So I've seen the message "Something bad happened" about a hundred times recently while making a RPG. I've been trying to figure out what's causing it and figured out it has to do with the actions Transmission, Display, and Comment.

The saving works fine up until the point where I add 1 of these Actions containing text to a trigger and then it shows the evil message and I can no longer save without it crashing on me.

Does this mean there's some type of corrupted string somewhere in the map? If so, is there a way to find it and delete it?

However at the same time it doesn't seem to be a corrupted string because I can continue editing every other aspect of the map and successfully save.

Why does this happen!? >:/

Send the dump file and explanation to Suicidal Insanity.

Re-install scmdraft 2 from this link.

If this doesn't work, send the new dump file, and continue below.

Now try using the text trigedit if you weren't before, or use classic if you weren't before.

If that doesn't work, just work around it. Break the transmission action into its component parts (show talking pic, text, wait, etc). For comment, just don't make a comment for the trigger.

Your strings are bugged. All 3 of those actions use strings. SCMDraft doesn't handle large amounts of strings well, that's just the way it is. Afaik, no editor handles them well.

Scmdraft auto-checks strings, so if you have a low number of them, try going to the unit settings, clicking anything, and clicking ok. You don't have to change anything.

It should tell you which string is messed up, so go and try to figure out what's wrong with the string.

Is the autosave option on? If it is then check the size of your backup file.

Yeah, turns out I was passing the string limits and then it would pop up that message and crash SCMDraft

I did this, reduced the length of a lot of my comments, from like a few words to 1 letter and it did actually stop the message from coming back thank god. This however is only a temporary solution because I still have quite a few Display Triggers and Transmissions to add still, which will again increase the string count.

;[

Before I knew it had to do with limits, I did renew the version of my version and delete the back-up file with no prevail.

Any special tips to keeping the string count low in an RPG?

SCMDraft recycles the strings, so, if possible, either do blank comments or comments with the same name as a unit, a switch or an other comment. :S
Also, for a better organization of your comments, I recommend you to take a look at Deep Blue RPG, by qPirateKing. His way of organizing comments is very wise ;P
Also, if you use a string for stupid thing like saying to a player that he stills have to wait 10 seconds before being able to use his spell, 9... 8... etc... until 0, you're wasting strings Moreover, it's annoying and unprofessional.
Also, if you're doing a virtual drop system like this: "Zomg, that monster just dropped 25 golds and 1 weapon", you could split it into different string to be able to recycle the numbers:
so you don't waste many strings to also create the messages "Zomg, that monster just dropped 13 golds", "Zomg, that monster just dropped 1 weapon and 1 armor"

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 24 2009, 5:49 am by payne.

Don't comment ever. EVER. Make your comments in a text file or something.

Plan the strings out in advance. You have 65535 characters to go through. There is no real limit on the number of strings in SCMDraft, but again, once you get high numbers, it starts to get buggy. Save often.

So, now I have a question. My scmd keeps crashing too. But it only crashes when I go to the locations tab. So, scmd auto starts on terrain, but then I select to look at locations in the top bar you know, and it crashes. Anyone know how to fix this? Should I just reinstall it?

Is this for only one map or for the entire editor?
Try reinstalling.

It happens with every map it seems. But how do I reinstall?

My scmd crashes when i try to zoom
but other then that if i dont do anything like make 100000 units and try to delete them then its fine

Reinstall, use different versions (scmdraft doesn't actually have to be installed). If your map is corrupted, try opening it in other editors to see if it will fix the problem. There's staredit, fartyedit, SCXE, and starforge which come to mind. Other map editors like uberation, osmap, etc might do something too. Barring that, you can always hex edit the map to be fixed, but therein lies a problem, since you don't always know exactly where the problem lies.

To reinstall, simply delete the scmdraft folder, and download the version again.