Seeking advice: shipsets in PBW

[Dogboy]

I just set up a PBW game and all but one player have submitted their first turns. The one remaining player gets the message "the data files currently being used do not match the data files that were used when the game was started..."

I suspect the problem is that this player seems to have selected non-default Shipset ("Gallente"), Race Pic ("Jrii") and Flag Pic ("IA").

I think he just selected them when he signed up for the game/ uploaded his empire file. I don't think he has the modified race pic/ship set/flag pic on his system, and this is probably the cause of the file error.

I would prefer to avoid re-starting the game. Is there a simple solution? Can he just download the relevant files, and if so, where does he find them, and put them? Also, I suppose we all need to do the same, or we won't see his ships, race, flag, right?

Or, if that won't work, is there a way I can, as PBW host, just set him to use the defaults?

Related question: do ship sets (when installed correctly) lead to crashes? I'd hate to be 50 turns into the game only to discover that the "gallente" dreadnought ship crashes the game for everyone....!

Another related worry: Gallente.zip (which I'm downloading now) is huge: over 25 MB. Will this lead to substantially longer download times each turn, or does it just get installed and called up locally, with a pointer to different ship types being passed with each turn file?

Thanks a bunch!

[Fyron]

Dogboy said:
I think he just selected them when he signed up for the game/ uploaded his empire file. I don't think he has the modified race pic/ship set/flag pic on his system, and this is probably the cause of the file error.

The shipset selected on PBW is purely for player convenience; it does not affect what shipset the game uses when it processes turns in any way.

Dogboy said:
Will this lead to substantially longer download times each turn, or does it just get installed and called up locally, with a pointer to different ship types being passed with each turn file?

Neither mod files nor shipset files are included in the savegame.

[se5a]

This is SEV right?

regardless, it's not the shipset causing the problem.
your player needs to make sure he's got the same version of the mod files. he should redownload and re-install them

I've never heard of shipsets crashing the game.
if PBW does not have the shipset, when it processes (or if you don't have it when you process the first turn) it will permanently reset the shipset to one it does have.
the only problem you may get with a custom shipset is that the shipset creator didn't set up firing arcs properly, and the ship may only be able to fire in one direction, possibly making battles unfair for that player. Aaron has finally fixed this problem in 1.47 - we just have to wait for geo to install it on PBW.

[Dogboy]

Thank you, guys. I think he may have the Steam version, which auto-updates. Does anyone know how to disable this "feature" of Steam (which strikes me as a real game breaker)!

[Leternel]

There is absolutly no way to block the auto-update of Steam.
It is enforced by the way Steam makes you enabled to play.

[se5a]

steam shouldn't affect mod data files though.
is 1.74 out for steam now?

[Dogboy]

Yes, and since it's not yet on PBW, we can't all upgrade. Darn Steam!

[Dogboy]

Obviously, the ship sets are NOT the problem. Weird thing is that he says he's using

SE5 V1.71 with Balance Mod v1.14a (Folder name 110+)

which is the version I set (and have on my PC). He DID upgrade to 1.74 before I told him let's wait, and had to uninstall/reinstall. Any possibility that some vestige of the earlier version might have hung around in a subdirectory and is now messing things up??

[Fyron]

Leternel said:
There is absolutly no way to block the auto-update of Steam.
It is enforced by the way Steam makes you enabled to play.

That is patently false, and it is quite easy to disable auto-updates on a game by game basis. You lose the ability to play un-updated multiplayer games that run through the Steam servers (mostly just Valve games), but that does not affect SE5.

[Leternel]

ok. shame on me.