A19 Friendly animals spawn.xml error

[Tombuilder]

Playing an a19 b176 experimental save on the newly released stable. When it was still b180 it worked without issue.

Now when I load up I get a spawn.xml error something to do with friendly animals - but I've noticed that apart from the odd random wandering horde/screamer and horde night itself, I'm not noticing many wild zombie spawns or any animals.

Is it possible they aren't spawning or am I just being daft? I was very focussed on horde night and trader questing so perhaps I'm just missing them but it feels unlikely to go a whole 48 in game hours without seeing a single random spawn zombie.

I know it's best to start a new save with a new version but its just getting interesting and I'm reluctant to start over yet...

Don't have the exact error code but will add it tomorrow if that helps.

 

[Boidster]

Is it possible they aren't spawning

F1 console will show spawns as they happen. In general, an XML error will bork the game up. I'd rename spawning.xml to spawning_broken.xml and validate files; force Steam to download a fresh one.

 

[Tombuilder]

F1 console will show spawns as they happen. In general, an XML error will bork the game up. I'd rename spawning.xml to spawning_broken.xml and validate files; force Steam to download a fresh one.

Thanks for the help,

Forgive stupid question but you're saying I should open game, press F1 then it should say every time something spawns, is that right?

Good tip re re-validating, I will give that a go tomorrow.

 

[Gouki]

It will be because they changed the name of friendly animals to WildGameForest in spawning.xml, check it out.

 

[Boidster]

Forgive stupid question but you're saying I should open game, press F1 then it should say every time something spawns, is that right?

There are no stupid questions. Only stupid people.

Like me, for example. The console does not show each biome spawn like I thought it did. But you can hit F1 to bring up the console and then type "le" and hit enter. It will show all of the entities in the game. If you see a smattering of them, then your spawns are working-ish. If you see no animals, then maybe it's just the animals which are broken.

 

[Tombuilder]

There are no stupid questions. Only stupid people.

Like me, for example. The console does not show each biome spawn like I thought it did. But you can hit F1 to bring up the console and then type "le" and hit enter. It will show all of the entities in the game. If you see a smattering of them, then your spawns are working-ish. If you see no animals, then maybe it's just the animals which are broken.

View attachment 13795

You sir/madam, are a genius. I revalidated files and it fixed the problem. 

This is also super helpful. Not two minutes after I spawned one of those redhead zombie ladies appeared so I guess it is working. I will keep an eye on the console and look out for animals over the next day.

It will be because they changed the name of friendly animals to WildGameForest in spawning.xml, check it out.

Good info, thanks. Its good to figure out the whys and wherefores. 

Update - it was a synthesis of both the issues above. Checking file integrity solved it. I then reloaded some mods one by one and one which doubled zombie spawns triggered the console error - because (drumroll) it altered the animal spawn numbers which then referred to the redundant 'friendly animal' line instead of wildforest. 

Thanks again both for your helpful tips. It's nice to unpick these little problems