Armada 2: Modding problems

posted on June 5th, 2009, 5:19 pm

I'm pretty sure this is common, but when I try to mod I often use lots of things. My problem is that when I hit a certain number of odfs that is used the game crashes and gives me a window that says:

"Out of Memory: Increase swap file size"

Is there a patch that allows relatively limitless amounts of things in the game? And another thing I'd like to do is remove the Single player mode allowing more memory availability. This is also linked to when I mod and use the Klingon superweapon the game crashes. I was planing on removing it. But I'd like to be able to have no limit on my Armada 2 mods (I'm sure everyone does).

posted on June 5th, 2009, 5:25 pm

I usually get that when I have misplaced or left out a " in the odf. It can happen for anything that needs the symbol.

Such as "Shipname" Shipname" or "Shipn"ame"

posted on June 5th, 2009, 5:51 pm

No, that is not it. I check every single line of code I put in at least 3 times if not more! It is what I use that crashes it. I'm talking about like lots of ships and stations. I usually have about 40 or more Federation ships. One time I had 35 stations too. I just load alot of stuff on there. Plus when it goes to load the game at first it looks fine, but it crashes before launching. I'm trying to make big mods! But I always have that barrier from making the ultimate mod! I'm always limited! I was hoping one day to be able to have 10 full tech tree playable races, or even 12. But I need the barrier removed if I'm ever going to come even close to that. Here is an idea of my goal to achieve.

[ST - Armada 3]
Playable races:
- Federation
- Klingon
- Romulan
- Borg
- Cardassian
- Dominon
- Breen
- Reman
- Ferengi
- Tholian

Non-Player Races:
- Maquis
- Bajoran
- Xindi
- Orion
- Neo Terran Empire (Mirror Universe)
- Alliance (Mirror Universe)
- 8472
- Crystalline

posted on June 5th, 2009, 6:58 pm

No, that is not it. I check every single line of code I put in at least 3 times if not more! It is what I use that crashes it. I'm talking about like lots of ships and stations. I usually have about 40 or more Federation ships. One time I had 35 stations too. I just load alot of stuff on there. Plus when it goes to load the game at first it looks fine, but it crashes before launching. I'm trying to make big mods! But I always have that barrier from making the ultimate mod! I'm always limited! I was hoping one day to be able to have 10 full tech tree playable races, or even 12. But I need the barrier removed if I'm ever going to come even close to that. Here is an idea of my goal to achieve.

[ST - Armada 3]
Playable races:
- Federation
- Klingon
- Romulan
- Borg
- Cardassian
- Dominon
- Breen
- Reman
- Ferengi
- Tholian

Non-Player Races:
- Maquis
- Bajoran
- Xindi
- Orion
- Neo Terran Empire (Mirror Universe)
- Alliance (Mirror Universe)
- 8472
- Crystalline

No that is it Tyler is right, your missing a " mark somewhere as far as I'm aware there is no odf limit, FO
itself has nearly 3000 odf files, In my armada 1 addon folder I have 2000 files. It's more or less definitely a missing " mark.

As for your races interesting idea I guess it will take you quite a while, however I'm not sure if that is possible, there is a limit to the number of races you can have in races.odf I believe its 13 or 15 in armada 1 what it is in armada 2 I don't know.

Good luck in finding your missing quotation mark anyway, my guess would be ship names or weapons/weapon hard points I find that's usually where I've missed one.

posted on June 5th, 2009, 7:10 pm

a help might be using an editor that supports syntax highlighting and to color strings in a specific color. that way its often easier to see if a string is not terminated correctly.

posted on June 5th, 2009, 7:19 pm

Well, in the AIP I see a "Max_elements" code. Does that have anything to do wiht it? Could removing the single player help free up some space? 

posted on June 5th, 2009, 7:55 pm

Well, in the AIP I see a "Max_elements" code. Does that have anything to do wiht it? Could removing the single player help free up some space? 

This has nothing to do with space, as you've already been told your missing a " mark.

About the 13/15 races I don't think there is a way around it someone else may have some ideas then.

[Tyler]

posted on June 5th, 2009, 8:07 pm

Last edited by Tyler on June 5th, 2009, 8:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Once I had almost 30 races (only stock were playable, the others were NPC). The only time they affected the game was when I put a race that was lower down the list on my side, clicking a ship of one of those races crashed the game but while they were still NPC everything was fine.

When a race's numbers in 'race.odf' got to about 20-25, that's when it started screwing the game if you try to control them. I think you can have as many races as you want, just not all usable as PC's.

posted on June 5th, 2009, 9:56 pm

Yes, it is because you're missing a ", or got one in the wrong place. Check the odf files that you've added/edited.

posted on June 8th, 2009, 2:31 pm

But would the odf count be a problem, one of my first mods where this happened (I deleted it because of harddrive space) had over 6000 odfs.  Could that crash it?

posted on June 12th, 2009, 4:55 pm

Atl is right that is the problem.  Check build lists.  That is where it is caused the most.  that and the tool tips.

posted on June 12th, 2009, 5:03 pm

Alright, I'll check the quotation marks more often.

posted on June 12th, 2009, 5:34 pm

But would the odf count be a problem, one of my first mods where this happened (I deleted it because of harddrive space) had over 6000 odfs.  Could that crash it?

No. The only thing about amounts is the race amount, as described before. But numbers of actual odfs, no, that shouldn't crash it.

posted on June 12th, 2009, 5:38 pm

So, if I was to say have 8 races, and have 120 ships and stations classes for each race, could that stress it a bit too much? Or could I go to 200 each?

posted on June 13th, 2009, 8:07 am

I repeat. There is no limit.

There is no limit to the number of ships, stations, weapons, or any other type of odf file. The only thing that seems to cause crashes at higher numbers is RACES. My personal copy of A2, with all of my work, SFC races, SFB races, B5 races, and other miscellaneous work, also has thousands of odfs, and no problems.

The question is, why the hell would you want 120-200 different ship classes on the same race? You'd never use them all. It would be a waste of effort, for a serious mod (though on your own "playground" copy, it's good fun, I admit)