Search-command doesn't work/Ship disappeared

[Dragleones]

I currently was working on multiple ships in singleplayer (alpha v01421). I sometimes changed the position of them, but always kept them close to sectors I could remember. A few days ago i couldn't find a certain ship named "Hardcell". Since i thought i just flew with it somewhere and forgot the position i first flew around searching for it with the navigation tab.
Later i searched for a better way to find lost ships, namely the search-command:

/search "part of ship name"

This gave me always the message:

[message] FOUND: ENTITY_SHIP_Hardcell -> (4,3,3)

When i searched in said sector (4 3 3) i still couldn't find it with the navigation tab. To be sure i'm not to far away to see it in the navigation tab while its in the exact sector i also checked out some of the closest other sectors (3 3 3)(4 4 3)(4 3 4)(4 3 2)(4 3 4) (5 3 3).

Spoiler

The strange things in addition to that are:
a) that i can find the exact sector with the search-command for every other ship.
b) that in the folder "server-database" i can still find the file "ENTITY_SHIP_Hardcell.ent" and in "server-database\DATA" "ENTITY_SHIP_Hardcell.0.0.0.smd2".

Spoiler

Well i don't know much about this whole topic and might have missunderstood a some things.
My actual question is if there is a way to spawn a ship using the server-files (smd2/ent).

 

[Dragleones]

Fixed it for myself with following steps:

Whenever a ship is missing but still has the following file

Starmade\server-database\DATA\"insert_missing_shipname".smd2

1) create a new "Starmade" folder by copying and running the "Starmade-starter.exe" in a new folder (in this example: "Starmadecopy".
2) start singleplayer in "Starmadecopy" , create a shipcore with the name: "insert_missing_shipname". Then move away and close "Starmade.exe". (Make sure the shipcore has enough space around for the missing ship)
3) open your original Starmade folder. Then copy following files:

Starmade\server-database\DATA\"insert_missing_shipname".smd2

(might be split into multiple ("insert_missing_shipname"."#"."#"."#".smd2-files)!)
4) open your "Starmadecopy" folder. Delete following file:

Starmade\server-database\DATA\"insert_missing_shipname".smd2

Then paste the copied files in the same path.
5) Your shipcore has been replaced with your missing ship. A few chunks (atleast one around the core) might be missing.
You can now create a blueprint, copy it and spawn it in your other original starmade.

While there is probably a much easier way to get a ship back using the serverfiles. This was the first idea i could think off, since i couldn't find anything else helping.
Just wrote this short guideline if this problem occurs for anyone else, who has no idea either to get his ship back.

Apart from that this thread can be closed now

 

[AndyP]

Thanks for this really detailed report.
As this narrows down a few 'missing ship' issues I could not reproduce,

I hope, and a bit partly assume you made a backup before fiddling around in the filesystem.
May you forward me that backup? (Or load it up again, and delete the /client-database folder from it entirely before starting the game.)
As this forces a resync of the blueprint too. Your version was a freaky bruteforce and was successful due to the difference in timestamps on server and client files.

- Andy

 

[Dragleones]

I guess the missing ship-bugs occured first after destroying a "ship" with around 100 closely docked entities with the: "/delete_entity" (i didn't know at that time you need to add "_dock" to destroy docked entities ). This resulted in terrible laggs and crashes everytime i logged in again. I then decided to delete all these "ships" that were to close together causing these crashes by deleting the serverside .ent and the .smd2 file.

I had no problems after that. The missing-ships-bugs occured (maybe i just realized them later) a few days later.
I made a backup after deleting all ships i hadn't got a blueprint from. Too bad i already permantly deleted them, but i already had looked multiple times through them to make sure i didn't delete a file of any missing ship.

This is the whole backup.
(The missing ships are: "Hardcell" in sector (4,3,3) (-> according to the /search command) and "Collector" in sector (4,4,3))