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Technical Explanation of 3.1.6 Troubles

kinggath

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I know many of you are struggling with plots not completing in 3.1.6. I wanted to lay out a technical explanation for why this is happening, so you can approach the issue in a way that will best resolve it for you as even once I patch a better method in, you're still going to have some issues unless you are aware of what's going on.

Sim Settlements uses about 70 controller quests that handle the various systems. Prior to patch 3.1.6, many of the quests would each fire off logic whenever you changed locations, specifically when you entered or exited a settlement. Not only would the quests fire off events, but so would each plot.

This could result in Sim Settlements overloading the script engine and causing crashes. To combat this, I went way too far and basically pushed everything into a single thread for location change events. I did it in a way that would avoid stack dumps, but unfortunately, that means it runs incredibly slow.

The problem you are all running into, is that each time you enter a new settlement, you pile on another round of updates into the queue. Doing this 3 or 4 times before they complete, and then piling on things like calls to Refresh Local Plots backs up the queue to the point where you feel everything is completely broken - and once you get it to that point, the more you move between settlements, the more likely it actually is broken.

The solution for the moment, is to leave your character standing in a settlement, and let everything catch up. The more you tried to fix the issue yourself, the further backed up the queue will be and the more time you will need for it to clear up. Some users have reported having to wait 30 minutes for it to clear up.

Once you have things cleared up, and you'll know because the plots that seemed stuck will start completing, you then will want to slow down your trips to settlements. Each time you go to a settlement, take a peak around and make sure no plots are partially built, if they are, just wait there until they complete.


The Good News

Now that we know what Xbox can handle (after tons and tons of testing), I have a good knowledge base to work from to virtually eliminate all crashing and script backups from Sim Settlements. It's just going to take me a bit, as it's going to involve massive system overhauls in order to ensure that SS is leaner, but also remains backwards compatible with your saves.

In the next patch, I have things in a little more balanced state, so that you can at least avoid things like your IDEK's Logistics stations from getting stuck and breaking supply lines. I also am introducing a lot more tools for you to control the amount of resources Sim Settlements is allowed to use, these new tools will be integrated into the Performance Wizard, so you won't have to dive into them at all if you're not into that kind of nitty-gritty control.

My ultimate goal, with performance, is that every player, regardless of system, will be able to run Sim Settlements, build as many City Plans as they like, and be given a clear indication when they are pushing the limits on plot counts. You should be able to play Sim Settlements without constantly worrying about technical issues - and that's where we're headed.

While I can never eliminate crashing, because this is a Bethesda game, I want to eliminate Sim Settlements from ever being a likely cause. Most importantly, I want everyone to feel safe with Sim Settlements in their save files - corruption is unacceptable.

Thanks everyone for going on this rocky journey with me, as we ferret out the limitations of Fallout 4 and try and push the system to the limit for an amazing settlement experience!

-kinggath
 
That explains exactly what was happening with my slog settlement. Both the missing plot assets and the idek logistics station hang up. It's the only settlement that had issues as well, so I must have just screwed up leaving too soon from that location early on when the city first started building. Will try to wait things out over there and see what happens. Wasn't really that big of a deal anyway with the other settlements all functioning perfectly. I just blamed it on those damned lazy ghouls and kept on playing.

Even when something goes wrong with sim settlements, it's never been that big of a deal, and is usually easy enough to work around. So much thanks for all of your efforts.
 
Ah - that was the cause of the slower plot updates, and "stuck" plots.
 
As with others this gives me an 'Ah' moment - for me it seems like it was mostly agricultural plots never updating.
 
very quick and simple question;

can i start a new game, with sim settlements and industrial revolution fully installed, but with rise of the commonwealth and its associated mods like the project blueprint and the various help tools out of my load order completely?

i believe i can do this and all will be well with the world - just looking for confirmation of my hunch.
 
very quick and simple question;

can i start a new game, with sim settlements and industrial revolution fully installed, but with rise of the commonwealth and its associated mods like the project blueprint and the various help tools out of my load order completely?

i believe i can do this and all will be well with the world - just looking for confirmation of my hunch.
Yep - each the of the expansions is independent and the PBP mods are just workshop mods.
 
thank you so much. i kinda knew the answer given all thats gone before. just want to thank you again for all you do. this isnt a mod - its way more than that. its way more than an expansion pack really.

you're an absolute master with this, and me removing it isnt in any way meant as a slight - its just that i want to play the game a wee bit more and rotc is having a slight effect on that, which will be resolved by you and your team in no time, im 100% certain.
 
@Leo Woody That explanation is that one of the upgrade fixes being done from one of the recent patches requires all plots in the settlement to refresh. It tries to take care of this in the background when you're not looking but if you're jumping around, you run right into the single threaded update wall.

Leave it alone, sit tight in that settlement and let it recover.
 
Wanted to provide a bit of feedback on my tests with the settlement I was having issues with (The Slog), and how I fixed it, mostly.

Waiting did not work. I left the settlement running for over 2 real world hours with no changes. So I rolled back to 3.1.5a. Quick plot refresh across the entire city, and everything is working again.

So...a rollback is quicker than waiting. As waiting did nothing in my case. Just thought I'd put this here if others are unsuccessful with the wait. Upgrading back to 3.1.6a doesn't appear to hurt anything so far. For whatever reason, asam sensors are missing from the plots of that settlement, no matter what I do. Everything works fine everywhere else I've looked. Most importantly, I got the IDEK logistics plot to set up a supply line in the problem settlement, so I can finally stop screwing with it at least. ;]
 
Waiting did nothing for me either. Rolled back to 3.1.5a and refresh all plots, back to normal. Not sure I want to retry 3.1.6a, probably just wait for 3.1.7.
 
You can’t but I’m not sure if xbox is being dragged down to the same degree for some reason. I had the same issue, insofar as “what? Everything’s gone?!?” But you just wait around for a while and it all shows up. If you’ve ever done “refresh all plots” in a settlement with 30+ plots, you know how long that can take and this is that long or similar.

It seems like it’s faster if you stare at the ground vs walk around looking at everything that isn’t there.
 
This is odd seeing so much trouble. I have a settlement with 44 plots. It will refresh - yes it is slow. Oh god is it slow. But they do all come back.
 
This is odd seeing so much trouble. I have a settlement with 44 plots. It will refresh - yes it is slow. Oh god is it slow. But they do all come back.

It's a single settlement for me. I have 12 running at the moment on my current raider playthrough. A mix of vanilla and mod added locations. Also a mix of raider outpost and regular settlement of which some are rotc controlled, some are run by me. Out of all of them, it's just one location with the issue. The Slog. I've read elsewhere this is exactly what is happening to others, but the settlement varies. One settlement goes fubar, the rest work perfectly. 'shrug'

Funny thing with the plot refresh. It goes so much quicker if you just run around with an immersion breaker hammer and slap the plots yourself. If your machine can handle it, they'll refresh in mere minutes compared to the 20 - 30 minutes the plot refresh function takes on larger locations when using the tool in the city manager.
 
On Xbox, I have tried the "waiting in the settlement" attempt to fix plots and it has done nothing to restore any of my missing plots. The one thing that did work in one settlement was the settlement was ready for a city upgrade and since I had it set to manual I decided to try it and when it finished everything was fixed and normal.
 
Thanks for that! Is there a way to add a settlement status in the management tools menu so we can tell what's going on? i.e. "upgrading plots 1 of 25", "x active threads", etc. ? Maybe an option to send a notification when something like an upgrade starts and finishes?

If someone is on 3.1.5 still will it be necessary to install 3.1.6 and let the upgrade happen or can we skip to 3.1.7 when that is released?

If the visual settings such as clutter and quality are lowered temporarily will that speed up the upgrades or do you do that temporarily automatically anyway?

Thanks again!
 
The only issues I have had is:

1) interior plots occupied, built, but no assets. Changing the building plan to something else works. I go back and change to the original plan I wanted after awhile in-game.
2) going back to my red rocket, the middle scrappy mall section that was lvl 3 was gone and replaced with another commercial plot, lvl 1. I waited for sometime in-game to see if it was a refresh issue... then did refresh local plots, didn't fix it... so I rebuilt it with the middle mall plot again, but it is a lvl 1 so it will take time to get completed to the left and right sections - lvl 3's.

Probably the weirdest thing I have seen with this version, meaning not ever happened in previous versions, the fallen overhang at Starlight reappeared as it was originally to the vanilla game. I use place anywhere to fix this wing of starlight so it looks roughly correct to the other side. I tried to select and fix again, but was not selectable, even with place anywhere enabled for additional objects.

However, the next day I loaded the game, the wing was back to where I had fixed it. I racked this up to a vanilla game issue, but have not ever seen this issue prior in any settlement.

Not sure if this helps with some debug. oh, this is standard SS build, no RoTC.
John
 
The city plots in Murkwater have nothing built in them, no internal furnishings showing up, my roach farm is empty, default SS bar and farms not even showing up, and yet some of these are even level 2 by now. ASAM sensors are also long gone from the power posts. I tried following the advice that it might be scripting backlog issue and waited and idled for 2+ RL hours, leaving my character just standing there AFK and when I came back absolutely nothing has changed. I feel like nuking Murkwater to oblivion.
 
Posting this incase it can help anyone.

I updated to this patch and did not notice that the plots refreshed, so I traveled to several of my settlements before I noticed a lot was missing. I have city plans in all of my settlements, so a lot of stuff and plots. Figured I had backed up everything and screwed up. I rolled back to 3.1.5, refreshed all my plots in all settlements, then updated again. Slowly going through a couple of settlements making sure all was refreshed before I moved on. The plots came back, but if I travel somewhere else and then come back it starts the refresh one more time.. Dunno why.. I waited for 1 hour at one of the first settlements, so it should have finished.

Anyways, all have refreshed so far, except Warwick. Settlers were assigned to plots but not building anything, resulting in 0 beds. I nuked, rebuilt, changed leaders and everything I could think of multiple times. I noticed that if I nuked everything and just put down one plot, it got built. So the only thing that worked was to scrap all the plots built by RotC and manually replace them myself. Now they actually build stuff on the plots.

Edit; Went back to Warwick after a while, and the plots were blank again... Except for some interior residential plots from the Junk Town add-on which I get through the One Year Pack. Also a Fishermans Hut from a different add-on is the only one which the beds doesn't disappear.. Does anyone have any idea why?
 
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