A month ago – our Ragnarok map started crashing and failing to save, with no indication of a cause.

Literally hundreds of hours of testing between a team of 5+ admins got the map stable and returned.

• We eliminated the hardware, the operating system, the base game files, the mod files. The problem was in the world file.
• We eliminated player bodies and the kit on them/in their inventories.
• We eliminated it being a bugged tek-pod.
• We eliminated every single one of the 1834 tame dino’s on the map, and the 25822 wild dinos (including finding the 1 bugged wild anger fish (eliminated)).

Needle in a haystack.

We identified that interaction with stored dino’s is the trigger that will cause the map to crash on world-save.

We got the map stable after removing the dino storage from the 12 tribes with the most storage. These are on a backup map awaiting return.

Since then – we’ve eliminated every one of these tribe’s soul terminals and the souls stored in them.

We’ve eliminated (as best we can) it being a bugged terminal or a bugged dino or a bugged soul ball.

We’ve eliminated it being the server-tick calculation for passive generated materials from stored dinos.

We have found that removing a quantity of stored dino’s from the map – stops the instant save-crash.

It doesn’t matter WHICH stored dinos. It isn’t the specific dino. It’s the number of stored dinos.

We can reduce the number of stored dino’s and it doesn’t instacrash. Then increase the number again and it crashes again.

Now… I could carry on testing for another month. I could narrow down the tipping point. Identify the impact of other structures/world-size/etc. etc etc etc

But… right now we seem to have a culprit that we can control.

So… we need to control the number of stored dino’s on the maps. ALL MAPS. This could just as easily crash Valguero, or any other map.

I don’t want to curb taming or breeding dino’s, collecting rares, etc. But we do need to take action.

So… what now?

This applies to ALL maps, not just Ragnarok. DO NOT IGNORE THIS.

Too many stored dinos can cause the map to crash and be unsaveable.

There are two sets of dino’s being collected in their hundreds across the maps – which should be controlled to reduce the excess….

• old breed lines …possibly hundreds of females/dino’s that are generations behind and not needed
• large numbers of dino’s collected for passive generation … There are people stuffing a hundred griffins per vivarium and folk with banks of terminals filled with euriptyds/etc/etc.

BREEDERS: when you’ve gone passed a generation – destroy or incinerate the excess babies/females from the old lines. Check your current stocks and cull the extra now, and please do this from now on.

EVERYONE ELSE: if you’ve got yourself a small army of passive generation critters – cut it down. Be moderate with passive generation.

What will happen if you ignore this

Last time I asked for members to self-moderate (building sizes) – it was near universally ignored.

This is more important. This could kill a server. I will not let the server be put at risk.

If you are a breeder or a passive-generating base — don’t ignore this. If no action is taken, then I will have to prevent it by force – by disabling all passive generation and removing the stored dino’s from bases with excess collections to a backup map for limited selective return.

If you ignore this, you’ll lose all passive generation and possibly most of your dino collection. So don’t be greedy folks. Don’t ignore this.

Returning the dinos of the 12 tribes

Members of these tribes – your souls are on the backup map and will need filtering as-above before return – I’ll start organising this tomorrow.

• Flat Ark Society
• Mostly Harmless
• Watchhunt
• UKClan
• Gamer Gang
• Bobbleheads
• Dead on Arrival
• Masinetti
• Revengers
• Corrosion
• One and Only
• Dambusters