Solved Ship geometry/start of sea battle crash - geometry.dll

[robinzon]

When I went to bed last night, the game was running great. I think. There might've been an in-town crash, but maybe I'm just imagining things because I've been thinking too hard on this all.

Anyway.

Today I start it up, load my save point, go to a merchant in Marigot and take on a mission to transport stuff, go to tavern, hire 80 more sailors for my Surprise (now it's got 134 on board), exit the tavern and run for the harbor, within five seconds, maybe instantly when I look at my ship moored in the harbor, the game crashes to desktop (win 7 x64).
The report says the engine.exe crashed and the geometry.dll module was at fault.

Okay, so I decide to go with process of elimination. I don't go get that contract, instead I just hire sailors. Again 80, so ship has 134, the supposed full complement is about 430. I exit the tavern, all goes well. Board ship, go into map. I get chased by a pirate and exit from the map into the normal sea battle. Within 3 seconds the game crashes.

So I sell one of the ships, hire guys again, go to map, everything's okay. I get chased by a big English fleet, run for a while then, when clear, come across a lone pirate. Battle, here I come. Not. Within 3 seconds of sea battle the game crashes, dunno if it's because of my ship, another ship, Surprise, in the fleet that became corrupted (the other two are a brig and a Frigate Berlin) or because of the pirate or because of something to do with the sea.

Try #I-Forgot: I sell the Frigate, keep the Brig and my personal Surprise, hire more men for the Surprise (now it's at 275 IIRC), go sailing and spot an English fleet. Steer for them and enter battle. All goes well. I go into first person, target the English ships with binocs, leave that view and try again. Exit that view and just look around. BAAM, crash! This time it took 20-30 seconds for the crash.

I'm at my wit's end. The only explanations I can find is that:
- my ship is bugged, won't allow more than 80 sailors (that's the most I've had until now) and crashes
- my ship is bugged, something to do with cargo or physics
- there is some other problem with either my personal ship, or another ship in the fleet or a system that deals with fleets, ships when sailing in general or something with the sea, or a major physics bug
- there is something wrong with the geometry.dll file, even though I've rarely found that Win has announced the correct reason for a crash

Game is GoF 1.1, no other mods or changes of any scripts.

Has anyone else ever had this problem before or maybe knows what's wrong?

R.

 

[robinzon]

UPDATE: yup, it's definitely got something to do with the number of sailors. Reloaded last try (#I-forgot) and sacked 200 sailors so I had only 75. Everything went perfectly (until the point I got boarded by an enemy ship with a lot more sailors and got slaughtered.
So, it's either something to do with the number of sailors on any player ship, or just the class Surprise, class 4 ship.

ANOTHER UPDATE: searching this thread I found this:
http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/crash-repeated-almost-constant-for-the-screen-in-the-sea.17950

Seems like my suspicions were correct that the the class Surprise is bugged, which is a freaking shame cause it's an amazing ship. Though with me there was no problem with dismasting (captured her after taking down all but one mast and destroyed sails completely, so I don't have the dismasting bug), but with the number of sailors it seems. Which is weird since when I first encountered her her sailor bar was completely full.

I repeat, contrary to reports on that site (maybe they weren't fully investigated what's wrong with this ship), it's not the dismasting bug, but something to do with sailors.

Plus, another bug with this ship: it's supposed to have 42 cannons. According to the cannon interface, there are 19 on each side, with 2 on bow and 2 on keel. The problem is, when you're on the ship itself you don't have any cannons up front, can't shoot ahead and the cannon-load line is empty, indicating lack of cannons. So, basically you paid two cannons too much.

Researching further.

REQUEST TO ADMIN: please change the title of this thread to something like "Class "Surprise" ship bugs/Geometry.dll crash" so it'll be easier to find and heck, maybe make it a sticky.

 

[robinzon]

Seems like Surprise was never fixed in 1.1, with an unsure status in 2.0.

Is it even worth the effort of installing 2.0 and having to start all over again? Can I use my 1.1 savegames in 2.0.7?

 

[modernknight1]

Did you make any edits to the ships_init file OR did you push the REINIT button at all during this time? That has been known to cause similar issues to what you are experiencing.

Another thing you may want to try is selling Surprise and then buying her again.

That geometry problem can actually be traced back to the ships DLL and is the root cause of several bugs, to include the dismasting crash bug. The issue is with weight, Z-plain of the water, and waterline/displacement of the ship. Masts have weight and cargo has weight and when the waterline goes below or above a certain level on the ship it causes a position corruption - thus a crash.

The only way I have been able to get around this is to use a different "fixed" DLL from AOP. This is what I'm using in GOF eras and it seems to fix most of the issues, but there are some other problems it causes that I still haven't been able to fix.

So my only recommendations are 1) go to a save before you came to the port and try again. 2) sell surprise and buy again. If these options don't work, then get on the ship and start sailing - then use the reinit button. Make certain your chest is empty because you will lose everything when you do that. Then go back to port and dock and see if its resolved.

One other question: Did you enter and anchor in storm conditions and stayed overnight and left in clear conditions?

MK

 

[robinzon]

No edits to any file and no pushing reinit.

What you say makes a lot of sense, it's just amazing to me that this game so advanced that even the number of the crew would adjust how deep in the water it sits. That would make sense of the crash as soon as I exited the tavern and the game was forced to create the ship for the first time with the newest specs.

Because as I already said, it can't be the mast-bug CTD since when I captured it, it was down to the forward man mast (all others had been taken down) having gone from full crew to no crew. And my CTD isn't when a mast is taken down, but when I get into the 3d sea view with a crew more than 100, with no damage. Does the game adjust the depth in water in regards to crew only when the crew exceeds 100 and not before?

After reading that other thread I realize that Surprise is bugged (not sure if terminally or selling it would help - will try that) and that I'm not the first one to encounter problems with it. I'll definitely try your suggestions, but if they don't work I guess I'll just have to decide whether the ship's worth ignoring it's quirks and the limits on crew it gives (got involved in a battle with stronger ships and their cannon fire made mince meat of my crew so longer battles or battles with better ships are not feasible since I would run out of crew too fast) or sell it and hope to be able to buy a (near) equal ship or just use another one from my fleet.

In that case I'm seriously starting to entertain starting afresh with 2.0 since it seems to have less bugged ships (or maybe all ships haven't been tested yet?) than going back to a less-good ship in 1.1.

I entered port in good conditions, stayed only long enough to fix my ships and then wanted to take on the merchant duty. Same weather at entering as when exiting the port.

I'll try the reinit button, if the crash won't be too quick to press it. I presume you mean the chest in the captain's cabin? Never use it because I change ships too often (currently my rank rise is fast and my wish for a better ship still in place, so I settle with one ship for longer time only when I get high enough that it's formidable enough).

What kind of issues are you having with that "fixed" dll and where would it be possible for me to get a dll for Surprise if the issues are not too important?

Knight, my appreciation for your help is endless, thank you!

PS: have tried several threads, but still haven't received the answer whether 1.1 saves are compatible with 2.0. To me at first glance they don't seem so, but since 2.0 is based on 1.1....

 

[modernknight1]

OK sorry. I saw that post and meant to answer. It is not a black and white question. It depends on what you have and where you are. If you sell all your ships and go into the jungle and save there, then it is possible that - that particular save will work from 1.1 to 2.0.

The ships and their stats in the two versions are different, so if you start your game in 2.0 with a save from 1.1 and the ships in the harbor are different (i.e. a ship that is in 1.1 and not 2.0 happens to be anchored in port there) or your ships are different - crash.

MK

 

[robinzon]

Thanks for the answer!
So, if I wanted as stable a game as I can the best thing to do would be to install 2.0 and start afresh? From the changelog I presume it's more stable with less various bugs than 1.1?

-

Selling and buying the ship works! Though I have to chant "she's worth it! shes worth it!" very loudly and keep my eyes closed when I click okay to confirm all the payments. Sold it for 35k, bought it back at 95k and with everything else needed, I'm down to 20k. XD Oh, well, with the roomy ships I have I'll get the money back with 2 or 3 trips.

Thanks!

 

[modernknight1]

GOF 1.1 was pretty darned stable. There were bugs with individual ships though and so you wont see these in 2.0 unless their problems were fixed.

2.0 is still in Beta and Luke is not done with it yet. He just gets distracted in competitive online racing games for a while. I think he was also waiting to hear from his beta testers how it was performing when they got to higher levels. His intent is to add more ships back in when stability is assured.

Glad to hear the selling work-around worked.

MK

 

[robinzon]

Thanks for all the help, mate!