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Recent occurrence with the NESS spawning system

My players noticed a few days ago, just BEFORE the latest patch 8162 (march 2nd patch). That if they drag a creature out of the area it spawned in and they kill it. It will immediately re spawn in its normal area (ignoring the spawn delay set on its Flag).

This can be a huge exploit where Boss Creatures are worth more XP.

Killing it in the area it spawned in. It will work completely normal, following the spawn delay I have set on its flag.

Is anyone else using NESS, seeing this issue?
Any Ideas on what to check (besides the flag settings, which are correct)
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Comments

  • HimmelweissHimmelweiss Member Posts: 72
    How exactly is your Flagset for that one Waypoint looking?
    I may do some tests with it then.
  • QuilistanQuilistan Member Posts: 177
    SP_IS1_SN01_SR05_SD60M50_RW_CD60T1R7_RH_HL01

    that is one we test and then

    SP_IS1_SN01_SD40_RG50M25C80_CD90T1R7

    here is another we tested

    both have the issue, and this used to never happen. These are old tried and true areas on my PW.
  • HimmelweissHimmelweiss Member Posts: 72
    edited March 2018
    Hmm, looks normal to me other than the IS1 flag which is not needed (all Spawn Waypoints are active IS1 by default). IS1 is only need in combination with the D subflag to delay the initial first spawn by Dn Minutes or if you want to suppress the SDnMn Setting for the very first spawn.

    Anyways i will check this out since i want to use NESS in my PW as well.
    But it may take a few days.
    Post edited by Himmelweiss on
  • HimmelweissHimmelweiss Member Posts: 72
    edited March 2018
    Seems to work, i made a quick test with
    SP_IS1_SN01_SD5_RG50M25C80_CD90T1R7

    See attached testmodule.
  • QuilistanQuilistan Member Posts: 177
    I am at a loss as to what would be causing this to happen on my sever then. I have been trying different things all day, and have yet to find anything.

    I have NOT touch any scripts in quite sometime, and everything was working correctly as of a few weeks ago. I know for a fact because I specifically remember fighting one of these creatures is exactly this manner about 3 weeks ago (it was a memorable fight for my character ;) ).

    Any ideas as to what to look at?

    It seems the ness system isn't recognizing the creature as its child once it dies outside spawning area. I did check to see if it had to die or not. Simply taking it outside does NOT respawn the new one inside. Killing it outside its area does cause a instant respawn of the creature in its normal spawn location.
  • HimmelweissHimmelweiss Member Posts: 72
    edited March 2018
    Well it works out of the box with the latest NESS & NWN:EE version, so kinda hard to tell what might be causing it on your PW.

    What NESS version are you using?
    I tested with 8.1.3

    Did you add the addon "HerMyT's Visual Encounter Tables (HVE)" to NESS?
    I didn't

    Did you ever modify any NESS scripts other than the cfg and _sc_ scripts?

    Do you have any NESS onspawn, ondeath or heartbeat scripts running for that one boss waypoint?
    I know your waypoints are not flagged with using scripts, but maybe you are running something else somewhere else?



    I can't reproduce this error, even with the old NESS 7.0 version.
    I drag the mob over to another zone, kill it there, zone back to the waypoint and nothing respawns until the set time/minutes with SDn.
    Tested in Singleplayer and with running a Server i connected to.
  • QuilistanQuilistan Member Posts: 177
    Same version of NESS, I checked that. No addon (interested to check the addon out. I had never heard of it, lol)

    I am tying to go back and remember everything I did in the last two weeks. Just finished checking the enter/exit scripts for the newer areas I created, they all look good. Checking a few new spawn flags that were added now. I deleted them, and will test on the next server reset.

    Going WAY WAY back I think I remember reading about this issue coming up for someone before, I wish all the old forums and stuff still existed to search.
  • QuilistanQuilistan Member Posts: 177
    edited March 2018
    I am useing the pseudo heartbeats

    OnEnter:
    spawn_smpl_onen2
    OnExit:
    spawn_smpl_onext

    I noticed in the test mod you made if we change these and remove the heartbeat script, we don't get the autorespawn, but for me the Corpse is not getting proccessed unless I transition areas and then return back to the corpse

    edit:
    I just tried changing
    OnEnter:
    spawn_smpl_onent

    and it seem to work normal. Going to test this in my PW now.

    edit:
    that did not work any different. Problem still persists.
  • QuilistanQuilistan Member Posts: 177
    edited March 2018
    Ok so I just reinstalled NESS. And this problem seems to be fixed.

    NEW problem that came up. I am now getting "remains" left behind on all creatures killed. This is also causing items to duplicate. So if a giant dropped a certain flail you can loot the corpse, then the corpse decays and you will get the "certain flail" in the remains.

    tag is set up with CD60T1R7

    R7 should be NO remains
  • QuilistanQuilistan Member Posts: 177
    I was able to reproduce this new issue in the test module.

    I made a custom goblin with blueprint and TAG of "test"
    set the flail to dropable.

    Flag set to : SP_IS1_SN1_SD5_RG50M25C80_CD30T1R7

    you can loot the corpse, AND it still drops remains that you can loot (duplicating the flail)

  • HimmelweissHimmelweiss Member Posts: 72
    edited March 2018
    In spawn_corpse_dcy, when R7 is set it only destroys the inventory but not the equipped items of the body.
    That's why you get a bag after the corpse decays.

    Check out R7_fix.zip (.erf) with the changes i have made, import and compile, use at your own risk:
    As long you didn't make any changes to spawn_cfg_cusflg you can overwrite everything.

    I have only made changes to "spawn_corpse_dcy" and "spawn_functions".
    But exporting to .erf included 3 more files.
    Sylvus_Moonbow
  • QuilistanQuilistan Member Posts: 177
    Ok I ran this "reinstalled" version (which is probably newer than mine) on my PW before I saw your last post. It was doing some WEIRD stuff after a period of time. Entire areas were not spawning. I had to revert to my other version last night, just so the PW would run normal (but with the original bug of pulling a creature to another area).

    I am going to try it with your remains fix suggestion next. I noticed this digging through the code yesterday, but I am really, really rough on scipting (not to meantion several years out of practice). I didn't want to touch the code, lol. Thank you for going through this with me.

  • HimmelweissHimmelweiss Member Posts: 72
    edited March 2018
    Yup, then it looks like your original NESS scripts in your PW are either older or modified compared to NESS v8.1.3.

    I mean, did you make sure to not override your _cfg and _sc scripts?
    Overriding theese with the ones from v8.1.3 will for sure break up many things since you prolly did set up a lot of custom stuff there (camps, group spawns, patrol, death scripts etc.).

    Another idea would be sending me all your NESS scripts of your PW.
    That way i can test it with your version of NESS.
    Don't worry about your custom made NESS stuff, they won't be of any use for me since i am using an heavinly modified/changed/improved NESS version on my own PW.
  • QuilistanQuilistan Member Posts: 177
    tested it and the "remains" remain showing up. Still able to loot flail off corpse and the another off the "remains" bag
  • HimmelweissHimmelweiss Member Posts: 72
    It's working fine here.

    Did you compile/build scrips after import?
    With what "version" of NESS scripts were you testing now?

  • QuilistanQuilistan Member Posts: 177
    I must have an older version installed on my PW, my files are different than these. History file does say 8.1.3 on top (but I think Cereborn was just starting that version). The Readme scipt lists as 8.1.2

    This is the version that is working well though, OTHER than it forgetting the creature spawn when it dies in a different area. I am also pretty darn sure that was even working ok a few weeks ago.
  • QuilistanQuilistan Member Posts: 177
    edited March 2018

    It's working fine here.

    Did you compile/build scrips after import?
    With what "version" of NESS scripts were you testing now?

    That was all testing your test module, with ONLY what you did. Only difference with mine is I have a Custom Goblin spawning with a "dropable flail"

    edit: yes I did compile
  • QuilistanQuilistan Member Posts: 177
    Ok now even my old version is messing up/not spawning areas. This last patch or two seem to have broken something. Until that is fixed, I will just shut down my PW :(
  • HimmelweissHimmelweiss Member Posts: 72
    nm i was waiting for decay only lol, didn't test with actually looting :p

    We missed 2 scripts for onclosecrp and dist_corps:

    Added the scripts, so in total i changed 4 scripts:
    - spawn_corpse_dcy
    - spawn_dist_corps
    - spawn_functions
    - spawn_onclosecrp

  • HimmelweissHimmelweiss Member Posts: 72
    edited March 2018
    Quilistan said:

    Ok now even my old version is messing up/not spawning areas. This last patch or two seem to have broken something. Until that is fixed, I will just shut down my PW :(

    Really not sure what you are doing with your PW.
    I didn't touch any spawn related stuff in NESS.
    Or do you meant the beamdog patches? They really didn't mess up either.

    To me it looks like you were using an completly different/modified NESS version in your PW.
    If you are not sure what version of NESS you were using years back then DO NOT override/update with any NESS version.

    Again, please send me your NESS scripts of your PW so we can bring this to an end, otherwise we will write 1000 messages back and forth here :D
  • QuilistanQuilistan Member Posts: 177
    beamdog patches is what I think.

    I am going to reinstall my game, to cover that end. Then test both versions of NESS I have.

    if needed: I will then get the spawn scripts I have in an erf for you. I think it is a version prior to the current on on the vault.

    Luckily I have been keeping backups the past couple of months.
  • HimmelweissHimmelweiss Member Posts: 72
    Just reference, here my test.mod with the recent changes to fix the R7 bug with NESS v8.1.3
    Custom gobbo has his flail set as droppable.

    test.zip 122.8K
  • QuilistanQuilistan Member Posts: 177
    update:

    after all this.....

    I got your fix in.

    I notice when doing a full build on the Module with the new NESS scripts + your fix, that a few of the scripts were coming up with compile errors. Your test module did not have errors, of course.

    So I did a build with scripts only, and everything seemed to compile correctly.

    My PW server has been running for 2 hours now, correctly. I will post back here a bit later to let you know if it is still running stable after a longer period of time.
  • QuilistanQuilistan Member Posts: 177
    server is at 6 hours and all is well!
  • QuilistanQuilistan Member Posts: 177
    9 hours running strong and a great gaming session this evening!

    The Kingdom of Balarand thanks you for your service!
  • HimmelweissHimmelweiss Member Posts: 72
    glad that it seems to be working now :)
  • loudentloudent Member Posts: 38
    I think it's pretty cool to see that the NESS spawn system is still in use. I used in our NWN1 PW then converted it over to NWN2 and expanded upon it for years.
  • QuilistanQuilistan Member Posts: 177
    Hey Loudent!!! cool to see you are still around. Yeah you helped me a lot back in the day also....

    I used it on a NWN2 world also, actually got a "random encounter system" working with it also. I might have to reload that game to dig up those scripts to see how the heck it was working. I remember it being a huge pain in the butt. Might have been you that helped me do that? I honestly can't remember.
  • loudentloudent Member Posts: 38
    Yeah, I did some work on both random spawn and random dungeon generation so its possible I helped with that. Funny you should mention digging up the old scripts, I actually dug up my whole PW and, because I happened to have some free monthly azure credits, I threw it back online. Other than realizing I was an *awful* exterior area creator, the systems still hold up. It's amazing what the community has done. There is no gamespy and no master server for NWN2 anymore so people have built tools where it can be published to a private server list and anyone using the client extension can see all the PWs. There's not a lot left but its still going.

    going to leave mine up as long as its free to me (I think I have the credits through 2019)

    Cheers,
    -Loudent
  • dunahandunahan Member Posts: 139
    Thats an interesting issue. I didn't found that, because we are using some other way to transport over transitions. I blocked critters to get over such transitions, so they turn away from their prey and go on with their usual business, until they despawn.
    That fix should be shown on the vault too, so it could be reached for all the others, that don't read here ;)
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