[Help] Anyone encounter this bug with the AMK 1.4 mod?

[Mazryonh]

I did after it was recommended to me. If I knew just how unstable it was, along with the fact that it was developed primarily for a Russian audience (and thus had very little support for English-speaking users of the mod), I might not have been so enthusiastic.

While I do appreciate the ability to repair my weapons and sleep (should have been there from the beginning, GSC!), the STALKER IM network, the better combat (enemies don't just tank 20 bullets from an AK-74 anymore) and the blowouts where everyone runs to the shelter instead of just vanishing like in Clear Sky, I don't appreciate the various missing texture bugs (which I was able to hotfix thanks to some gracious members of the AMK English version forums), the fact that Controllers surrounded by packs of animals often cause my game to crash, and the fact that for some strange reason I often lose the ability to drag corpses properly.

Once the bug happens (and it has often recurred no matter which savegame I load, it eventually always happens again), I can only move corpses a very short distance before being forced to drop them for no apparent reason. I have, recently managed to isolate the bug in a savegame I've uploaded to Filefront. The link is here:

http://files.filefront.com/Corpse+Dragging...;/fileinfo.html

The savegame I've uploaded puts the Marked One just before the entrance to the Dark Valley from the Garbage, right before the mission to enter X18. Just in front of the Marked One is a bandit corpse. If you decide to play through this save game yourself, you will find you can lift and drag the bandit corpse as normal. The real problem lies just a few feet in front of you, however.

If you enter the Dark Valley from the Garbage, you'll find another bandit corpse. Unfortunately, every time I've tested this, I have been completely unable to lift corpses any appreciable distance ever again after that single area transition, despite the fact that corpse-carrying works perfectly in the Garbage. The corpses no longer lift up completely, and will fall to the ground suddenly again instead of letting me carry them to a different location. This problem has kept coming back and I'm tired of playing earlier save games in vain attempts to avoid this bug.

Before you start typing a reply saying "Just play without dragging corpses, idiot!", perhaps you should know that for whatever reason, NPC corpses in AMK 1.4 do not appear to fade away on their own. I've sat through several dozen bandit attacks at the hangar in the Garbage level, and every time their corpses start piling up I am reminded of the fact that every game engine has a polygon limit, a limit to how many 3D objects can be on the screen or in the computer's memory at one time. Once that polygon limit is exceeded, the computer either has to shut down the program, crash, or fry itself. Since I don't want any of those happening to my (very expensive) machine, I decided to bypass this potential problem by throwing NPC corpses into Vortex or Whirligig anomalies to destroy them and keep the number of corpses in the game engine's memory as low as possible. This was a time-consuming process, but I decided the price was worth paying (except in cases such as the entrance to Wild Territory from the Bar, where if you destroy the corpses of the ambushed Freedom members you will cause the Duty attack squad to just stupidly sit and stay there, waiting to be killed by the next blowout instead of heading to the abandoned farmstead). I still want to be able to throw corpses in those anomalies, and not being able to properly carry them is obviously going to stop me from doing that.

What can I do to fix this error? What might it be caused by? And do NPC corpses in AMK 1.4 actually disappear on their own? If that were true, then I could ignore the error and play through to the end of the Chernobyl NPP, but I don't want the game to crash because of polygon overload. I am really getting tired of all the errors this mod is shoving in my face.

Any help would be most appreciated. I know that some people here love the AMK mod, and I would like to enjoy a bugfree playthrough all the way to Chernobyl NPP at least once as well. Why did all these bugs have to happen to me?!

[Jarvis]

That's a pretty common bug, I've noticed it in many mods. Don't know why it happens, don't know under what circumstances, Marked One just decides to get lazy all of a sudden

To make corpses disappear more quickly, you can set their "decay" time. Go into gamedata > config > creatures and open the file called 'stalkers.ltx'. You'll see something like this:

#include "m_stalker.ltx"
#include "m_person.ltx"
#include "immunities.ltx"
#include "damages.ltx"
#include "m_stalker_zombied.ltx"
#include "m_stalker_monolith.ltx"

[stalkers_common]
corpse_remove_game_time_interval = 12 ; in hours
stay_after_death_time_interval = 12 ; in hours

Set the numbers in bold to something lower, and see if that helps.

[Cespenar]

Hey Jarvis,
Those last three lines are missing in my stalkers.ltx

[Mazryonh]

Originally Posted by Jarvis

That's a pretty common bug, I've noticed it in many mods. Don't know why it happens, don't know under what circumstances, Marked One just decides to get lazy all of a sudden

Then could not one of the coding geniuses here help to determine what the cause is? I've been trained in QA for games (though I could never master programming) and I believe that the savegame I uploaded is what they would call a good case of reproducibility (the quality of being repeatable with known and identifiable circumstances) and reliability for an error. If someone could just figure out what exactly is going on in the code the moment you transition from the Garbage to the Dark Valley (where in my savegame, you suddenly lose the ability to move corpses correctly), then the error could be identified and solved for good.

To make corpses disappear more quickly, you can set their "decay" time. Go into gamedata > config > creatures and open the file called 'stalkers.ltx'.

Unfortunately I checked out the config/creatures directory in my gamedata folder, and there was no stalkers.ltx file there. Instead there's a bunch of files that seem to break up the NPCs into individual files, one for each monster, including one for m_stalker, m_stalker_monolith, and m_stalker_zombied. I can find nothing quite like the "decay time function" you mentioned in your code example.

If I post the contents of the m_stalker file, do you think you could help me find where that "decay time function" is and help me change it appropriately?

Thanks again for your help.

[ahilej]

AMK 1.4.022 english, which you are probably playing, is considered 'unfinished' version. There is AMK 1.4.1 and 1.4.2 russian vesions, and I do played all three of them, both english and russian ones, I can say that this bug and many others are wery well solved.
I do understand Russian, yes I do.
But the reason to write this answer is, AMK team is working for several months on 2.0 version of the mod, which will have five or so maps from the famous 1935 build included, with reworked textures, new storyline and much more. The mod release date is planed to be autumn 2009, and for the first time AMK mod will have proper english translation, yes, both versions AMK 2.0 russian and AMK 2.0 english (for 'worldwide' ShoC) will have same release date and will have same, definitely finished, and to-a-reasonable-extent bug free state.
So, good hunting, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

AMK TEAM - Ìîäû Ñòàëêåð Òåíè ×åðíîáûëÿ è ×èñòîå Íåáî

[Mazryonh]

Originally Posted by ahilej

AMK 1.4.022 english, which you are probably playing, is considered 'unfinished' version. There is AMK 1.4.1 and 1.4.2 russian vesions, and I do played all three of them, both english and russian ones, I can say that this bug and many others are wery well solved.

WHAT?! You mean there's an English download for AMK 1.4.1 and 1.4.2?! The English forum for the AMK mod team doesn't list anything other than 1.4.

You can see it for yourself here:

ÀMK Mod - General Info - AMK Team Ôîðóì Ñòàëêåð Òåíè ×åðíîáûëÿ è ×èñòîå Íåáî

According to the AMK 2.0 FAQ at the English forum, at last count they were planning on "not releasing an English version of AMK 2.0." Now who should I believe?