOSE should be limited to the npc's inventory keeping heavy hitting spam to a minimum. The rest- unlimited(as they are ai controlled... I really don't know what to call them tbh).

They come in heavy, rain out on the good stuff, now have to be more aggressive with less powerful ammo and have no choice but to nickel and dime the settlers from that point forward.
 
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A quick side note, NOT playtest related- I wish Bethesda would've re-thought this entire npc with unlimited ammo thing. Not for guns or rifles, but for missle launchers. fat mans and grenades. THOSE should be limited to the npc's inventory keeping heavy hitting spam to a minimum. The rest- unlimited(as they are ai controlled... I really don't know what to call them tbh).

They come in heavy, rain out on the good stuff, now have to be more aggressive with less powerful ammo and have no choice but to nickel and dime the settlers from that point forward.
I think that is true for fat mans and missiles, just not grenades. I use the tactic all the time of running around and making enemy NPCs fire off all their missiles so they switch to an alternate weapon. It's the main way I deal with Hammer in West Everett Estates (not the underground SS2 Hammer, the Super Mutant boss who's above ground) and that raider in Lexington. They will run out of mini-nukes and missiles if you can keep them missing you. Unless maybe there's a mod that makes that unlimited too?
 
I think that is true for fat mans and missiles, just not grenades. I use the tactic all the time of running around and making enemy NPCs fire off all their missiles so they switch to an alternate weapon. It's the main way I deal with Hammer in West Everett Estates (not the underground SS2 Hammer, the Super Mutant boss who's above ground) and that raider in Lexington. They will run out of mini-nukes and missiles if you can keep them missing you. Unless maybe there's a mod that makes that unlimited too?
It must've been something like PaNPC that either spawned, or cloned out, an existing group. There's an option to also spawn higher level enemies since 2/3 of that group was packing missile launchers! There were missiles flying everywhere!
 
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