[Stealth[cro]]

Okay, before you send any Shivans against me or open a hail of flak/AAAfs/BFReds...

I guess this should've gone to the Mantis, but since the phone bill almost reached its cap (and I really don't have the nerves to register at yet another site this month)... here goes.

I started the game as per usual, using Launcher 3.3 and the 12_05_2003_fs2_open_r.exe (which reminds me... the _d version is probably a debug one or something?), and my standard switches (-htl, -pcx32 and -jpgtga, D3D, 1024x768x32, high, LargeTex, GFfix).

The problems began when I switched campaigns. The last one I played was the BWO demo (finished), so I loaded the main FS2 campaign, to see how it works with new engine.  The first thing that struck me was that the intro animation didn't work (bug or feature). Then, I started the game (disregarding the odd lack of intro), skipped the trainings and jumped into mission 1 heads-first. To my surprise, I was in a GTF Pegasus, with two Subach-Sevens in my primaries and a pack of MjolnirBeams (I kid you not!) in my secondary banks...
Something tells me that wasn't induced by any mod, as I promptly erased any and all traces of BWO.

The configuration is as follows (if needed):
Athlon 2000XP+, Abit KX7-333 MBO, 256MB DDR266 (unknown producer), Palit Daytona MX440 64MB DDR, SB128PCI.

Any help?

[Bobboau]

did you make a new pilot?

[Goober5000]

Very odd.  But all the same, it sounds like a table problem.  Disable all mod VPs, clear out all tables in Freespace2/, Freespace2/data, Freespace2/data/tables, etc.  Also try the 3.5.5 build and the 01_20_2004 build, and see if you find anything different.

[Bobboau]

actualy, it sound's like a old pilot file error to me

[redsniper]

did the Mjolnir beams work?

[Bobboau]

if they were in the secondary bays then probly not

[CP5670]

This definitely sounds like a pilot file issue; I have had very similar things happen when I used different tables with the same pilot. Try making a new pilot and see if you still get it.

[Shinobi]

I got that as well; had a beam cannon and a flack cannon in my secondaries. The Flack cannon actually worked...
I fixed the problem by simply restarting my computor.

Shinobi

[Stealth[cro]]

Alright... I'm sorry to raise a false alarm (not good for a first bug entry, huh )
The problem was indeed caused by a faulty pilot profile, guess I'll have to replay all the campaigns again. Someone should issue a warning in the readme file - come to think of it, someone should MAKE a readme file...

Oh, and redsniper - the Mjolnir actually worked. I accidentally fired it at one of Iota transports, only to watch it fly for the next two clicks at 200+ speed.

[Goober5000]

I've had pilot problems in the past, and usually I was able to fix them by disabling the mod and starting and exiting a random FS2 mission.  You shouldn't have to delete the file.

[Zarax]

Well, the fact beams can be used that way induces me to think about how weapons are managed...
Did the mjolnir behave correctly, i mean with warmup/down and loop sound?

[kasperl]

there is a readme, click the link under my name and scroll down to SCP

[Bobboau]

it defenately wouldn't have warmup/down, and I also don't know how it could have worked if it were in the secondary bays,
but I was right about the pilot file

[TopAce]

It also happened to me ... I just had a Medusa, with !TWO! Subachs. All my three secondary banks were some kind of beams(LTerSlash, Mjolnir and something else). Neither I made a new pilot, nor I uninstalled the table data of my own project.

Originally posted by CP5670
This definitely sounds like a pilot file issue; I have had very similar things happen when I used different tables with the same pilot. Try making a new pilot and see if you still get it.

What exactly can make a pilot file deteorated? I guess switching between FSO and FS_Retail. It made my pilot file berserk and I had some weird statistics(7 kills of SJD Sathanas and 4 kills of Knossos ).

Originally posted by Zarax
...Did the mjolnir behave correctly, i mean with warmup/down and loop sound?

I belive not. I had the same too, but the warmup/warmdown/sound effects were not played. Even I could not see the beam itself, it rather made me remember an invisible laser cannon

[Stealth[cro]]

kasperl - Thanks for the link. Though it really would make life a bit easier if there was a packed .txt file or HTML pack.

FYI, the Mjolnir behaved like any other missile - I could fire it, see something fly towards the reticle and hit (and when I say something, it looked like a missile warhead but with zero textures and zero engine glow). No warmup, no warmdown, not even a beam sound. But it hit well and hurt bad

TopAce - that's my error exactly, I didn't convert/recreate a different pilot for FSO and FS_R, what's really odd is that BWO ran just fine, while the main campaign wouldn't do.

Oh, and, sorry for reposting these two, but I still can't get them right (the Wiki doesn't help here...).
1) What is the real difference between FS2_open_r.exe and FS2_open_d.exe (aside from the obviousfilesize)?
2) As one of the rare players who actually has game CDs (and consequently the in-game cinematics), it'd help if I could view them.

[Goober5000]

You can't view MVE files with fs2_open.  Interplay still has rights over the codec.  You can, however, download the AVI files and a modified cutscene.tbl and view them.

_r is the release version (faster), _d is the debug version (slower, but more crash resistant)

[redmenace]

A link to the thread with the converted MVEs are in the latest version of everything thread.

[TopAce]

Originally posted by Goober5000
..._d is the debug version (slower, but more crash resistant)

MORE RESISTANT? I never could make it run
It always has something as a problem.

[CP5670]

What exactly can make a pilot file deteorated? I guess switching between FSO and FS_Retail. It made my pilot file berserk and I had some weird statistics(7 kills of SJD Sathanas and 4 kills of Knossos ).

I actually have not gotten such problems when changing exe versions but rather with different tables. I think the kill count screwups are related to the ordering of entries in ships.tbl; if the game finds a discrepancy between the positions of the ships in the pilot file (for some reason those seem to be stored in there) and those in ships.tbl, it just uses whatever ship it finds at that position in the table.

[kasperl]

IIRC, AFAIK, and with a fair bit of gestimating, i think the game indexes the kill thingy with numbers from TBL entry's, and not names. i remember this from the techroom bug were custom campaigns would have an extremely hard time getting the right ship to show up through SEXPs.

read the siggy though, and then forget what i said.