[0.17.69] Scenario with unusable spawn point cannot be edited without complicated workaround

[TheBloke]

Background:

A player on Reddit posted that they had been working on a Scenario in the Map Editor, but that they were now unable to open it. They now received the error: "Couldn't find suitable position to put the player in the perimeter of 200 tiles from the point (0.0000000000. 0.0000000000)." Screenshot of error.

Source Reddit post.

It seems that they must have built a large lake over 0,0, not realising they were invalidating their spawn point. They subsequently saved and quit out of Map Editor, then found themselves unable to get back in later.

The problem:

When no valid spawn point can be found within the set perimeter of the spawn location, neither a save nor a scenario can be opened. Both Load Game on a save, and Map Editor on either a scenario or save, will display the error listed above, then exit to main menu.

After some experimentation, I found a workaround: by converting the scenario to a save (running Factorio on the command line with -m NameOfScenario), then hosting it in multiplayer (--start-server NameOfScenarioSaveGame) I was able to run commands at the multiplayer console to either change the spawn, or to create land at {0,0} such that the save could then be loaded and fixed properly. (There's also another workaround, which I tried first: after running the MP server, then connect to it from another client. The game will allow the MP player to join even when their spawn is on water, and they can then use /editor to fix the spawn and save a working map.)

This works, but is a little lengthy to describe, and requires the user launches the game from the command line which they may be unfamiliar with. And of course this all requires that they seek help to begin with.

Steps to recreate:

1. Map Editor -> New Scenario -> accept default settings -> Play
2. Use Tiles, Clone or LuaSurface::set_tiles() to place an area of water from {-200,-200} to {200,200}.
3. Save as
4. Quit Map Editor
5. Map Editor -> Load Scenario -> choose scenario saved in step 3.
6. The scenario may take a long time to load, as it searches for valid land. Eventually the error is shown: "Couldn't find suitable position to put the player in the perimeter of 200 tiles from the point {0.0000000000, 0.0000000000}"

Attached is a ZIP of a scenario exhibiting this problem:

BrokenWaterSpawnScenario.zip

(2.66 MiB) Downloaded 55 times

Possible solutions:

1. Map Editor -> Load Scenario: Allow loading of a scenario even when the spawn is invalid.

The ideal solution would be, IMHO, to change the check for valid spawn when in Map Editor mode, to make it a warning instead of a hard error. If the spawn is invalid, put up a message saying "Warning: your spawn is invalid; this scenario will not be usable for a New Game". That would allow the player to both continue editing, and warn them that something needs to be changed. Given that the player has no character when in Map Editor (at least when launched from the Main Menu), hopefully this would be fairly simple to implement?

2. Map Editor -> Save as Scenario: Put a check for invalid spawn, such that if a scenario has been saved where the spawn would fail the 200-tile startup check, put up a dialogue warning the user about that fact.

I think ideally both fixes would be employed, but the first is the most important. As long as there is a way to get back into editing mode (without employing workarounds using multiplayer) the user has the ability to fix the problem at any time later.

[ssilk]

Hi, did you post this in Suggestions by intension or was it moved to here?

[Loewchen]

Hi, did you post this in Suggestions by intension or was it moved to here?

I moved it.