Cantr II Discussion Forum

One of my characters has built several radio repeaters. They worked fine for a week or two, and then suddenly all the distant radio messages stopped. Local messages (not using repeaters) were received as normal. This happened about ten days ago.

Initially I thought that someone had changed the frequency on a key repeater, thereby cutting off my character from the network. However, my character has now travelled to the repeater and it has not been changed. The settings for the network have not changed. What worked before does not work now.

To prove that the repeaters aren't working, I have just positioned one of my other characters next to a receiver and sent several messages from a vehicle transmitter, some from a short distance and some that required a repeater to reach him. The short distance messages were all received. None of the messages via repeater were received. The repeater was checked. The frequency was 100. The receiver was on frequency 100, and the message was sent on frequency 100.

As I say, the repeaters worked earlier. Many messages were sent and received over long distances. Then suddenly it stopped working. Nothing had changed in game. No settings were changed. My character was in the same location, using the same equipment.

It appears that someone modified something in the program (about ten days ago) that killed repeaters.

Noone has messed with the code in that area for eons. It's more likely there are existing bugs with radios, as they have had problems before. I believe Seko fixed it in the database somehow.

It's more likely there are existing bugs with radios, as they have had problems before. I believe

I realize there are bugs with radios. Ship receivers in particular are unreliable (probably because of movement). However, this repeater network was working fine for a couple of weeks, and then suddenly it stopped. At the time, my character was working in a room with a radio transmitter and receiver, so movement was not an issue. He subsequently used a vehicle (with transmitter and receiver) to check the problem.

I want to emphasize this is not a sporadic problem. The repeaters always worked before. Now they never work. Short-range messages still work fine -- they arrive 100% of the time. But messages sent via a repeater never arrive. Never.

Noone has messed with the code in that area for eons.

Messing directly with the code in that area is not the only way to turn off the repeaters. The radio linkages are dynamic, requiring constant updating as hardware is built or moved. It is possible that somework working on a different aspect of the program inadvertently made a mistake that affected the updating of the radio linkages.

Ok, whoever it was who messed with the code (which didn't happen) stop it!

Is it possible that at that time a faulty/buggy radio/repeater was added to the network that somehow screwed up message processing?

Is it possible that at that time a faulty/buggy radio/repeater was added to the network that somehow screwed up message processing?

Is it possible for ProgD to repair a buggy repeater? Because I think I found one.

There was one radio repeater that was marked as a transmitter in the radios table, it was in Czerwony Las. In addition there were 10 radios with coordinates out of sync (this is pretty low compared to earlier numbers) and none that would only exist as an object and have no entry in the radios table. Things that happen repeatedly is locations getting their coordinates saved as NULL (although I don't know why, especially if in some cases it's a building and not a vehicle, so the coordinates shouldn't change) and as a result, radios built in that location inherit NULL coordinates. Also for an unknown reason sometimes radios go out of sync and have different coordinates than their parent location. It might be useful to add an adjustment button to radios and people could use it when they think something might be wrong, and it would run the queries I've been running manually every time someone reports a problem. Of course an even better solution would be to find out why it's breaking but I don't know how to do that. The queries I have saved in notepad are just cleaning up after an unknown bug rather than fixing the bug itself.

It is not a radio receiver problem. The receiver receives short-range messages 100% of the time. It is not a transmitter problem. The sent messages arrive 100% of the time at local receivers. The problem is a repeater problem. The repeaters are not relaying the messages they receive.

I assume there is a routine in the program to stop duplicate messages arriving (because repeaters have the potential to send many copies of the same message to a single receiver). Is it possible that this routine is now eliminating all messages, not just the duplicate ones?

If you wish to check the repeaters, they are all located in the southern half of Cantr (Hobbes) Island. There are four extended range repeaters, all interconnected into one network that runs from the east coast almost to the west coast.

One of my characters continues to send a message to the network every couple of hours. Another one of my characters continues to listen. The distances have been measured by sextant so they are within the range of the repeaters. The messages should be arriving.

So you are the stupid farmer spamming?

Spamming? What do you mean? Stefan Farmer is asking for replies from listeners at the far end of the network. He is worried that his network of repeaters is not working.

Stefan Farmer has devoted his life to building a radio network that covers the entire island. Do you realize how long it takes to build an extended range repeater? (hint: it takes ten days just to make enough glass for one vacuum tube.) It is a monumental task for one person to build such a network, but Stefan doing the best he can.

If Stefan's messages bother you so much, why don't you find him and kill him? You will be doing him a favor. If these repeaters aren't going to work, his life has no meaning.

Guys, this isn't the place for this kind of conversation. The problem will be addressed as soon as someone can attend to it.

Currently all the repeaters in the game that exist in the objects table also exist in the radio table, they have valid coordinates and are validly marked as repeaters so if there's something wrong with them, it's not something that has happened before.

If it is indeed still not working, he might be right that it's some new bug involving the "don't repeat a message more than once" process. Is it possible to pull up all the radio equipment in that area and see when it was made? If something new was added around the time it broke, that could explain it.

The repeaters are still not working. There has been no improvement.

I have been doing some experimentation. I have isolated the repeater at SMN (Stofer Mountains North) from the rest of the repeaters, by setting it to frequency 229. I have a character at Flonder sending messages on 229 and a character at Shambon North listening on 229. Nothing is getting through (the transmitter at Flonder is too far away to reach Shambon North directly). The extended-range repeater in SMN is within range of both Flonder and Shambon North, so it should be relaying the messages.

Please note: there is no problem with the transmitter and there is no problem with the receiver. When I move the transmitter to SMN, it is able to send messages directly to the receiver in Shambon North. Every message transmitted from SMN arrives in Shambon North. However, when I move the tranmitter to the next town (Flonder), it is too far away to reach Shambon North directly. It needs the repeater in SMN to relay the message. But none of those messages go through. None.

This is not a sporadic problem (the repeater always fails). It is not a problem caused by interaction with other repeaters because (to the best of my knowledge) no other repeaters are on that frequency. Something has killed that repeater (and probably the other repeaters too, although I have not tested them yet).

Thanks for your in-character work. It would seem likely that all repeaters are broken, though confirmation of this would be nice to have.