[BUG] Building Decay not working

Platform: Steam
Issue Type: Other
Game Mode: Online Private
Server Type: PvE
Map: Exiled Lands
Server Name: Chains of the Serpent
Mods: None

Fresh start server for 3.0, building decay set to 8.4 worked for about a week. But for the past 4-5 weeks, abandonment/decay does not work. I test the status daily and the remaining time on abandoned bases hovers between 351 and 357 hours. The daily server restart seems to reset the countdown.

I’ve tried toggling abandonment on and off, and changing the time amount but nothing seems to work. Since we are a PvE server, there are lots of new players all the time and they build then abandon. I really need this mechanic to work. Help please?! Thanks :slight_smile:

Again this morning, time remaining is 352:18:20. Per screenshot below, this is common on abandoned bases; small decay requiring minor repairs but not more than 5% of HP. These players have been gone for over a month and I’d really like decay to handle this and others like them.

Posting again so the thread doesn’t die. I’ve seen lots of other threads and complaints about this but no solutions from Funcom.

I’m not a fan of hacking my server but I’d love to know why decay is working on my Siptah server but not this one.

Does your server age update or it stays at zero?

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It is a fresh start server as of Update 3.0 so while it is still zero, I wasn’t sure if I should expect it to be 1 or 2 at this point. Short answer, the age is showing as 0.

This is why you have issues. The age should reflect the days that have passed since the database was created. Workaround here:

Thank you for the reply and info. I’m not comfortable with hacking the game files but perhaps I can find someone who can do this long and complicated number of steps. Again, thanks.

And for unknown reasons, the age was changed to 1 so decay has started to countdown. No idea how or why but I’ll take it.

And again, for unknown reasons, age is reset to 0. So very frustrating.

How can I regard a long-standing bug without being overly critical, especially when it must have been such a simple thing to correct for the developers? “They already have our money.”

If you want this fixed you are going to have to bite-the-bullet and take care of it yourself. Two of my Dedicated Server Launcher games (one on each map) had this problem.

First of all, make sure you are using the latest “Dedicated Server Launcher” version.
Search this forum for that name, and you will have the latest versions.

Otherwise, here are the shortest steps once can provide.

  • Shut down or stop your dedicated server.
  • Backup your game.db. (You might notice there are backups present, you just need to ensure you know what to restore if this fix did not work). I recommend copying game.db into a new folder in a different directory.
  • Acquire DB Browser for SQLite from a reliable source.
  • Open your game.db file with “DB Browser for SQLite.exe”
  • Modify your dw_settings table to ensure there is a record named serverruntime. Most of the time this field has been missing altogether. Set the name to serverruntime and the value to 0
  • To ensure your changes take effect Write Changes (found on the toolbar).
  • From the File Menu, select Close Database or exit the program entirely.
  • Start up your Dedicated Server.
  • Do not expect the number of days to immediately increase to match your actual runtime, but 24 hours later, you should expect the counter to reflect day 1.

Making a change such as this is not really that challenging in the age of computers.
You can restore your backup if you encounter any issues. You did create a backup, right?

Thanks for the reply I guess. I did experiment on an old save so I know what to do re SQLite. One of the other admins downloaded a program to be able to copy the save file to a pc but I don’t have that program so will have to figure it out.

As you said, they already have our money. But after 5+ years of paying for these servers, it’s difficult to let them go or fix the problem. If it was just me, I’d let it go and start over. But this impacts dozens of other players on the servers I maintain. I’m not an IT person, coder or programmer. So looking at over a dozen steps of unfamiliarity is daunting. But yeah, thanks for the info.

I think you two will get it resolved soon.

If you are able to download and upload the game.db from a server and run the SQLite steps locally, that will work out fine, so long as you don’t mind a few minutes of downtime. Locally means your PC or your other admin’s PC. Just so long as the server is down when the files are updated, you should be OK.

Also, once the new serverruntime record is in place in this table, the value will be updated by the game, to something it understands which is not zero.