Archive: 12 posts

---

Ok, so I've been making a level and planned two versions of it - easy and hard. I make the hard version first and everything is working just fine (cept I'm the only one who can beat it, it's so hard, lol). Then I copy the level to another spot on the moon and start editing it to make it easy enough for everyone to play, but after a few edits the problems start. 95% of the pistons freeze in place and stop moving, and the same goes for wobble bolts. But all the motor bolts continue working fine. Create or Play mode makes no difference. I can rewind and everything works again for a short time then freezes again. No particular object seems to be the cause. Different moon slots don't help. Fresh copies don't help (after I start editing), yet the original hard version still works fine. I can't figure it out, and it would suck to not be able to make an easy version that everyone could play after putting so much time into it. Anyone had a similar problem or have any ideas to try?

2009-03-01 14:07:00 Author: Shalatii Posts: 103

---

Dissolvable material might be causing issues. if you glue dissolvable material to something, and you then dissolve it by some switch, the game sometimes unglues everything that was attached to let's say that background. But you say only pistons cause issues.. Have you checked that all the switches are still connected to the pistons..?

2009-03-01 14:21:00 Author: ThommyTheThird Posts: 440

---

Dissolvable material might be causing issues. if you glue dissolvable material to something, and you then dissolve it by some switch, the game sometimes unglues everything that was attached to let's say that background. But you say only pistons cause issues.. Have you checked that all the switches are still connected to the pistons..? It's not a glue issue. It's parts of the level freezing while other parts keep working. I don't believe it has anything to do with switches either, since the pistons/wobble bolts freeze whether they're connected to anything or not. It's very puzzling and irritating.

2009-03-01 14:32:00 Author: Shalatii Posts: 103

---

Ok, so I've been making a level and planned two versions of it - easy and hard. I make the hard version first and everything is working just fine (cept I'm the only one who can beat it, it's so hard, lol). Then I copy the level to another spot on the moon and start editing it to make it easy enough for everyone to play, but after a few edits the problems start. 95% of the pistons freeze in place and stop moving, and the same goes for wobble bolts. But all the motor bolts continue working fine. Create or Play mode makes no difference. I can rewind and everything works again for a short time then freezes again. No particular object seems to be the cause. Different moon slots don't help. Fresh copies don't help (after I start editing), yet the original hard version still works fine. I can't figure it out, and it would suck to not be able to make an easy version that everyone could play after putting so much time into it. Anyone had a similar problem or have any ideas to try? It sounds like it has to do with the specific edits you are making rather than as a result of the copy. What mechanism are you using to change the difficulty?

2009-03-01 14:33:00 Author: dcf Posts: 468

---

It sounds like it has to do with the specific edits you are making rather than as a result of the copy. What mechanism are you using to change the difficulty? This was my thinking as well, but... I'm slowing devices down, I'm removing a few things, making jumps easier, taking out hazards, etc. I've watched very closely, edited things in different orders and ways, and still can't pinpoint one particular edit that causes the problem, but rather it seems to start after I make a certain number of edits, which shouldn't matter. I mean the original hard version has been edited to death and still works fine. I'll keep trying to figure it out though.

2009-03-01 14:46:00 Author: Shalatii Posts: 103

---

This was my thinking as well, but... I'm slowing devices down, I'm removing a few things, making jumps easier, taking out hazards, etc. I've watched very closely, edited things in different orders and ways, and still can't pinpoint one particular edit that causes the problem, but rather it seems to start after I make a certain number of edits, which shouldn't matter. I mean the original hard version has been edited to death and still works fine. I'll keep trying to figure it out though. Do you have any pistons hooked in series? When you do this, slowing the timing can cause them to stop moving. However, this would only cause a localized, not global, effect. I know from experience that wobble bolts and pistons can sometimes get messed up from moving things around. You won't tweak them and all of a sudden they start acting funny, you go tweak them and all the values have changed spontaneously. This is particularly true of the min/max settings on pistons and the offset angle for wobble bolts. Sorry. I don't think I can be much of a help here. It sounds like you're doing everything you can. Examine it step by step, and keep hitting play and then rewinding to make sure things are working.

2009-03-01 16:56:00 Author: dcf Posts: 468

---

when I build levels, I use the grid. Why I am telling you this is because in using the grid, I've noticed that from time to time an object that was built TO the grid will "shift" OFF the grid by micro-millimeters. What this can do is get your lifts/elevators stuck so that the pistons can't move. This shifting seems to happen when you delete certain things from a complex object. I know for sure that deleting a winch and/or piston can sometimes cause this shift. This could be what happened to you. Actually... that's probably EXACTLY what happened. I don't think there is an easy fix other than to re-piston and slightly adjust your lift. I get around this problem by allowing some "breathing-room" between the lift's sides and the elevator shaft's walls (build the lift to fill the shaft, then turn off grid and scale the lift down in size slightly). Then a slight shifting due to editing won't lock up the lift. Hope this helps.

2009-03-01 17:30:00 Author: mindphaser74 Posts: 349

---

when I build levels, I use the grid. Why I am telling you this is because in using the grid, I've noticed that from time to time an object that was built TO the grid will "shift" OFF the grid by micro-millimeters. What this can do is get your lifts/elevators stuck so that the pistons can't move. This shifting seems to happen when you delete certain things from a complex object. I know for sure that deleting a winch and/or piston can sometimes cause this shift. This could be what happened to you. Actually... that's probably EXACTLY what happened. I don't think there is an easy fix other than to re-piston and slightly adjust your lift. I get around this problem by allowing some "breathing-room" between the lift's sides and the elevator shaft's walls (build the lift to fill the shaft, then turn off grid and scale the lift down in size slightly). Then a slight shifting due to editing won't lock up the lift. Hope this helps. Good thought. I've seen this one as well, when I made a really long elevator shaft. It would periodically get stuck for the reasons you mentioned. I eventually just trimmed the edges to avoid the problem.

2009-03-01 17:44:00 Author: dcf Posts: 468

---

Do you have any pistons hooked in series? When you do this, slowing the timing can cause them to stop moving. However, this would only cause a localized, not global, effect. I know from experience that wobble bolts and pistons can sometimes get messed up from moving things around. You won't tweak them and all of a sudden they start acting funny, you go tweak them and all the values have changed spontaneously. This is particularly true of the min/max settings on pistons and the offset angle for wobble bolts. Sorry. I don't think I can be much of a help here. It sounds like you're doing everything you can. Examine it step by step, and keep hitting play and then rewinding to make sure things are working. First, to mindphaser74, yes that is a good thought but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the problem. I found out about the grid shifting early on and constructed the level so it wouldn't affect anything. My entire level (plus floating dark matter) would have to be shifting at the same time for this to be the cause. Thanks for the input though, I'll keep it in mind. dcf, actually I do have 2 sets of pistons in series, about 30 pistons in each set, and yes I am slowing one set of them down as part of making the level easier. But like you said, it shouldn't affect the entire level, plus one time the level started freezing up before I even got around to editing those particular pistons. Also after things freeze up, I go look at the settings and it's still all set the same, just frozen in place. Play and rewind doesn't always help because the level doesn't always freeze in the same time frame. For instance, it could take 10 sec for the level to freeze or it might go 3 minutes before freezing, which makes debugging it that much more annoying. One time I found a point where I could rewind and it would freeze a few seconds after hitting play, every time. So, I rewound twice to see what would happen, and it went for over a minute before freezing, every time. Rewind 3 times, and it lasts for almost 4 minutes before freezing. Ugh. I'm beginning to think it may be the game causing the freezing because of complexity issues. The level is about 95% on the thermometer, has lots of moving parts, 20+ maxed out complexity objects, and a ton of decorations and stickers. I've gotten the "area is too complex" error message a number of times. This shouldn't be the problem since I'm taking away from the level and not adding more to it, but I have a couple tests planned today to see if this is it.

2009-03-02 00:46:00 Author: Shalatii Posts: 103

---

First, to mindphaser74, yes that is a good thought but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the problem. I found out about the grid shifting early on and constructed the level so it wouldn't affect anything. My entire level (plus floating dark matter) would have to be shifting at the same time for this to be the cause. Thanks for the input though, I'll keep it in mind. dcf, actually I do have 2 sets of pistons in series, about 30 pistons in each set, and yes I am slowing one set of them down as part of making the level easier. But like you said, it shouldn't affect the entire level, plus one time the level started freezing up before I even got around to editing those particular pistons. Also after things freeze up, I go look at the settings and it's still all set the same, just frozen in place. Play and rewind doesn't always help because the level doesn't always freeze in the same time frame. For instance, it could take 10 sec for the level to freeze or it might go 3 minutes before freezing, which makes debugging it that much more annoying. One time I found a point where I could rewind and it would freeze a few seconds after hitting play, every time. So, I rewound twice to see what would happen, and it went for over a minute before freezing, every time. Rewind 3 times, and it lasts for almost 4 minutes before freezing. Ugh. I'm beginning to think it may be the game causing the freezing because of complexity issues. The level is about 95% on the thermometer, has lots of moving parts, 20+ maxed out complexity objects, and a ton of decorations and stickers. I've gotten the "area is too complex" error message a number of times. This shouldn't be the problem since I'm taking away from the level and not adding more to it, but I have a couple tests planned today to see if this is it. When you have pistons in series they can freeze up if you switch the rates. (I can't remember which way works and which one doesn't. It's either the outermost must be fastest or the innermost. Sorry, I don't remember.) However, it sounds like complexity might be the cause. I have once seen something that resembled what you are talking about. All my OR gates stopped working on a very complex level that was close to maxed out. All the piston timings were 0.1 seconds. I changed some to 0.2 seconds and they started working again. EDIT: Sorry it took me so long to remember this. Now I'm 99% sure this is what's causing your problem. It drove me nuts when it happened to me. It's just having too many pistons set for the same timing if I'm interpreting the issue correctly. It's a very strange and hard to identify glitch but this seems to be the cause/work-around.

2009-03-02 03:38:00 Author: dcf Posts: 468

---

Pfew, I'd say that is likely a thermometer issue, that can cause the strangest things. A differing freeze-moment is really strange and hard to debug... You have to identify what causes it but that can eat a gruesome lot of time.... The methodical way would be: edit one thing, wait five minutes in play to see if it freezes up and then move on to the next one.... You could do this in groups to minimize the wait times and then narrow it down...

2009-03-02 07:45:00 Author: Wyth Posts: 263

---

Thanks for the replies, but after many hours of methodical debugging, I've decided that the level just doesn't want to be edited anymore. There's one building - if I touch anything inside of it, then things start freezing within 1-3 minutes. If I leave it alone and work on other areas, it also starts freezing, sometimes going as long as 7 minutes and then bam. I can capture a frozen object, stick it in a blank level, and it'll start working just fine again, so my guess is that it's a thermometer / complexity issue that I'm not able to work around. But, not wanting to admit total defeat, I've decided to turn a portion of the level into an easy minigame / race which should be finished within a day or so. Not my first choice, but I'm ok with it. Like the old saying, you got a lemon, make lemonade!

2009-03-03 11:14:00 Author: Shalatii Posts: 103

Posts: 1077139    Threads: 69970    Members: 9661    Archive-Date: 2019-01-19

Aus dem Archiv wurden alle persönlichen Daten wie Name, Anschrift, Email etc. - aber auch sämtliche Inhalte wie z.B. persönliche Nachrichten - entfernt.
Die Nutzung dieser Webseite erfolgt ohne Speicherung personenbezogener Daten. Es werden keinerlei Cookies, Logs, 3rd-Party-Plugins etc. verwendet.