I was intending to post the results on the wiki. I don't have much experience with it, but it's another interesting skill to learn. If I don't get the layout right, at least someone can come along and tidy it for me :D

I know that I already answered this once, but I was just thinking: Would Andi's lot rotation picture with the 4 U11 values (or my modified version) help here? At least it's something that we've all seen before.

Yes I was half remembering some diagrams I had seen, but it occurred to me that might not be the best way to present something that needs an algorithm made from it, cos that's a spacial relationship when really we're after a condition tree.

Yes, I have problems keeping it all straight as well.

I'm checking the MATY thread now ... I think that's where someone said that they had tried this. About halfway through the posts now (obviously started from the wrong end ).

I know that I've had crashes with expanded and shrunken lots which have never had a sim on the lot. However, the crashes weren't related to the day/night issue. The crashes that I've experienced have been during save or load of the lot. I think that there are some issues with expanding or moving a lot into an area of the neighborhood with a badly mismatched terrain. The crashes aren't consistent - sometimes a lot will crash and then the next time it will be OK. I'm still investigating this.

So, are you suggesting that our shrunken test lots should be posted in individual threads in the R&D area? Or, are you suggesting that they should all be attached to this thread, with an index somewhere so that they don't get lost? (Or, perhaps none of the above? )

I posted mine in the test area at simlogical and put a pointer here I think. Other people were attaching them to this thread or posting a download thread with the IN TESTING flag on and extra warnings. I was happy whichever way, because all the links were in this one place. I am somewhat less happy to post in one thread and get the reply in another, which is what seems to be happening now; the reason I posted in a particular thread is that I was answering a point I saw in that thread. It would be nice to at least have each burst of conversation contiguous.

Anyway back to the OBJT. I have hit a type of OBJT which doesn't fit the typical layout, and I want to work that out before doing a formal wiki entry. But what I can do probably by tomorrow is give you an interrim breakdown of the format of a portal OBJT, which I think you are mainly interested in right now?

I tried to explain that there might be several different crashes going on, but it was late and I probably wasn't very coherent!

In some ways, it's nice I haven't got a crash problem, but it means I am unable to help in finding the cause.

Do you have any particular gap in the general testing at present? I have no test currently underway, so if you want something which I can do, just say and I'll work on it tonight.

Or the one from my tutorial, with the sundirection added?

Would it be better to have a 'Shrinking' thread in the R&D forum, with the lots, commentary and creator's co-support, all in one place, in public and obviously in testing?

Those who have lots there would need to keep track of it, and we could pass on info to Mootilda when it looked helpful. There would still be several creators involved, so we can help each other, but Mootilda need not keep up with it.

I was personally happy to wait until there was a major change made to the code, that might warrant more public testing. However, if we need wider testing to see whether corruption is self-healing or corrosive, that approach might give it. Would the beach lots come under this thread too? I believe they are shrunk.

I am finding it not too bad to keep up - I have a 'favourites' link to the hidden forum, and to this one, so I can check them both quickly for new posts. However, it does mean adding links in several threads at times, so people can read things pertinent to a particular lot all in one place, while also having all the info here as well.

I think if we had a shrinking thread, we would have the original public one as the main talk thread for everything else, and just the dangerous downloads in the hidden forum - which would mean effectively NO posts or threads over there except for Mootilda's own uploads. Would that make everyone happy? Two threads to look at. Mootilda could post here when a new test version came available, and we wouldn't need to look at the hidden forum otherwise except for reference.

So was that a 'sure, go find testers' or not?

I think that was a 'do what you will, and be prepared to support it.' I suggest you keep the lots on the Building R&D forum at least, for the moment, with plenty of warnings.

But that's just my opinion.

That sounds really good. I'd like to try to move on-the-lot objects so that they remain on the shrunken lots. I'm assuming that the OBJT record is the main one that needs to be changed. Expecially if I don't actually need to follow all of the links through from the MOBJT, but can just change an individual OBJT record independently.

The question is: why do you want to share lots that we believe are corrupt?

If you are doing it to help the LotAdjuster development, DON'T do it; it will NOT help.

If you have some other reason for sharing these lots, let's discuss it.

I am not sure "sharing" is the right term to use for uploading something that is clearly marked as "for testing, to help us find out where a problem is". At this time we don't have an insight into why some people get crashes and some people don't, and under what individual circumstances connected with the lot itself. I would have thought increasing the number of people testing would increase the likelihood of acheiving an insight. Ten testers just isn't enough to get an overview - and not all ten of us are lot testing anyway.

I do not believe these lots are corrupt.

There is no way to prove these lots are not corrupt to you until they are further tested. We have no one interested in testing them. I am totally against 'making' some one test something they have no interest in, takes all the fun out of it. This IS a game.

Seems to me, I have proven the lots are fine as much as I can: hours and hours of playing and not one single anomoly or glitch. Faultless play. And since you have no defined what 'further testing' consists of, what else am I to think?

These lots were possible only because of you. You and Andi and Quaxi and Inge and Delphy get the credit, not me. I've just been a droogie here. I certainly do not want to go beyond your wishes Mootilda. But without a wider test base these lots are dead in the water--as defined by you so far.

I don't blame you for not liking the people at MATY much. Most of them are an 'acqiured taste'. lol. But you are totally wrong to think someone is 'immature' if they happen to be mean. The MATY users tend to be older and more experienced than the MTS2 uses as Delphy wants to run a 'clean' board. JM doesn't give a rat's a^% what happens on his board. Hence an older crowd there, a younger crowd here. MATY has people that are avid players, they know what to do if their game explodes, they will not whine and cry. They will point and laugh instead.

I vote 'let someone at the lots'.

If you believe that you can gain some insight into the problems in this way, then that's certainly a valid reason for putting these lots out to a wider audience.

I don't believe that I can gain any insight in this way - based on our previous experience.

I think that we already know what the potential problems are - everything that we are doing which the game doesn't allow. We're working on a solution to one of those problems - possibly the most fixable of the potential problems. When we have a solution, we will all be testing these lots. If that testing goes well, then I will be looking for ways to increase the test base.

So far I haven't fixed anything that is related to the crashing. Unless you believe that the crashing was caused by the lack of lot smoothing, or strings that were really long, or something else that I've changed - if so, then that's definitely a reason to increase the test base.

Right now, I believe that we need to fix, at minimum, the OBJM, XOBJ, and OBJT handling.

Please, what does "...we need to fix, at minimum, the OBJM, XOBJ, and OBJT handling" have to do with the beach lots?

I really disagree with your belief that the lots are not corrupt. Testing is unlikely to convince me.

Unfortunately, there's no way to "prove" that a lot isn't corrupt, since we don't even know what the game considers to be corruption. We're making guesses about what kinds of things the game can't handle. If we did know, then I could write a LotAnalyser which would check shrunken lots for corruption before we share them.

We're currently working on a change to the handling of objects, which I am hopeful will make these lots much more stable. When I first wrote the shrinking code, I was not aware of how many objects exist on an "empty" lot. Now that I know, I believe that the LA needs, at minimum, to ensure that objects remain in valid locations on the lot.

All lots, even ones which appear to be completely empty, have objects on them. I could print you off a list of the objects on your beach lots, if you'd like...

Inge, I re-read my last response to your post and realized that it wasn't well worded. Hope you don't mind if I try again.

I honestly believe that you may be able to gain insights into the problem that I can't... you're an experienced modder and I'm not. If you find it helpful to have a large testing group for lots, then that's a really good reason for putting lots out to a wider audience. I just didn't find it helpful, personally.

I'm trying to put my energies where they will have the greatest effect. Since I have programming skills which seem to be somewhat rare, I'm trying to focus my energies on programming. I know very little about modding and I don't believe that I currently have the skillset required.

I appreciate all insights that the group can get into the problems that we're having with shrunken lots. I trust this group to make a good decision about testing these lots.

I don't believe that I've ever told people not to share these lots. I'm concerned about restricting the LA shrinking feature until it's ready to be released properly. I appreciate all of the help that people are giving me in testing the LA features and UI. But, I'm not the "boss" and I'm not going to tell people what to do. I can only state what's helpful to me, what makes me uncomfortable, and what I find unacceptable.

Ok, but why? Why do you think the beach lots are corrupt even though they have played flawlessly? Do you think all of Andi's lots are corrupt, lots that I and others have played for several years now without consequence? Why?

What, if not testing, is going to convince you the lots are ok??

Well I would want to know if anyone after all this time has seen any sign of

1) The other lots in that hood corrupting
2) The other hoods in their game corrupting
3) Files nothing to do with The Sims being modified at the time the game was saved.

As for game files outside that particular hood being updated, that seems to happen quite normally. I was deliberately watching for it while playing a few sessions having deleted all hoods containing LA-edited lots.

If none of the danger flags above are true, I'd simply warn to use a test hood and not panic any further

Because the LotAdjuster is moving objects off-world, possibly to invalid locations.

No, I don't believe that Andi's lots are corrupt. There's been no indication that his lots have crashing problems. There have been indications that the current batch of shrunken lots are corrupt.

Of all of the new shrunken lots, I think that the beach lots have the best chance of being OK. However, these beach lots are significantly more complex than Andi's original 1x1. Were you suggesting that only the beach lots are not corrupt? I was speaking more generally. In general, I believe that the current batch of shrunken lots may be corrupt - that the LA shrinking feature may corrupt your lot.

Fixing known issues, like off-the-lot objects, followed by testing.

One of the small lots, I think it was a 1x2 and I am not sure if it was made by Andi or someone else, but it had the blue tear at the side. I played it anyway. it played fine. Of course, the blue tear wasn't pretty so I eventually moved on to another 1x2 as stock in my bin.

3) seems incredibly unlikely. As I've tried to explain, the O/S prevents the game from corrupting another program's memory. So, 3) doesn't really need to be tested. I'm not sure how this myth got started, but it's just a myth.

2) seems pretty unlikely, too. I still don't understand why the game even modifies other neighborhood packages during a session, but I suspect that the game cleans up between playing two separate neighborhoods. This at least seems possible, unlike 3).

I would also be curious about 1) but not just lots - any files changed during a game session which included playing a shrunken lot - that includes the neighborhood package, sims, and other lots. Since the neighborhood package and many character packages are modified during play, but other lots are not open at the same time as the shrunken lot, it's more likely that the neighborhood and sims will be corrupted than that other lots will be corrupted directly.

Wasn't there someone on MATY who started with no crashes, but found that over time there were more and more crashes while playing shrunken lots?

Yet, Andi's lots did not bother to move any objects. Are you saying that Andi's lots had no off world objects?



Again, these lots have played perfectly. What is your definition of being ok? What will it take for these lots to pass your inspection? I have asked several times now. Please answer.

Yes, as you have yourself--like you stated above.