Spawn Timer Issues (Revisited)

[Dedpoet]

I know this topic was around before and I distinctly remember talking to casey about it, but I'm failry certain it was in IRC, as I can't find any evidence here. I thought I'd bring it back up since Zaphod has been around again (/salute zaphod).

There is a strange issue with the mob spawn timer countdown that I haven't been able to get my mind around fully. Once the spawn time has been established, ShowEQ puts a timer on the spawn point predicting when the next spawn will happen. Sometimes, this timer will say unknown even though the spawn point will still turn yellow, then blink red at the appropriate times. The color part of the timer works, but the countdown timer itself doesn't all the time.

I think this happens when the respawn time is > 20 minutes or so, though I'm not certain. I know I have used it extensively in zones where the respawn is 18 minutes (many Kunark dungeons) and it works great there. I've found that in BoT, for example, the timers never work, and I believe the spawn time there to be more than 20 minutes.

Could this just be a matter of the timer "window" not being large enough? Could it be some issue with time not being calculated properly after noon/midnight? I'm going to dig around a bit and see if I notice anything obvious, but some of you who are more familiar with the code may think of something right away.

Mob timers are a feature I use heavily, and I would love if they worked properly on the longer spawn times as well.

[S_B_R]

Could it be possible that Mobs are spawning in at a random /loc around a given point? So that each new re-pop would be in a very slightly different /loc than the previous one, like say one point away? Or maybe less, I think the /loc's go down to hundreths of a unit don't they?

Would it be possible to see this if you Zoomed in 32x? would it be possible to put a small fudge factor into the spawn timer code, rahter than it being exactly X,Y,Z?

Sorry just thinking out loud I guess.

[SeqTester]

I have seen this a few times long ago.

I found the best way to fix it is to delete the spawn points.... either all of them or the one giving you troubles... let 3 respawn in that spot to reset it.

[Dedpoet]

S_B_R, that doesn't explain why the spawn points themselves still change to a yellow cross, then a blinking red cross at the correct times, yet the timer still shows "?". I actually thought of that too.

SeqTester, I'll delete my spawn point files and give that a try, but I'm unable to play for a few days, so I can't check it right now. I'm sure I had this problem on both my new and old installations, which are different distros, different versions of Qt, different versions of Seq, and even at different points in the EQ netcode development (i.e. pre-PoP and post-PoP).

Can anyone verify that the spawn timers work properly in zones with longer spawn times? BoT is a good test because I know for a fact it isn't working for me now. If other people's timers are working there, then I'm inclinded to believe SeqTester.

[SeqTester]

All mine work in HoH.. thats all I have be hunting and GF is in LDoN so no "Spawns" there to test with.

[tamasine]

i've frequently (last year) had this problem - what it is seems to be old spawn-position info - at some time, the Z-axis changed significantly. this leads to the observed effect of a flashing spawnpoint, that when mouse-hovered shows "??" for time. sometimes you can see the grey + as well, and it's this that's getting the hover.

editting the spawn file shows duplicate x/y entries with z-axis offsets. the wrong entries seem to normally have 2 spawns logged against them.

i've seen this is ssra, BoT, BW, echo.. lots of places.

t.

[S_B_R]

That's what I was talkin about. ;)