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Author Topic: location finder doesn't always work  (Read 1492 times)

Shades

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location finder doesn't always work
« on: July 25, 2008, 02:34:00 pm »

I've had both situations where searching again with the same settings found me a different location (with different green items) and where it claimed that to only find a partial location when I could see there was a full match near by.

I've done this on multiple generated worlds so it seems to be a common problem. Not sure if the search just doesn't search every location or something but it seems wrong whichever.
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krumlink

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Re: location finder doesn't always work
« Reply #1 on: July 25, 2008, 02:43:24 pm »

I use the same site finder and It always finds me magma. One thing to look for is the No option. It will look for locations with NO (whatever it is). Set it to N/A and see if that works.
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Toady One

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Re: location finder doesn't always work
« Reply #2 on: July 25, 2008, 10:49:27 pm »

I'll need specific seeds and finder settings to make any headway on this, since I haven't run into any problems.
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Calenth

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Re: location finder doesn't always work
« Reply #3 on: August 03, 2008, 06:33:45 pm »

Hrm, try this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Set the finder to magma pipe, flux, high evil, other features, and river, 6x6.
It'll claim to find a map with all features. The map it finds has a biome with flux above it, and a biome with flux below it, but the map rectangle itself will be centered on a region with no flux.

It seems to be a problem with the display as much as with the finder though -- the map highlights the flux biome as if it's part of the rectangle, but none of the squares actually X up.

I've found some other errors as I went through maps but that's the only one I have documented. Very often a slight relocation of a finder square will find a spot that has all the required things. I think it may be a bug in the embark displayer, not a bug in the finder.

--------
Another example : I can't give precise map coordinates for this but it should be easily duplicable. Set some parameters that the map can't locate. Do a search. Then move to a different spot on the map at random and start your search from there. You should get a different result. I just confirmed this on a couple different maps and consistently got different results on the same map with different start locations.
« Last Edit: August 03, 2008, 10:27:33 pm by Calenth »
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Psyringe

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Re: location finder doesn't always work
« Reply #4 on: August 04, 2008, 03:51:47 pm »

Hmm, one oddity that might be related:

I had set the size of the embark rectangle to 16x16 in the init. (The reason I did this was that I tested a lot of different worlds for rare feature combinations, and looking for 16x16 areas is faster and therefore a good method of pre-scanning. If the fast scan for a 16x16 area with the desired features doesn't yield any results, then I don't need to bother with the slower scan for a 6x6 area with the same features. So, since I started with a 16x16 scan on every world I tested, it made sense to specify that size in the init, so that the finder would start with these values too.)

Now the oddity I mentioned: Sometimes the embark area would not encompass the whole local area - but with an embark area of 16x16, it should. It seems that the embark area has somehow shifted 1-3 rows and/or columns. One time, it had shifted three columns left and three columns up, and I was unable to move it with the uhkm keys. It seems that under some conditions, an illegal area gets chosen for the suggested embark area. I don't have a seed (and I'm not at my gaming PC this week), but it should be easily reproducible judging from the number of occurences I saw. Toady, if this doesn't happen for you, I can provide a seed next week. Or perhaps someone else can?
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Draco18s

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Re: location finder doesn't always work
« Reply #5 on: August 04, 2008, 04:01:45 pm »

Oh, that's an existent bug in the embarker, not the finder.
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Calenth

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Re: location finder doesn't always work
« Reply #6 on: August 05, 2008, 04:38:41 pm »

OK here we go:

Code: [Select]
Created in DF v0.28.181.39e.

[WORLD_GEN]
[TITLE:VARIED]
[SEED:3398437958]
[HISTORY_SEED:1688123924]
[NAME_SEED:2151016896]
[DIM:257:257]
[END_YEAR:1050]
[BEAST_END_YEAR:2:50]
[REVEAL_ALL_HISTORY:1]
[CULL_HISTORICAL_FIGURES:1]
[ELEVATION:250:350:1200:1200]
[RAINFALL:0:100:800:800]
[TEMPERATURE:50:75:200:200]
[DRAINAGE:0:100:1000:1000]
[VOLCANISM:50:100:1600:1600]
[SAVAGERY:45:80:400:400]
[ELEVATION_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[RAIN_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[DRAINAGE_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[TEMPERATURE_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[SAVAGERY_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[VOLCANISM_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[GOOD_SQ_COUNTS:2000:4000:20000]
[EVIL_SQ_COUNTS:6000:8000:20000]
[PEAK_NUMBER_MIN:0]
[OCEAN_EDGE_MIN:0]
[VOLCANO_MIN:200]
[REGION_COUNTS:SWAMP:0:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:DESERT:0:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:FOREST:0:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:MOUNTAINS:0:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:OCEAN:0:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:GLACIER:0:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:TUNDRA:0:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:GRASSLAND:0:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:HILLS:0:0:0]
[EROSION_CYCLE_COUNT:0]
[RIVER_MINS:800:800]
[PERIODICALLY_ERODE_EXTREMES:0]
[OROGRAPHIC_PRECIPITATION:1]
[SUBREGION_MAX:5000]
[CAVE_MIN_SIZE:1]
[CAVE_MAX_SIZE:500]
[MOUNTAIN_CAVE_MIN:800]
[NON_MOUNTAIN_CAVE_MIN:200]
[ALL_CAVES_VISIBLE:1]
[SHOW_EMBARK_RIVER:2]
[SHOW_EMBARK_POOL:2]
[SHOW_EMBARK_M_POOL:2]
[SHOW_EMBARK_M_PIPE:2]
[SHOW_EMBARK_CHASM:2]
[SHOW_EMBARK_PIT:2]
[SHOW_EMBARK_OTHER:2]
[SHOW_EMBARK_TUNNEL:2]
[TOTAL_CIV_NUMBER:50]
[TOTAL_CIV_POPULATION:20000]
[PLAYABLE_CIVILIZATION_REQUIRED:1]
[ELEVATION_RANGES:0:0:0]
[RAIN_RANGES:0:0:0]
[DRAINAGE_RANGES:0:0:0]
[SAVAGERY_RANGES:0:0:0]
[VOLCANISM_RANGES:0:0:0]

When I generate a world with those settings, go into the embark, and set the finder to find a world with other features, a magma pipe, a river, flux stone, and evil, it finds a spot that doesn't contain other features but does contain the other four requests. However, I can shift the 6x6 embark rectangle over a few squares so it does contain the adamantine and I get a 6x6 rectangle that contains all five requests -- evil, adamantine, magma, flux, and a brook.
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