Complex Construction Kit CTD

[Rasdan]

Every time I try to make a complex with more than 3 factories my game crashes.
It doesn’t matter what factories I try to connect.
The CTD always happens when trying to connect factory number 4.

It has happened in v 1.0, 1.2 1.201 and now again in version 1.3.

In the beginning it seems to work fine, I get the short movie where you spin around the transporter ship,
but when the game tries to show the "spin around new hub movie" the game creates an insane amount of harddisk activity and CTD.

I have tried all race kits: Boron,Split,Argon,Telardi and Paranid but the game always CTD.

I have noticed that the CTD seems to be connected to the number of tubes exiting the docking hub.
If there is 3 or less no problem everything works no crash.
When I connect one more factory and the hub wants to connect another tube to the hub I get the CTD.
I have made complexes with more than 3 factories but only if there are no more than 3 tubes exiting the hub.

I always place my factories in a line, and place the hub at the end.
I have no clue how to control the number of tubes exiting the hub,
but some times I get lucky and the hub only connects to the first factory then this factory connects to the next and so on.
This works every time, but I can’t figure out what I need to do to get this config.

Please help me or try to fix the problem.

AMD XP 2500+
Asus 9600xt
1Gb RAM
Onboard sound
Game version: All
Type of game: plot, easy
Win XP SP2

[Puhac]

I also have this prob, I hope they will fix it in the next patch

and make it easier to place factories. What you just explained

is probably the only thing you can do for now.

[-XTM-]

Your problem most likely lies in the fact that 4 factories want a end-hub connection while it only supports 3.
When this happens, X3 Crashes.
Main reason why it happens is when there are not enough 3-branch factories in your complex to 'tunnel' the ones that support only 1 exit point and no re-route (mostly weapon forges like HEPT etc).

Try using L-type factories to connect your forges, then connect a maximum of 3 L-types to your end-hub.

(A good indication if youre doing it right it to look at the number of hub-tunnels on your minihubs...1 is perfect, 2 is ok, 3 is bad...sometimes the hub-auto tunnel routine adjusts this later on, but try to avoid it if possible).

.....H
...../\
F--L L--F
....| |
....F F

F=weapon forge
L=Ltype food factory
H=endhub

Should work.

[Tritous]

isn't there any way around this? I keep getting CTD when I try and put the 17th fab into my complex. yes, I've got a load of HEPT forges (this is the 7th that's crashing) and 4 ammo fabs, and a couple of SSP Ms, and a Silicon mine L, and pairs of soy farms, soyeries and crystal fabs...

it's getting laggier with every fab I add , and I can't think of a way to attach more things without unbalancing the complex.

how many things can be attached to an SSP XL? I may attach few of those if it's 5, and sell off the spare E-Cells

[Rasdan]

EDIT: The solution described in this post has now been tested in v.1.31 and 1.32 showing that it is still valid.

EDIT,EDIT: I'm sorry to report that patch 1.4 still suffers from this bug.

I have tested the solution described in this post with ver 1.4, and it still works.

It seems to me that the only way to get rid of this bug is if the mod community decides to fix it.

Your problem most likely lies in the fact that 4 factories want a end-hub connection while it only supports 3.
When this happens, X3 Crashes.
Main reason why it happens is when there are not enough 3-branch factories in your complex to 'tunnel' the ones that support only 1 exit point and no re-route (mostly weapon forges like HEPT etc).

Moxy I think your spot on with this theory.
I know this post is very long but it delivers a solution. So please keep reading and comment this if you want.
I did some research tonight and it clearly shows that as long as you have less than 3 connections to the main docking hub
everything work fine and you can add factories to the complex.
However factories differ in the number of connection points they can have.
Some have only 1, others have 2 and there are some that have 3.
This means that as long as you don’t add “1 connection” factories to the complex you can build on forever.
I stopped counting after 20.
This sounds confusing, and it is, but it is not unbeatable.
I did several tests

Example:
We want to connect two Dream farms L and two Flower farms L in one complex.
This can’t be done, because all four factories have only 1 connection point, so they can’t send the “tube” on to the next factory.
They all have to connect to the main hub and this has only 3 connection points.
So 4 connections (4*1 connection factories) to a 3 ended docking hub = CTD

Why? Because we are missing 1 connection to the main hub.

It’s like trying to fit a square into a round hole; you end up breaking it all.

It can still be done, but in order for it to work we need to extend the number of possible connection points.

This can be done with a factory that has more connection points than is uses.
An Ore Mine L has 3,
so if we continue and try to connect the 4 single ended factories
This is what happens.

Ore mine connects to the docking hub and creates two free tube points.
The Ore Mine uses 1 main hub connection point so there are two left on the main hub.
2 free tube points on the main hub, and 2 on the Ore Mine L= 4 free tube points.

Now we can connect all 4 (1 connection) factories without CTD.
2 will connect to the Ore mine and 2 will connect to the docking hub.
This works, but now we have a more or less useless ore mine.
That is the price we pay until there is a bug fix for this.
It’s not possible to add more factories to this complex because no more free connection points exists, so if we try to add any factory = instant CTD.

So the bug can be beaten but we need to keep track of how many free points we have and make sure that number never reaches 0.
If this happens it is not possible to add anymore factories, and if we try,
the number of free connection will hit –1 and it is bye bye game, hello desktop.

The way I do this, now that I know the problem, is by assigning numbers to each factory.

Single ended factories have the value –1
they remove one connection point from the complex total

Dual ended factories have the value 0.
They just re-route.

Triple ended factories have the value 1.
They have 3 connection points, but they use 2 when they connect to anything. (One on the factory, and one on the complex).

I start the counting on 3 as the docking hub has 3 free connection points.
I’ll use the previous example again.

So two Dream farms L, two Flower farms L all Single ended and a hub.
Hub = 3
Dream farm –1
Dream farm –1
Flower farm -1
Flower farm -1
+3(hub) –1 –1 –1 –1 = -1 and CTD.

The cure: Connect Ore Mine L value +1 first.

Hub = 3
Ore Mine L +1
Dream farm –1
Dream farm –1
Flower farm -1
Flower farm -1
+3(hub) +1(ore mine),–1, –1, –1, –1 = 0 and working but no room for expansion.
If expansion is needed we need to add another 3 ended factory before the magic number reaches 0.

I really hope somebody understands this.

All there is left to do is to know the number of factory connection points.
I don’t know them all yet but here is what I know at this moment:

EDIT: thanks to spcutler the list is now complete.

there's no variation in connection points between the same factory type between races.

Single ended factories (value -1)
Laser tower factory
Alpha HEPT Forge
Alpha PAC Forge
Alpha PPC Forge
Ammunition Factory
Beta HEPT Forge
Beta PAC Forge
Beta PPC Forge
Bliss Place M
Dream farm L
Dream farm M
Flower Farm L
Flower Farm M
Gamma PPC Forge
Ion Disruptor Forge
Mass Driver Forge
Massom Mill M
Paranid Nividium Processing Plant
Plankton Farm M
Scruffin Farm L
Snail Ranch L
Snail Ranch M
Soyfarm M

Dual ended factories (value 0)
Ore Mine M
Alpha Flak Artillery Forge
Alpha IRE Forge
Alpha PBE Forge
Alpha PSG Forge
Aurora Missile Factory
Beta Flak Artillery Forge
Beta IRE Forge
Beta PBE Forge
Beta PSG Forge
Bio Gas Factory L
Bliss Place L
Blizzard Missile Factory
Cahoona Bakery L
Cahoona Bakery M
Cattle Ranch L
Cattle Ranch M
Chip plant
Crystal Fab M
Cyclone Missile Factory
Disruptor Missile Fab
Dragonfly Missile Factory
Drone Factory
Firefly Missile Factory
Firestorm Torpedo Factory
Gamma PSG Forge
Hornet Missile Factory
Hurricane Missile Factory
Lasertower Factory
Mobile Drilling System Factory
Mosquito Missile Factory
Ore Mine M
Rastar Refinery L
Scruffin Farm M
Shield Prod. Facility 1 MJ
Shield Prod. Facility 10GJ
Shield Prod. Facility 125 MJ
Shield Prod. Facility 1GJ
Shield Prod. Facility 25 MJ
Shield Prod. Facility 5 MJ
Silicon Mine M
Silkworm Missile Factory
Solar Power Plant M
Space Jewellery L
Space Jewellery M
Tempest Missile Factory
Thunderbolt Missile Factory
Tornado Missile Factory
Typhoon Missile Factory
Wasp Missile Factory


Triple ended factories (value +1)
Advanced Satellite Factory
Bio Gas Factory M
BoFu Chemical Lab L
BoFu Chemical Lab M
Chelt Space Aquarium L
Chelt Space Aquarium M
Computer Plant
Headquarters
Massom Mill L
Ore Mine L
Plankton Farm L
Quantum Tube Fab
Rastar Refinery M
Rimes Fact L
Rimes Fact M
SQUASH Mine Factory
Satellite Factory
Silicon Mine L
Solar Power Plant L
Solar Power Plant M
Solar Power Plant XL
Soyery L
Soyery M
Soyfarm L
Space Fuel Distillery L
Space Fuel Distillery M
Stott Mixery L
Stott Mixery M
Sun oil refinery L
Teladianium foundry L
Teladianium foundry M
Terracorp Nividium Mine M
Weapon Component Factory
Wheat Farm L
Wheat Farm M

EDIT: fchopin have told me that a SPP M can in some cases be successfully connected to a complex without any free connection points.

From my own testing this seems to be correct.
However it must be placed between the docking hub and an existing station to work.
Placing it at one end of a complex results in a CTD.

It seems to me that any 3 ended factories could do this trick. However this is untested at the moment.

[soul_hunter]

Sweet, Thanks for explaining that, Ive been battling for ages to get this to work. Well done to spotting the connections, and thanks for testing and figuring it out. I dont sappose you know if you can join complexes in the same sort of way, cause at the moment i have a few space weed complexes i would like to join together.

[Rasdan]

Somebody understood my post. Great!! Thx for your reply soul_hunter.

Well I have tested all day today, and it works everytime.
No more problems with complex construction for me.

I still think this is a bug that needs fixing, but now we can work around it until a fix arrives.

I dont sappose you know if you can join complexes in the same sort of way, cause at the moment i have a few space weed complexes i would like to join together.

I should be no problem if both complexes have at least one free connection point.
You can always fly round and look at the individual complex stations.
Try to find the free connection points.
They look like small round hatches with a blue glow in the middle.
They are normally grouped together, so it should be easy then you know what to look for.
If you have at least one free one each complex joining them should work fine.

Ohhh well maybe not. I think I need to test complex joining (haven’t done that yet).
Maybe you need to have the number of connections to the main docking hub on complex 1 available on complex 2.
Why! Because if I remember correctly one of the docking hubs gets deleted when you join two complexes (am I right on this one ?)
This would leave up to 3 connections (going to the now deleted docking hub) that need to be connected to the other complex.
Arggggg this is getting complicated.

Anyway the conclusion must be that if you have 3 free connection points on each complex you can always join them together.

Please Egosoft fix this problem.
It should be reasonable simple, just add a connection point to all single connection stations then all troubles should be gone.

I really hope this helps more people that it confuses.

[PEACEOFWAR]

I have also found that turning on SETA right before it shows movie causes Horrible Crash with windows error the the exe must be closed.

[soul_hunter]

Thanks .
Actualy your insruction where Quite easy to follow Rasdan. Maybe another idea is to get another construction Kit and add the two complexes to that. I havn't tried it yet. Just thought of it now. Dont know if it's possible. But at least i know now that i can stick all my weed complexes into one big one. So irratating trying to look after seprate transports for each station.

I agree, It would be just much better if Egosoft just fixed it. But hey it gave us something to research
Makes things intresting.
Thanks again

[soul_hunter]

PEACEOFWAR

I havn't found the SETA before laying a station to be a problem. I lay them during SETA all the time. i am still using 1.2 though. maybe its a new bug with 1.3.

[jockodipunto]

I had CTD when I was just about to create a full square around Ore Mine.

LOL

[Greenfur]

Ahh I get it now, thanx rasdon and others for explaining. Ive posted a few times about this problem and got absolutly nothing from egosoft. This sort of information should really be stickied somewhere as its just gonna get lost :/

[Rasdan]

Soul_hunter

I have tested the complex joining thing you asked about.

The conclusion is that you need to look at the number of connection tubes going to the docking hub on each complex.
If complex 1 has 3 tubes (maximum) going from the docking hub to complex stations you need to have this number of free connections available on complex 2.

If you don’t, instant CTD.

So it seems to be a rule that:

The number of docking hub connections in one complex needs to be available as free connections on the other complex.
It is not essential that the free connections are available on the docking hubs, station connection point’s work too.

This also means, that if you make sure there’s always 3 free connection points on any complex you will never encounter this problem.
If you are missing connection points the only way to add them are by adding a triple connection station. Sad but it’s the only way.

[soul_hunter]

Sweet. Im gone try as soon as ive got the bucks togetha. Thank you for all the investigating. Its been intresting.
now all we have to do is find a way to make this game multiplayer. and then this will be the best space sim yet

[Tritous]

what I found was that if you try and connect two hubs together you need 3 free on the main hub...since the three connections on the hub you are adding will try and connect.

however....if you blow up that hub and connect onto the main hub then it usually works better. I found this out when I had a hub of 4 Soyeries L (a 3 ended station, i.e. a total of +4 to the station) but when I added hub to hub it acted like a -3 and CTD. I blew up the hub and added them separately and surely enough each acted like a +1 and it worked.

adding hub to hub is bad. I advise that you use SSP Ms and food fab Ls as the core of all complexes. using that core I now have a complex of about 220 stations and is capable of fully outfitting an M3 every 40 minutes, an M6 every 2 hours, and an M2 every 12 hours roughly.

[Malakie]

Hi all:

Simplest solution I see is this...

1) Obviously fix the bug that outright crashes the game in this situation.

2) Add modules we can buy that allow us to design our complexes easier. Say small connecting modules in 2, 3 and 4 way configurations. That way it does not matter what factories you want to place. You buy a connector that hooks to it and other factories connect to that.

3) Add modules for docking ports!! Allow us to buy and add docking ports. Say we want to building an a 'Homebase' or HQ for out fleet.. We should be able to add docking bays for ALL our ships no matter the type to dock as we expand our fleets.

Just my thoughts on this..

Malakie

[jthibo911]

Hey Tritous, I was just wondering something. Don't mean to hijack the thread, but I am impressed by your getting 220 factories together into one complex.


I got 35 stations together in Ore Belt

Spoiler

Show

in the southern part of the sector there are both high-yield ore and silicon asteroids relatively close together, I connected the two with a SPP and built off of that

but started to get CTD's when I would monkey around with it trying to add more stations. At the time, I assumed that with all the asteroids in Ore Belt (esp post-1.3) it was too much for the system or software or engine or whatever to handle adding more.

But if 220 is doable, that line of thinking might be wrong.

Can I ask, which sector did you place the complex in, and can you go in there without trememndous lag or CTD? Or do you have to stay out and do everything remotely?

[Tritous]

erm..lag may just be the biggest understatement in history there. the trick is, as pointed out eariler, to make sure you have a LOT of support stations in there. I have 5 soyeries and soyfarms, and 3 of each other races food farms and processing plants, all Large of course. 15 SPP Ms and 2 Ls, 3 large silicon mines (they were in the way so I just subsumed them) 8 crystal fabs. There was loads more but i cant remember. but that was there to support 10 BHEPT forges, 4GPPC forges, 8AHEPT forges, 4 Ammo fabs, a BPPC fab, 4 125MJ shield fabs, 6 25MJ shield fabs, 4 1GJ shield fabs.....

Pontefix' Realm is now a No Go area. framerate in there is about 1 frame / 3 seconds lol. complex size is about quarter of the sector in volume, I can't make it bigger because A: you have to be in sector to drop stations and I'm not going there again it's 100 times worse than any home sector and B: I've reached the limit on complex size...I have the hub at one side of the station so there are no collisions, but you can only connect things a certain distance away.

I also have 16 Ore mines in sector, but they are being handled by ships...the complex has a lot of SPPs, in fact the ECell capacity is 1.25 Million lol.

total cost...1.2Billion

[Rasdan]

In reply to Tritous

Yes blowing up one of the docking hubs when joining complexes is a good approach.
I do this all the time, it’s easier to keep track of things, and it gives you more control over the layout.
However it is expensive because all connections are lost, and it takes a lot if time to blow them up, even if I use a TS with Beta PPC’s. (I have no destroyers yet).

I can’t get MD to work properly for this application; when I use them on player owned stations, they do not bypass the shields.

If you want to join complexes and you have plenty of money, blowing up the docking hub this the way to go.

In reply to Malakie

Yes this bug needs to be fixed.
I would still “guesstimate” that the easiest way is to add connection points to all single ended stations.
However approach 2 and 3 would be much much better, but this would be adding content to the game and I guess it takes more time (models, skins, more testing, unforeseen bugs).
In any case bearing in mind that this game has a somewhat large amount of bugs, and people want bugs to be fixed, I would go for the quick solution and move on to the next bug.
Maybe in the future 2 & 3 will be added.
Or maybe someone in the modding community can add “connector hubs” based on the station models, by extracting the connector part used in existing stations, and adding this as a “new station”.

By the way I have added more stations to my “X ended station” list. I’ll keep on doing so until we have a fix or it’s complete.
Any input is welcome

It look’s to me as if crystal fabs are indeed 4 ended but I don’t know for sure can anyone comment on this!
It would be the first 4 ended station if it’s true.

[soul_hunter]

220 stations. Holy s***.
far too much free time.