The 7th Transcendence Succession game

[PM]

Picked up save and taking a turn today.

[PM]

I doubt I will finish my turn until tomorrow. Currently, I am in the middle of a lucrative loop destroying Dwarg stations, tricking retaliatory Dwarg behemoth hordes into destroying high level Corporate stations, looting said stations and Dwarg wrecks, wait until both sides rebuild stations, and repeat. So far, I looted more dark fire weapons and level 8 shields. Also, I identified which Corporate Cruisers are safe to kill without retribution, and I killed almost enough of them to get twelve segments of hexacarbide armor, among other items.

[pixelfck]

Seeing you play and exploit the game's mechanics, I realise how bad I am at it!
I mean, you make so much more money out of everything

Cheers,
Pixelfck

[Toskin]

Can I reserve turn 9 of Succession ?

[TVR]

@Toskin

Sure thing.

On a side note, as the file hosting was only for 21 days, the modpack will be reuploaded today with fixes for Weapon Labs and Slylandro Probe. A smaller patch will be provided for existing installations of the modpack.

[PM]

Problems:
* My savefile zip is about 8.3 MB. I tried to upload it to Xelerus but it will not accept the zip.

* As for Transcendence, it seems the savefile cannot be bigger than 52,394 KB. As I play, the savefile gets bigger and bigger, but once the size reaches 52,394 KB, eventually, I cannot load the save anymore. Transcendence seems to get stuck in an infinite loop if I try to load the save. I had to cut my activities (farming, selling loot, upgrading equipment, fixing items and ships, buying a new ship, etc.) short so that I would have a viable save file to upload (if I can upload it, that is).

Any suggestions?

[TVR]

Reupload of modpack in progress

@PM

Try double compressing the file (once as .7z, then as .zip), or just upload to InfoTomb.

There shouldn't be any engine limitations on save file size - I still have the 60 MB (58.2 MiB) save file that I loaded for Succession #4, Turn 13, Transcendence 1.2A1

I suspect either an issue with <OnGlobalUniverseLoad> or maximum number of spaceObjects per system.

Options if there are save file size restrictions, in order of practicality:

1) Add in code to find and remove every wreck and unused saved data from previous systems.
2) File a bug report and wait until November for an updated version of Transcendence supporting save compression or large saves.
3) Recompile Transcendence.exe with support for large saves.
4) Distribute memory dumps instead of save files.

[Toskin]

@TVR

Can you give URL of modpack when it will be ready ?

[TVR]

New version of modpack uploaded, details in the first post. This update is optional, the Succession will remain backwards compatible with previous versions of the modpack.

Fixes for DraCorp Items shield generators, Weapon Labs recycle function, Interstellar Communication and Slylandro Probe missing class name.

Attached to this post is a patch for those who would prefer to not download the entire modpack.

[PM]

Uploaded savefile to Infotomb. Will expire in one week.

Comments about the previous save (from Tshark) before my turn:
* Had about 200,000 credits left.
* Wyvera has a +Fast dual Tsurugi blaster, making the dual Beamer on it obsolete.
* Wyvera has a terrasect cargo hold. I turned the hold off because it gave too much thrust.
* SuperMule took (minor) interior damage.
* SuperMule has a dual Tsurugi blaster and better armor.
* Convicted by Commonwealth.
* Hurin ships and a fortress were destroyed. We cannot befriend the Huari. Might as well farm them for items.

Highlights of my turn:
* Destroyed thieving pilgrim freighters and Brigands.
* Farmed a slave camp that keep getting rebuilt. Got over 70 slave coffins and a bunch of loot from Sung ships.
* Cleared systems past Aquilae - they are all dead ends.
* In the dead-end Orthrus, I slaughtered hordes of Dwarg Behemoths and many Corporate Cruisers.
* Deposited more damaged items in the wrecked Anarchist station in Rigel.
* Saved at the stargate to Charon. The way coreward is in Charon at the 70 Ophiuchi gate, NOT St. K's gate.

Upgrades:
* Wyvera has an omni Tsurugi and a bigger Terrasect hold.
* Lindworm "Megas" has hexacarbide armor, +Fast Daxtovian dark fire weapons (one omni, one dual), the dual ion Beamer from the Wyvera, and a homing ammoless thermo launcher. It is disgustingly overpowered (thumbs up from me), and it will slaughter anything it shoots at.
* No upgrades on the Supermule yet. Had savegame problems by the time I got around to selling items and upgrading equipment, let alone fixing SuperMule.
* Sold the launchers and thousands of Gothas from Corporate Cruisers for several hundred thousand credits. We have about 900,000 credits.

Notes:
* I would have done more, but after a certain point, Transcendence would get stuck in an infinite loop attempting to load a save. I intended to identify and sell more loot, patch up SuperMule, upgrade all of our ships, and maybe get another ship. Someone like TVR, Pixelfcx, RPC, or (hopefully) George Moromisato should examine the save, or rather, travel a few systems, fight a bit, shuffle some items, save, then reload.

* Standard patcher arms do NOT work on high level armor in succession - they do not repair level 9+ armor. Manage your patch spiders wisely.

* BEWARE! The Antares SuperMule has illegals on board! Do not dock at Commonwealth stations with the SuperMule before offloading contraband.

[FourFire]

Wow it looks like the succession has been progressing swimmingly, I have been really busy lately so I haven't been able to take a save just yet, but when I can, I will.

[TVR]

@Toskin

The download links for the updated modpack and the latest saved game are in the first post - ready for Turn 9?

@PM

Still have those save files that won't load, by any chance?

@FourFire

Heh, just glad you checked in. Don't forget to use the most recent version of the modpack, if you find the time for a turn.

[PM]

Here is a savefile (expires one week) that refuses to load. Transcendence gets stuck in an infinite loop if I try to load it.

[TVR]

Testing has revealed a serious engine bug with Transcendence 1.3 branch.

Transcendence 1.3 cannot make saves larger than 53651300 bytes (aprox. 53.6 MB)

Any save that would be larger than 53651300 bytes is truncated, resulting in an unloadable save.

Transcendence 1.2 Alpha 1 was able to create and load saves over 53651300 bytes.

The Succession will have to be halted while we try to fix this. Do not take Turn 9 for now, because the resulting save for Turn 10 will not be loadable.

EDIT: Resolved

[PM]

I recommend to terminate this succession, and start another with few or no mods.