Strange Issue playing online Thread - Ultimate Apocalypse Mod (DOW SS) for Dawn of War

I posted in technical issues and waited quite a long time but got to response, so I decided to get better noticed by making a separate thread.

Singleplayer works perfectly fine with no issues.

I play over the network with my friend. Necrons cause an out of sync, and then when you quit, it crashes to desktop. It happens when either the player or the AI plays them. We both reinstalled cleanly and it still did not fix it. I am on Windows 7 and he is on Windows 10. It is really annoying, especially because I like playing Necrons now and then, and the AI tends to choose them quite often on random. Any help or answers would be appreciated.

Edited by: Admiral_Gaarn

Necrons only work on hard or higher difficulty for AI. Thats all i know

Playing with Apoc Rules+Annihilation only? Yeah for no reason they cause a de-sync in anything lower than HARD.

Will it be fixed in the upcoming patch?

I cannot fix what I cannot test. Does vanilla Necrons have this issue also? UA Necrons is using the same code logic with some tweaks which would not cause a de-sync based off AI Skill.

No, it only seems to happen on UA.

So you can play MP via Necrons when they are at skill level HARD or higher? Its when its EASY/STANDARD that de-syncs?

thudo wrote:

So you can play MP via Necrons when they are at skill level HARD or higher? Its when its EASY/STANDARD that de-syncs?\

Sorry it took so long to reply, my computer was out of commission for a few days. Back to the question, you are correct, I just confirmed it. It goes OOS when on Easy and Standard, but works fine on Hard or higher.

The only thing it could be is: the UltimateApocalypse_THB\data\ai\core\AIConfig.ai and UltimateApocalypse_THB\data\ai\core\AIDefaultConfig.ai in their respective AISettings_Easy and AISettings_Standard sections. If those sections were instead using the AISettings_Hard section it might not de-sync but that is, of course, not proven. Maybe wait for the next release and re-try as some somewhat "significant" Necron AI changes occurred.

Yup, Necrons on Standard or lower difficulty still OOS and CTDs in multiplayer even after the update.

Edited by: Admiral_Gaarn

Right however that has been an issue for a year+. I suggest the fix above on both systems trying to connect to each other as a test. Backup those two files so you can go back to them to maintain compatibility with others.

thudo wrote:

Right however that has been an issue for a year+. I suggest the fix above on both systems trying to connect to each other as a test. Backup those two files so you can go back to them to maintain compatibility with others.

I have extensive modding experience so I believe I can figure out whats going on with it, thanks for the heads up!

Edited by: Admiral_Gaarn

Let us all know as this is a big deal.

Hello.

I ran a series of tests, with and without altered ai config code changes. Firstly, I played as Necrons against AI on standard, no problems. I then played against Necrons on standard, and it de-synced and crashed. Then I played against Necrons on hard and it worked fine. I changed the code like you said and it did nothing. It seems that Necrons on Standard difficulty or below go out of sync and crash no matter what you change in the AI config files. Something about the low difficulty levels upsets the Necron AI and I haven't the slightest clue as to what it is. I tried scanning the dump files but I do not know enough about DOW's code yet to figure anything out. Would it help if I sent you any of the crash report files?

Edited by: Admiral_Gaarn

Nope.. those crash reports mean nothing except if there is anything at the end of the warnings.log that pertains to an actual error.

Also, drawing a blank on the sync issues with lower than HARD Necron AI...

thudo wrote:

Nope.. those crash reports mean nothing except if there is anything at the end of the warnings.log that pertains to an actual error.

Also, drawing a blank on the sync issues with lower than HARD Necron AI...

Sigh...

Its so annoying, you can't even pick random race on standard because it seems to choose Necrons a lot so it constantly goes out of sync. Their has got to be some way to figure out what is going on. It has actually been so long since I played against them that I cannot remember how to counter them anymore.

Edited by: Admiral_Gaarn

Does Vanilla Necrons on Standard also de-sync? It also uses the same logic.

Edited by: thudo

No, it does not

Someone mentioned on another thread that the problem could be originating from the AI handling package for the Necrons.

Edited by: Admiral_Gaarn

Except there is no difference the way Necrons AI is handled in UA vs. Vanilla as the same Skill Logic is used. No clue man...

Well, I have no idea then, its totally up to you guys to fix it :/

Drawing blanks on this one also.. I cannot test it as I don't ever play MP.

Hey thudo do you have non-Steam version? I could let you on my Hamachi server and help you test.

Well, if he is a team member, can't he just ask one of the others to help him test it?

I mean, it depends on the version he has. If all the other team members have one version of the game and thudo has a different one, they wouldn't be able to test. You're probably right, but it's worth asking at least.

I have and will always be the NON-Steam version.