Life Missions - JIP as bird

[droo_k6 1]

So on life missions there is a problem where a player will join in and some slots will be a bird, and only civilian slots. I have seen this on most life servers with no fixes that I am aware of, but not on any other game modes besides DayZ when it first started (granted most missions are better designed than life missions).

I have tried searching for answers and running scripts on birded slots and them most I can find is-

-player is null

-Only appears to happen on civilian slots

-Can happen when game starts, more bird slots happen as game progresses

-Random fixes (joining a different slot and going back to birded slot, clearning mp cache, leaving server and coming back, very random)

-that it is caused by a duplicate of the slot that forces the JIP player to a crow slot

-There is no respawn as bird, only JIP as bird

-Birded slots seem to grow as player units get nulled (their variable name is somehow deleted)

---This one may be related to a certain player which as far as we can see, every vehicle (and sometimes units) that goes through his client gets nulled/variable name removed

I also found a ticket (link), but nothing more on it

Anyone know of some kind of fix to the slots that allow the game to continue (no restart/reassign), or causes?

[tonic-_- 53]

Spawning in as a bird i've noticed seems to revolve around the max number of groups being active. I think the max group count is 144. In DayZ we run into that issue and ended up doing a group cleanup every now an then for null groups.

[droo_k6 1]

Spawning in as a bird i've noticed seems to revolve around the max number of groups being active. I think the max group count is 144. In DayZ we run into that issue and ended up doing a group cleanup every now an then for null groups.

This makes sense, thank you. Shall get some scripts up to test this theory

[droo_k6 1]

Well we were able to make a script that checks the groups and logs when the mission creates one from our scripts, we were able to confirm that when the group count passes 144 all it takes is to disconnect while respawning to bird a slot.

Now the problem is (after grouping all shop related AI to a logic group) just tons of empty groups being created out of no where and empty groups not being deleted at times.

We found 2 ways to delete an empty group

-Force an AI or player into the empty groups then have them join grpNull or another group

-deleteGroup command

Sometimes these do not work but the problem is all the empty groups appearing at of no where (they grow quickly, 0/60 to 90/180 groups being empty in just a few minutes), any reason for this?

[tonic-_- 53]

Could try running this code as the server. Will delete all groups with no units in them every 5 minutes.

while {true} do
{
{
	if (count units _x==0) then {
		deleteGroup _x;
	};
} forEach allGroups;
sleep (60 * 5);
};

As far as what's causing it, no idea. The life code is so old and out dated and so heavily modified by so many people there is honestly no telling what causes it. You have a better chance rewriting it from scratch then trying to find the problem in that code.

If I remember correctly though, null groups usually delete them selves but not always in a timely fashion.

Edited October 28, 2012 by Tonic-_-

[droo_k6 1]

Could try running this code as the server. Will delete all groups with no units in them every 5 minutes.

As far as what's causing it, no idea. The life code is so old and out dated and so heavily modified by so many people there is honestly no telling what causes it. You have a better chance rewriting it from scratch then trying to find the problem in that code.

If I remember correctly though, null groups usually delete them selves but not always in a timely fashion.

Yes we had a similar loop on the server as well as forcing a unit to join and leave to try and delete it but both appear to be failing and all these empty groups are being created, even when we inject code to force a delete of empty groups they grow up in less than a minute again.

I wouldn't be surprised if it is because of the high server load/ mission's design, server FPS is around 0-2 so ya maybe it is time to start a rewrite with performance in mind (its all working for the most part anyway).