Any way to delete a specific asteroid from outside the game (dedicated server)

[birdoprey5]

So Torch won't start because of a specific asteroid named Asteroid_493432627_1793431702_0. Is there some way I can delete this without being in the game? Seems like it should be possible. Torch would offer the option if it would start.

[Redtachi]

Maybe someone else can back me up on this... I used to delete asteroids by being in creative mode and pressing Ctrl + X when facing them. I haven't needed to delete an asteroid in years. Also there is an application out there called SEToolbox, not sure if it has been updated. In order to delete planets/asteroids, change the armor types or remove unwanted items.

[Jack Schitt]

You have to be in creative mode or admin on the server you're on.
- Press ALT+F10
- Entity List in the top dropdown menu
- The next menu down will say Grid, change that to/select Asteroids in that menu
- The 3rd dropdown menu is self explanitory, you can choose it's approximate location
- At the bottom of that window click on Remove

There may be some other way to do it through the world's save file since you know the name of it. I'm curious of how you figured out it's exact name and number. Please share how you figured that out!

[Buzzard]

I'd say fire up the last released version of SE Toolbox and take a shot at it with a COPY of the world save. If it works, great. If not, then all you've managed to mess up is a COPY.
Some of the newer blocks may or may not save properly, which is one of the reasons I say to use a COPY, and not the original.
Again, COPY the original save file and tinker with that.

Why, yes, I HAVE seen a few ...uh, 'special individuals' utterly screw themselves by working on the original without any backups. Why do you ask?

[Jack Schitt]

Originally posted by Buzzard:

I'd say fire up the last released version of SE Toolbox and take a shot at it with a COPY of the world save. If it works, great. If not, then all you've managed to mess up is a COPY.
Some of the newer blocks may or may not save properly, which is one of the reasons I say to use a COPY, and not the original.
Again, COPY the original save file and tinker with that.

Why, yes, I HAVE seen a few ...uh, 'special individuals' utterly screw themselves by working on the original without any backups. Why do you ask?

Nobody asked.

Why do 'special individuals' use 3rd party (cheat) software that's known to screw up the game? And why do 'special individuals' suggest others use it when there's a way to do what they want directly in the game with options and menus that are already there?
Please fill me in on why some people do senseless things like that. I've been trying to figure that out for years.

[Jack Schitt]

Originally posted by Redtachi🎃:

Maybe someone else can back me up on this... I used to delete asteroids by being in creative mode and pressing Ctrl + X when facing them. I haven't needed to delete an asteroid in years. Also there is an application out there called SEToolbox, not sure if it has been updated. In order to delete planets/asteroids, change the armor types or remove unwanted items.

CTRL+X no longer works on planets or asteroids. It's done as I explained above through the Space Master / Admin tools menu. CTRL+X is a windows key combination for the CUT (to clipboard) action. It does the same in SE. CTRL+Delete...deletes the object the cross hairs are on in SE. Both only work on grids and blocks. You're right that it used to but it no longer works on asteroids and planets. The admin menu does though.

[Buzzard]

Originally posted by Jack Schitt:

Originally posted by Buzzard:

I'd say fire up the last released version of SE Toolbox and take a shot at it with a COPY of the world save. If it works, great. If not, then all you've managed to mess up is a COPY.
Some of the newer blocks may or may not save properly, which is one of the reasons I say to use a COPY, and not the original.
Again, COPY the original save file and tinker with that.

Why, yes, I HAVE seen a few ...uh, 'special individuals' utterly screw themselves by working on the original without any backups. Why do you ask?

Nobody asked.

Why do 'special individuals' use 3rd party (cheat) software that's known to screw up the game? And why do 'special individuals' suggest others use it when there's a way to do what they want directly in the game with options and menus that are already there?
Please fill me in on why some people do senseless things like that. I've been trying to figure that out for years.

If you'll read the OP, the server will NOT start at this time, likely due to a bugged asteroid that needs to be removed. I've seen this happen before, and SE Toolbox (while it was being updated) was a valid and useful way to fix save files that have gotten problems in them. It may work in this case, it might not.
As for the 'individuals', it's not just SE that people have original files to screw up, and not necessarily with 'cheat' software.

Kindly save your misguided rants for someone else, thank you.

[Jack Schitt]

The .sbs files are what draws and places objects in the world. Seemingly (from looking at some of mine) only what can be seen in the game by the player. That may be a way if there isn't a way through Torch to do it without being in the game.

Try:
!entities delete <Asteroid_493432627_1793431702_0>

That might work through Torch. It's in the admin commands list here[wiki.torchapi.net].

[birdoprey5]

OK so I got it figured out, here's what was happening and what I ultimately did.

Co-Admin of a dedicated server, the person whose house the server is physically in was away so I was doing all this remotely (and for the first time) to make it extra entertaining. (sarcasm)

I had to stop Torch so I could up the PCU limit (per faction) as all factions had maxed out PCU and simulation speed was still 1.0 so figured wss safe to bump it some.

So I stopped Torch, upped the PCU to 40000 and hit "Start." Of course it reported a fatal error, said to check the logs, and when I hit "OK" Torch closed. So I rebooted the whole PC, tried again, same error.

So I found the logs in the Torch directory (which was called E:/SE SERVER/ on this PC, not sure if standard)

Inside was a /logs/ directory with a keen.log and torch.log for each day the server was up, which was only 2 days. So I went to today's log, scrolled to the bottom, and the Torch log ended with:

[ERROR] Initializer: Keen broke the minidump, sorry.

And the Keen log ended with:

Keen: CRITICAL-VOXEL MAP!!! ---- VoxelMap already loaded. This must not happen (Asteroid_493432627_1793431702_0)

Both recorded at exactly or near exactly the same time.

I contacted the Admin who had the server at his house (He's been an Admin for a full week, so lots more experience than me, lol) and he said that was the same error he got before. I asked what did he do to get past it? He spent hours and he finally just had to uninstall and re-install steam, space engineers, and torch... Well I wasn't going to do that, knew there had to be a better way. I have a lot more experience with software than the primary Admin.

So I knew enough that Asteroid_493432627_1793431702_0 was the problem. In Googling I did find the mention of SEToolbox and it looked like it would solve my problem easy peasy. Unfortunately it's GitHub page said it's DEAD that the economy update broke it. Nevertheless I tried it anyway and it won't even read the save game aa valid so it won't even start. So much for SEToolbox.

So I went to the space engineers save game folder, found the game name, and started looking in the files directly. I hoped I'd see a filename Asteroid_493432627_1793431702_0 but nope. So then I opened every single file in a text editor and did a text search for 493432627 and couldn't find it in any file.

So then in desperation I posted here.

After that I tried Torch again... Same error, but I did notice If I don't hit "OK" i can still access the program and if I go the entities list it lists all Asteroids among other stuff and Asteroid_493432627_1793431702_0 was listed. Notably the number was way different than all the asteroids which had a naming convention like Asteroid_XX_YYYYYYYYYYY_Z and this was the only one with more than two digits for the "XX" so I'm thinking some sort of corruption.

Torch offers a "Delete" option if you highlight it, which I did, but Delete doesn't work because Torch is frozen because of the fatal error.

So I tried again starting Torch and hitting stop immediately, no good, still continues to load and ends in fatal error. Tried a number of times to get Torch to run without running game, no love.

Finally I copied the game file and brought it to my local PC to play with it... Eventually I realized this wasn't the save game file, none of the stuff I built was there. (I had a GPS coordinate of my base saved in my notepad and went to it and it wasn't there.) Also there was no sign of the Asteroid I was looking for, though there were others listed. Just a few where the real game file had many dozens listed.

So it turns out this game just happened to have the same name as the one Torch was running and Torch has it's own copy of the saved game in the Torch (E;/SE SERVER/) directory.

Looked at that folder and indeed there was a file called Asteroid_493432627_1793431702_0! So I made a zip backup of the entire directory, deleted the offending file, started Torch, and it started! Finally!

Now, the game is running as well as it was before. Not to say it's perfect, for some reason on every restart all user created factions but one are deleted, everyone has to recreate and rejoin their factions, and take ownership of everything they built. Yes it sucks but that was the way the game was running before this error, that is for another time. The primary admin has brought up the issue with Torch, hopefully we get an answer soon.

Hope this helps someone. Thank you all for your suggestions.

[birdoprey5]

So it died overnight and won't run for more than a couple minutes now with this error-

[FATAL] Initializer: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Hope my deleting the file didn't cause it.

[birdoprey5]

Well despite getting the game to run it would not run reliably... Crashing after a couple minutes. Started new world... cutting loses. Hope this one works.

[birdoprey5]

New world ran without crashing (for now) but every time we need to restart Torch all factions disappear besides the one originally made in Space Engineers local game before I copied saved game to torch.

In addition to lost factions, toolbar customization and GPS markers are lost too- again anything not done in the original save game file, so suspect Torch is not properly updating whatever file has these details, appears to be sandbox.sbc in save game directory.