I have another one of those "annoying random things".

I was doing some quick changes to planets and suddenly simply modifying the resource asteroid numbers produces game-crashing errors. These are things I have edited before with no issue.  In fact, one remains functioning with no problem, two work but one is bugged and the rest just crash.

I modified the stock game ones through a mod and understand that asteroid belts and asteroids may have some other coding at issue behind them but simply zeroing all the resource asteroids and mining outputs of other worlds shouldn't break the game.

Sounds like time for a re-install of am I not understanding something here?  Does the game require at least one ressource asteroid per planet that normally has them?

No I am simply talking about removing resource asteroids from each planet well by reducing all their values to "0".  No dev error--just a "bad call" message and termination.  One of the ones I zeroed works fine.  One did and then stopped and the others won't play.  I've done them collectively and individually.

Yeah--I checked the dev log.

I'll paste one here with the portion I edited.  I have used planet entities from two sets of reference files converted by someone else--which have worked fine up to now.

Here's a snippet (the only part I edited) from the PlanetDesert.entity:

planetResourceSetupInfo
    asteroidSpawnAngleVariance 3.141593
    totalMaxResourceAsteroids 0
    metalResourceAsteroidSetup
        minCount 0
        maxCount 0
        extractionRate 0.000000
        refineryRate 0.000000
        maxRefineryCount 0
    crystalResourceAsteroidSetup
        minCount 0
        maxCount 0
        extractionRate 0.000000
        refineryRate 0.000000
        maxRefineryCount 0
    neutralMetalResourceAsteroidSetup
        minCount 0
        maxCount 0
        extractionRate 0.000000
        refineryRate 0.000000
        maxRefineryCount 0
    neutralCrystalResourceAsteroidSetup
        minCount 0
        maxCount 0
        extractionRate 0.000000
        refineryRate 0.000000
        maxRefineryCount 0
isAsteroid FALSE

All that is altered is the total/min/max and extract/refine rates.  i've also done them inNotepad++ and checked for invisible characters or line breaks, etc.

P.S.  I found three blank debug logs from last night.  That's out of about a dozen crashes.   Totally blank--nothing in them at all.

Nope, you can put extra extractors on planets. I think even types its not allowed to have.

When exactly does the game crash? On game load or what?

Okay, well instead of continuing to let me throw out guesses as to what it could be, why don't you package up the files you've edited and let me see them like I originally asked?  Tends to work out better if I have a set I can actually see and drop into my own game.

Edit:

Tired of waiting on you. 

http://sites.google.com/site/steelers086/gamefiles/GameInfo.rar

Here is a set of gravity well files from out of the core game with all of the resource asteroids removed.  It works without crashing, I played through a quick game with it (only way to get metal and crystal is to buy it from the black market), so if you drop these into your mod and it still crashes then it's because you screwed something else up and you'll definitely have to package up the files you've edited and let me have a set so I can go through and fix them...

Well, running your planets as a stand-alone mod produces no effect for me.  They all have resource asteroids. Restarted after adding mod and everything.  I think my game has gremlins.

Lol.  Oh yeah--you have no gsd in there.  Me sleep then come back.

If its the top mod then it should override everything else.  There is no need for a gsd as the planets themselves dictate the resource asteroids.  I ran it as a stand alone mod and got nothing but planets with empty gravity wells, so I know it should work.  You're probably going to have to load up impulse and verify your instal just to make sure any possible damage you've done is fixed if you think you've got gremlins.

I know it might sound stupid, but since I've done this before, are you editing the right mod and playing the right version of the game?  Yeah yeah, I know, seems impossible right?  Well with having 17 or 20 versions of DS in my mod folder, I have accidentally started editing one version while having a different one enabled and have gotten pissed off that my changes were having no effect.  I've also been working on the vanilla version and loaded up the diplomacy version of the game and tried editing stuff and wondered why the dev.exe isn't reloading any of the files I've edited...  It happens, especially when you're tired.

Yes, but you will have to do several things in XSI first. Its kinda hard for me to explain so bear with me, and it would be a good idea to go over the section in the documentation of the forge tools "Modding_XSItoSins_ModdingSupplement" and read over the advanced section at the bottom of the page. Also read the "Note;" on steps 1 and 3 first, before you go through each step.

If you are where I think your at and it looks like this in your scene root explorer pop up (8 on key board) but all your materials have the same name under each mesh cluster;

1.Then you must ensure that each group( you mean cluster in xsi, yes? ) has its own individually named material. Go to "Get" > materials > assign material" then pick a mesh within your explorer under Cluster, it should have its own name when it is assigned. Then delete the old 1 ( you will need to go to the materials section of the explorer; press "m" with your cursor is over the explorer and delete the old materials from there also). Then you will have to hook up all the relevant texture files to each material for each cluster within the render tree(7 on key board). You may only need to do this to the clusters you assigned new materials.

Note;If each cluster's material is already different forget this first step you are good to go on with the next step.

2. Then you will have to give your model tangents. Select the whole polymsh and follow the instructions in the documentation on assigning tangents

3. You will have to put in the rootpoint and all the nulls you want also as Obj.'s cannot transfer this information either.

Note; if you can, use .Fbx. Fbx can contain more info than Obj.

If on the other hand your groups are still individual polymsh1, polymsh2 etc. and are situated straight under the light, rootpoint etc., you have a bit more of a process to go through and you must merge them all to 1 polymsh first.  De-select all then Go to "Create" > "Poly.Mesh"> "Merge" and pick the mesh's to be merged, then right click. In the pop up press merge button just under "Material, UV's, VertexColors, WieghtMaps". then press "Delete" button. You should now have the different Polymsh's as Clusters. Then follow steps 1,2 & 3.

PS. sorry if it is a little unclear, I am not so good at explaining things and I assume you Know your way around xsi somewhat and differences in terminology always makes things hard.

Also I don't know why, but the Quote I did from your post Siniperium has it as from Stant123 I don't know how this is possible. Perhaps the web guy needs to take a look at it.

Edit; I forgot to mention it is ok! and in fact ideal if the top cluster -New_Mesh in the picture shares the same material as the material in the (Scene_Root) as shown on the very bottom line in the picture. The little round purple icons for them have 2 ticks on them to confirm this.

Perhaps you did what was needed in the program you exported the Obj. from. IDK. In any case I don't think obj's can hold tangent and definitely they don't transfer null/ hardpoint info.

Okay, what I would like to do is have a template setup (for say Asteroid Belts or Dead Asteroids) where the first group below (dubbed Group 1) will spawn with a parameter of .4 and IF Group1 spawns, then Group 2 has a .1 chance of spawning. Is there a way to make this work within the planetItemsTemplate? I don't want to have the Group 2 ship spawn by itself but rather have it sometimes spawn if Group 1 has spawned.

planetItemsTemplate
    templateName "Template:LocalPirateMilitiaWeakUncolonizable"
    subTemplates 0
    groups 2
        group
            condition
                type "Always"
                param ".4"
            owner "Pirate"
            colonizeChance 1
            items 2
                item "Pirate:Frigate:Scout
                item "Pirate:Frigate:AntiFighter"
        group
            condition
                type "Always"
                param ".1"
            owner "Pirate"
            colonizeChance 1
            items 1
                item "Pirate:Frigate:Siege"

Is this possible?

Sadly not, otherwise my random encounters would be a lot easier.

I have been working (with permission) to take the Random Encounters from GoaFan77's 4X Mod and set them up as a mini-mod compatible with Distant Stars. I have everything working as intended with the exception of Asteroid Belts. Currently I would like to spawn the same pirate ships that are present sometimes in Magnetic Clouds or Plasma Storms (1 Pirate Scout & 1 Pirate Flak I believe) but with a .4 percent chance to appear in Asteroid Belts (without changing the templates used by said Plasma Storms and Magnetic Clouds). I also have (from GoaFan77's 4X Mod) a TEC 'militia' fleet that I could like to have spawn with a .2 percent chance to appear in Asteroid Belts as well. The idea is that if both end up appearing on the same Asteroid Belt, they will fight each other (hence one being Pirate and one being Militia). I've gotten this mechanic to work out well for my Dead Asteroids but I can't seem to get ANYTHING to spawn on Asteroid Belts.

Below are the relevant lines of code. Is there anything obvious that I am missing so far? Dev.exe (Diplo) doesn't show any errors.

planetItemsTemplate
    templateName "Template:DefaultStart_AsteroidBelt"
    subTemplates 2
        template "Template:LocalPirateMilitiaVeryWeakUncolonizable"
        template "Template:RandomTechMilitaryDrill"

planetItemsTemplate
    templateName "Template:LocalPirateMilitiaVeryWeakUncolonizable"
    subTemplates 0
    groups 1
        group
            condition
                type "NoPlanetOwnerWithChance"
                param ".4"
            owner "Pirate"
            colonizeChance 0
            items 2
                item "Pirate:Frigate:Scout"
                item "Pirate:Frigate:AntiFighter"

planetItemsTemplate
    templateName "Template:RandomTechMilitaryDrill"
    subTemplates 0
    groups 1
        group
            condition
                type "NoPlanetOwnerWithChance"
                param "0.2"
            owner "RandomMilitia"
            colonizeChance 0
            items 7
                item "Tech:Frigate:Light"
                item "Tech:Frigate:Light"
                item "Tech:Frigate:LongRange"
                item "Tech:Frigate:LongRange"
                item "Tech:Frigate:Heavy"
                item "Tech:Frigate:AntiFighter"
                item "Tech:Frigate:Utility0"