System editor/selector broken

So today I can't load any of my systems for whatever reason.



I have a bunch more systems I've made, but all that remains is that empty box. Can't select them when making a game either.

Anyone else have this problem? Is it related to the upcoming overhaul?

Kind of worried that my systems might have been corrupted/deleted... I've spent many hours on them so I sure hope that isn't the case.

Yeah saw that as well, it started after I first run the new PTE.
For somme reason there was an entry in my local storage for the key "systems". The value was a random String, with no quotes. No valid json and definitely no valid system.
No idea how it got there. After I deleted the key it went away.
Might be related to a mod that missbehaves under PTE or might be a bug in the PTE system editor.
Once you are in that situation you get the error even if you run with no mods.
To fix you need to delete the key/value for the key "systems" out of your localstorage. Or maybe you can somehow load a system, that might also fix it.

Edit: Happened again:


This might just be an incompatible code part between PTE vs stable

EDIT:
"systems" is the key used to store all systems. For whatever reason the PTE overwrites it the moment you select a system in the list of systems in the new selection list for them.
So the moment you do that click you delete all systems you had and put in that value that breaks the selection of the old PA version.

Wait, are you serious? You mean all my old systems are deleted now?

This is fixable right? Should be possible to restore the systems from replays if nothing else.

I'll provide the replay codes if necessary. I've spent too much time on these systems to lose them. If they are lost permanently, I and my friends will definitely not be playing the game anymore.

I have no idea how replays store planet data actually. Not even sure how they react to changes to the planet generator.
From all I can tell all systems are gone if this happens, unless you have a backup copy of your localstorage from before. I.e. this would also include using PA Stats and playing a map.
Creating systems to store them forever isn't really working anyway, there have been numerous changes to the generator in the past that changed existing systems quite drastically.

It has been working for me so far, the LEAST I should be able to expect from a map editor is my maps not suddenly disappearing. Most of my maps are very finely tuned in terms of orbits, planned collisions and so on, involving a dozen or more planets. The layouts of the planets themselves isn't of a great concern.

If there isn't an easy fix, I'd like this brought to Uber's attention. I can't see how it should be too hard to re-create systems from replays since the system is right there in the replay.

The changes to the system editor in the PTE add a system import/export functionality. So in the future it will exist.
For your old maps that ofc does not help anymore.

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on how the replays work. If it *should* store the geometry of the planet (and that is in fact better from a replay-funcationality point of view) it will be impossible to get the planet definition back out of it without a research team and 5 years time.
Though I would guess replays store the json definition, as it is simply easier to do, so you might be right and the system would be in there in a format you need.
If they would fulfill my API request about getting the full planet definition in live_game I could give them to you from replays xD
... or maybe I don't get the API request because replays don't work for it. Dunno.

i noticed this too and it also stops you from saving any new systems you try making but all my systems are there in the PTE so when that goes live there shouldnt be any problems

Those are the hardcoded default systems.
At least all custom systems I had are gone.

im not sure what happened to yours then but the odd 4 systems i made are still there.

Downloaded the most recent PTE and the systems seem to be there(phew)...

But now I'm afraid of clicking on any of them in case it's like cola_colin says and they can still get erased.

I hope everything will be okay once the PTE goes stable. Will update with results when that happens.

Hmm maybe it copied over the systems to somewhere and uses them from there now.
Good I am wrong sometimes

If you want to backup your stuff, backup this folder: "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Uber Entertainment\Planetary Annihilation"

Copy paste that into the top line of the explorer to resolve it.
Those folders contain all kinds of client specific data, including your planet settings.

Yeah, already did to be safe. Can't for the life of me understand why they made the map files part of some proprietary archive format though... I eagerly await being able to share maps so my friends can play on my collection when I'm not around.

It's not in a proprietary archive format though. They are just SQLite 3.x databases. If you look in the file "localstore/Local Storage/coui_ui_0.localstorage" with an SQL browser, you'll find your planets as JSON data in the "systems" field.
Didn't they include an export/import function in the latest PTE though?

Looks like almost everything is indeed in order again with the new stable release! Some orbits got messed up here and there, probably as a result of new code, but nothing worth making a fuss over.

So this thread can safely be closed, just be careful not to mess up the stable release with the next PTE!