[PROGRAM] X Plugin Manager : V1.87 : 2024-01-06

The place to discuss scripting and game modifications for X³: Terran Conflict and X³: Albion Prelude.

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TheBlackSun
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Post by TheBlackSun »

WOW. WHAT. THE. ****. JUST. HAPPENED.

I got the manager to get some scripts out of their install package a while ago, and put them in my game folder manually. I installed the manager on a virtual machine, as to not let it modify anything on my X³ TC install.

That was a good call. Everything worked perfectly after I had the scripts I needed. But now, I wanted to install a custom .XSP ship with it and thought, ah whatever, just install it, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG. Right...?

Yeah. This ****** thing just deleted all my 5 savegames with almost 100h of vanilla playtime, with hard earned plot progress. Just gone. Not "managed", they're GONE. They're not in the TC savegames folder, nor in any of the two folders the "manager" creates.

I tried to restore the file with data recovery tools, just to realize that this thing didn't just delete, but also overwrite all recoverable remains of these saves to the point of no restoring, immediately after. Can't restore them from backup either, since last backup was a week ago.

That'll teach me, trusting someones "manager" to do my work for me.

Great job.
I'm done with the game.
Thank you. I'm out.
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X2-Illuminatus
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Post by X2-Illuminatus »

Have you tried searching for the save files using the windows search feature?

I just recently installed the latest Plugin Manager and used it to install several .xsp ships and have absolutely no problems with my savegames.
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TheBlackSun
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Post by TheBlackSun »

X2-Illuminatus wrote:Have you tried searching for the save files using the windows search feature?
\Documents\Egosoft\X3TC\
X³ Terran War Pack\PluginManager\

No results in either. What happened seems to be, the manager deleted all the savegames after failing to move them to the "vanilla" folder as if it had copied them there already. No admin rights. Which didn't stop it from correctly installing the scripts before, though.

How about "hey, let's check first if the files actually have been copied before blatantly deleting them with no further notice of things going wrong"...? If there already are files in that directory, then it apparently worked before and should still work. But if there are no files when there should be some, maybe stop acting as if everything went smoothly and delete the only copies of the savegames...
Cycrow
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Post by Cycrow »

what version of the plugin manager are you using ?

also, did you enable the save game manager ?
TheBlackSun
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Post by TheBlackSun »

The latest version, 11.08.2015. The setup states it's v1.531, but I'm running XTC right now in the background for my traders to catch up on what's close to 100h of gametime.

It offered the savegame manager to me, and since I have had no issues with the... Nexus Mod Manager, I guess? Does that manage saves? And since the programm seemed to write script files into the TC directories just fine, I accepted.

It then apparently tried to copy my Savegames into the XTC folder [WHY is the working directory of the manager THERE and not somewhere less problematic?!] but failed miserably, and continued to delete my files anyways. At the same time, it wrote some more files into the XTC folder, which overwrote all remains of the recently deleted saves on my SSD, making them impossible to recover.

Just one save file was "lucky" enough to be only halfway destroyed, still damaged and utterly unusable after attempted recovery with my tools.

I now have disabled the manager for as little options as I had. Which then promptly and without warning caused the manager to delete the folders it used to "pretend" to manage savegames in, I sure hope it doesn't do that if there actually are some savegame files backed up in there. Just accidentally disabling your "Use savegame manager" option and having the entirety of managed savegames deleted without notice is another rather rude slap in the face.

Sorry if I seem to be a tad bitter about this, might be due to the fact that I really, really am. Did you ever get a game, and after fighting with it to work properly with controllers and everything, really got into it for many hours, with hard, slow progress? Imagine those saves just deleted, poof, like that. Really does make you ragequit your computer for a while. Experience speaking, here.
Cycrow
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Post by Cycrow »

something doesn't seem quite right, although not sure what went wrong.

It should make a copy of the save games rather than moving, or deleting them.

It is possible the save games might still be on the computer somewhere.
if it tried to copy them and failed, it most likely meant that windows redirected the filesystem into a virtual folder instead. This happens quite alot when the game is installed into program files.

if you can find this virtual folder its possible they still remain in there. You could try searching the hard drive for save game files
201604271043
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Post by 201604271043 »

my plugin manager can only open some rar files for example it can open complex cleaner rar file that i downloaded yet it can't open the star wars mod by mikhailskatchkov that only comes in a rar file plz help
ASSTEROIDS
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Post by ASSTEROIDS »

Hi, I have 23 packages in the plugin manager addon directory, yet, only 16 show-up when I select package browser. I play x3ap, is it the plugin manager that is deciding what I can install and cannot in my place?
Cycrow
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Post by Cycrow »

201604271043 wrote:my plugin manager can only open some rar files for example it can open complex cleaner rar file that i downloaded yet it can't open the star wars mod by mikhailskatchkov that only comes in a rar file plz help
what happens when you try to open the rar file ?
its possible that maybe that mod was created with a newer version of rar than what the plugin manager uses, it should be possible to replace the unrar.dll with a newer version if there is one
Cycrow
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Post by Cycrow »

ASSTEROIDS wrote:Hi, I have 23 packages in the plugin manager addon directory, yet, only 16 show-up when I select package browser. I play x3ap, is it the plugin manager that is deciding what I can install and cannot in my place?
The package browser will only show packages suitable for the game you are trying to install into. Some of them may be set to only TC, so wont display for AP.

In cases like that, you can still install the packages, you just do it by manually selecting the files to install instead
ASSTEROIDS
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Post by ASSTEROIDS »

Ah, you mean RMB and select install package? I'll try that.
Here are the problematic packages, in case you have a use knowing.
ADAMS-AAH
advanced navigation software
advanced navigation overrides
advanced thruster control
improved boarding
salvage claim software

They were are all dated prior to 2011, they probably have no use in my game (i'm just testing stuff).

I wouldn't dare ask more time of you, I'm already humbled by the fact that a guy named Cycrow actually answered my question, but I may be interested in knowing if those packages are useless with AP.

Thanks, there are a few "big names" who helped me already, I feel i'm not the only one understanding the value of this game. Now, if only everybody could keep their damm download links alive...
TheBlackSun
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Post by TheBlackSun »

Cycrow wrote:It should make a copy of the save games rather than moving, or deleting them.
Of course it has to delete them. What's the point of managing your savegames if they all remain there for the game to try and load, even if they're modded and incompatible?
First, it copies the saves to the managed folder, and when switching back to vanilla, it copies them back to the save folder. What else would it do?
Cycrow wrote:It is possible the save games might still be on the computer somewhere.
if it tried to copy them and failed, it most likely meant that windows redirected the filesystem into a virtual folder instead. This happens quite alot when the game is installed into program files.

if you can find this virtual folder its possible they still remain in there. You could try searching the hard drive for save game files
And, where would that be, then?
Searching terrabytes of data isn't something that'll turn up any results in anything under half a day if the location is obscure. There are set paths for files to go to. Virtual folders just don't pop up out of nowhere, so any lead as to where I should look? I really doubt they are anywhere to be found. C:\Program Files, C:\Program Files (x86), that's all I can think of, and they ended up in neither of these. The manager doesn't manage savegames in the actual savegame folder under documents [why is that, BTW] and instead attempts to take them from there and place them in the games directory.

Or is the PluginManager folder supposed to be in user documents? Because it's not.
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X2-Illuminatus
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Post by X2-Illuminatus »

The Virtual Store is usually located in the user folder on the OS partition under \Users\username\AppData\Local\.
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ASSTEROIDS
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Post by ASSTEROIDS »

I want to know if the plugin manager is really important. I added mods to quite a few games and I always prefer the manual method instead of all those "installers" which I see as a middle guy not telling me everything, particularly when he made a mistake...

Is the plugin manager doing any kind of merging? Is there a risk if I unpack all the .spk and install them manually instead?
Cycrow
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Post by Cycrow »

ASSTEROIDS wrote:I want to know if the plugin manager is really important. I added mods to quite a few games and I always prefer the manual method instead of all those "installers" which I see as a middle guy not telling me everything, particularly when he made a mistake...

Is the plugin manager doing any kind of merging? Is there a risk if I unpack all the .spk and install them manually instead?
There will be some spk files that wont work by simply unpacking them. But it depends on the script.

ship files wont work by simply unpacking them, you will require alot of work if you wanted to add the ships manually into the game.

The main things you would need to do when doing it manually is to check the versions of the script files, many spk files will contain alot of shared scripts, which can be of different versions, you want to make sure you always use the latest version of each of the files.

spk that have custom wares will also not work by simply unpacking them, as the plugin manager generates a number of files that add in things like the wares into the game for the scripts to use.

any fake patches you install you will need to remember to manually rename into sequence

and finally, remember to install the correct version of EMP if you are installing scripts manually
ASSTEROIDS
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Post by ASSTEROIDS »

spk that have custom wares will also not work by simply unpacking them, as the plugin manager generates a number of files that add in things like the wares into the game for the scripts to use.
Ok, I guess i'll keep on using it then. I'll still open them, just to see if there is a file I already have in the addon folder.

So, if I have to edit a file in a .spk to make it compatible, I must use the package creator to put it back under .spk form or I risk failure?

Thanks
Cycrow
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Post by Cycrow »

ASSTEROIDS wrote:
spk that have custom wares will also not work by simply unpacking them, as the plugin manager generates a number of files that add in things like the wares into the game for the scripts to use.
Ok, I guess i'll keep on using it then. I'll still open them, just to see if there is a file I already have in the addon folder.

So, if I have to edit a file in a .spk to make it compatible, I must use the package creator to put it back under .spk form or I risk failure?

Thanks
it depends on the script and what you plan to edit.

but if all you are doing is editing some script files, you probably dont need to package them back up and can just edit them directly.

as long as you increase the version number of the files you edit, if you do ever install another spk that has the same files in, in wont overwrite as your edited version would be a higher version.
ASSTEROIDS
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Post by ASSTEROIDS »

The package in question is MBRR, I had to edit setup.plugin.mbase.xml

Apart from that, I opened all my 15 or so .spk and found no files I already had, i'll keep them all under their .spk form, since they all seems to work fine in game too.

The exception is MBRR, this one contained a bunch of files I already had, all very much smaller or older. This is the exact situation which made me question the comportment of the plugin manager in the first place, since it will load MBRR without a word, and the game will do the same. But what happened behind the scene? did it replace that 12Kb job file with the 2Kb file from MBRR? I would guess so.

MBRR is not absolutely critical to my installation, but I like its options. I would be tempted to keep it unpacked and just say no to all overwrites, but I may be playing with fire.
Cycrow
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Post by Cycrow »

what will happen will depend on the files. If the files it replaces are the core game files, rather than script files you have installed. Then the plugin manager backs them up and replaces them with the files from the spk.

if they are files that have been installed by another package, then it'll check the versions to determine which of the files to use.

as for the jobs file, it wont replace the original, instead it will be a separate file.

the game however, can only load 1 of each of the types files (included jobs)
So it'll load the one from MBRR instead of the original
ASSTEROIDS
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Post by ASSTEROIDS »

Thanks a lot for the help.

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