Unexpected CDT !

[linhphap]

Very sorry to report another CTD because I really enjoy the BSM and highly praise the work by R@s and all the other members.
I started a new game with BSM 1.4 after a full reinstall under Vista.
I've just finished to fight off the natives, rebels and olvega gunmen in the "defend Ciudad de Oro" mission. Killing the last of them brings the autosave, end of battle, etc, and I can freely speak to the people, get access to inventory, the "leave" switch is blinking, ... : everything peacefull, but no entry in the log ("mission accomplished, time to go...") and in the strategic map, the town still appears in red. Trying to leave the city brings the CTD. Any ideas ?

[R@S]

Originally Posted by linhphap

I've just finished to fight off the natives, rebels and olvega gunmen in the "defend Ciudad de Oro" mission. Killing the last of them brings the autosave, end of battle, etc, and I can freely speak to the people, get access to inventory, the "leave" switch is blinking, ... : everything peacefull, but no entry in the log ("mission accomplished, time to go...") and in the strategic map, the town still appears in red. Trying to leave the city brings the CTD. Any ideas ?

Did you talk to the Mayor before leaving. Be sure that you don't accidentally take over the city for yourself when you do, that will fail the mission.

What does the log say about the CTD?

It could have to do with the new capturing system, I would have to do some testing myself to figure that out. Since I made the Mayor appear earlier, he should appear around this time in vanilla, it could be related to the script getting stuck because of that. I'll test it and will try to fix it if that is the case.

[linhphap]

The only dialog option with the mayor is "farewell". But earlier in the game I took Olvega for myself : when dealing with Raul Mangusta, somehow the rebels got caught in the firefight and I had to inish them off (save the ones en route to CdO...). Don't know if this can interfere ?
I'll chekc the logs.

[R@S]

Luckily I was fairly close to this event in my current test session, so I now see what you mean with this issue. I don't get a CTD, but that could be related to vista being a piece of $hit.

I fought the defense of CdO, killed off both waves as well, and I got the attack repelled in the mission page before the battle with the second wave was even finished. I killed the last rebels and when I exited to the global map I noticed that the town was red. I could leave the area and go to Artrigo and get the reward. I loaded a save when I still was in CdO to check it out and I noticed a few guys wearing the "native" uniforms. I started killing them, and here's the weird thing, I din't enter combat mode when I did, they just stood there without responding. Once I killed them all, there were about five of them, the city was orange(neutral) and I could take over the city for myself by talking to the Mayor.

I checked the log while the game was still running, and the only thing that could explain this behavior is the old GUMID error. It seems the engine replaces a few rebels with other characters, in this case the natives, and that leads to unwanted situations like this. I've been trying to fix this issue for a long time but haven't been able to. I don't know if it's an engine limitation issue or something else I've done with the script. I've heard from my Russian friends that one shouldn't add too many new characters and I've added a lot, this could be the reason. I'll keep trying to fix it, in the meantime you will have to either load from a previous save and fight the battle again, or start a new campaign, I think that's the only solution right now.

[linhphap]

Thank you, you are right, as always. I noticed a "native bruiser", an armed non hostile character in native uniform. Tried to shoot her, but didn't notice the shift from red to orange in the strategic map (and besides, she's so cute I didn't feel like wasting her!). After shooting her, I could talk to the mayor, take over the city, and leave it wihtout CTD. but before reaching the next town I get the "mission failed" message, the city reverts from blue to orange and I have to come back and talk to the mayor again. (All the militias I recruited the first time had vanished : waste of money!)
Having shot one hundred ennemies to end in a mission failure is a bit disappointing : how do you explain that you succeeded even before the last rebel was killed ? Is it a respawn issue ? (I experienced a first CTD when playing the mission whith two waves of bandits trying to steel Taco's briefcase : after a reload, the second wave arrived smoothly and I forgot about it.)
Any chance of success if I reload the second wave only, or should I really start the whole battle again ?

[R@S]

Since I had 5 non hostile enemies at the end of the defence mission, I got the "defend accomplished" message before I had killed the last 5 hostile enemies. The GUMID's made sure of that. Once I had killed the 5 non hostiles, I talked to the Mayor, took over the city and placed 25 militias in the town. I've found that you need atleast 25 if you wanna have a good chance of defending a captured town.

In your case I would fail the mission and keep playing, the cash you got from the dead enemies is more than enough compensation And you can atleast continue your campaign, it's not a game stopper anymore. But if you really want a successful mission I suspect you need to fight the battle again and hope you'll get the "defend accomplished" message before the end of the battle.

The good news is that I think I found the reason for the GUMID error, or at least I hope I have. Since I'm snowed in and wont have to go to work until next week I'll have time to test and see if it's fixed.

[Nat_Crelk]

Hi there !

As for Linhphap's problem I've experimented the same as R@S : fought the enemies, get the message before the very end of the fight, talked with the mayor and set 25 or 30 militia men : city was taken.

As for my problem (posted somewhere up) I've tested it other times and found something that could be interesting.

The CTD, in facts, seems to appear more frequently when there are Gov Special Troops in the area.
Firstly in my posts, I've thought that the crash appears with or without them but it seems that Gov Specials make the difference.

When there is only "Regular" Troops, the crash sometimes appears and sometimes not.
But when there is "Special Gov Troops" in addition, the crash appears everytimes.

I don't really know if that makes the very difference but that might help.
I've checked the .ini files of the "Specials" and it appears that they are maybe more supposed to carry nades.
But maybe I'm wrong 'cause I don't understand everything in those .ini files.

I continue to experiment and I'll give you some new info (at least, I hope !)

Thx

Nat