Jump to content

[Tool] Larkator standalone dino locator


coldino

Recommended Posts

Having trouble finding those top stats for breeding? Lost your tames? If you play single-player or have access to the saved ARK then Larkator can locate tamed or wild creatures and display them on a map. It's a stand-alone PC app that utilises the lovely new savegame reader from Flachdachs.

Features:

  • Find both wild and tamed creatures

  • Filter based on species, gender, min and max levels

  • Show the results on a map with full coordinates

  • Creature stats are shown to help you find that elusive next tame

  • Automatically re-reads your save file when it changes

  • Supports The Island, Scorched Earth, The Center, Ragnarok, Aberration, Extinction, Genesis 1 & 2, Valguero, Crystal Isles, Lost Island and Fjordur.

 

Install from here, then help out by reporting bugs and suggestions in the Issues section on GitHub. Thanks!

screenshot.thumb.jpg.c2bd6ed1a00e8313d877d33601c33f5c.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 117
  • Created
  • Last Reply
21 hours ago, Volarus said:

Really like the idea, can't get it to work.  I keep getting an error that says "java.lang.runtimeexception: unable to load data file ./ark_data.json" and so on.  Fairly certain it is something I am doing wrong, as this isn't really my forte.    

Scratch that, was able to get it working, awesome work!  

Ah yes that's a point - you'll need to have run ark-tools first to fetch its data. I might look into automating that but for now I'll mention it in the docs.

For anyone else stuck, run the following command in a command prompt after navigating to the ark-tools directory: ark-tools.exe update-data

Edit: Larkator 1.3 now runs update-data automatically for you. From this version forward auto-update is enabled also.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

On 21/01/2018 at 12:49 AM, LightningBug said:

Hmm, I can't figure out how to change the min/max level and the sex

Use the mouse wheel over whatever you want to change.

This was done to keep the UI minimal. It's listed in the readme but clearly is not discoverable enough. I'll add an on-hover message to the status bar.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/15/2018 at 3:46 PM, coldino said:

[The app is still new and although it works-for-me™ your mileage may vary]

Having trouble finding those top stats for breeding? Lost your tames? If you play single-player or have access to the saved ARK then Larkator can locate tamed or wild creatures and display them on a map. It's a stand-alone PC app that uses and requires the brilliant ark-tools.

Features:

  • Find both wild and tamed creatures

  • Filter based on species, gender, min and max levels

  • Show the results on a map with full coordinates

  • Creature stats are shown to help you find that elusive next tame

  • Automatically re-reads your save file when it changes

  • Supports all five standard maps

As the tool is still new please consider this a beta test. Install from here, then help out by reporting bugs and suggestions in the Issues section on GitHub. Thanks!

screenshot.jpg

 

Changelog:

v1.6:  Now covers all five of the standard maps, selected based on the filename of the .ark selected. 

Looks neat. Are we supposed to place its code in the server ini, or can we just download it and use it as it is? Sorry, not real experienced with this stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

With the most recent update that was rolled out (or more likely a mod that was recently installed), I'm getting an error (see picture.) Should I be moving this over to Qowyn's thread?

Edit: Confirmed the same error running ark-tools from the command line, so I'll be posting it to the ark-tools thread. I'll keep it here in case for some reason it's a problem in the future for Larkator.

ark.PNG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On ‎31‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 12:16 PM, rororoxor said:

Looks neat. Are we supposed to place its code in the server ini, or can we just download it and use it as it is? Sorry, not real experienced with this stuff.

This tool is installed separately, as is ark-tools which you'll also need. Check out the install instructions on GitHub for a detailed step-by-step.

 

On ‎31‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 12:06 PM, jjchuckles said:

This is a FANTASTIC idea with a really well-done implementation. How complex would it be to add some sort of mod support functionality? I can only assume it would be better to ask Qowyn first.

I haven't tried modded creatures yet but there's a good chance it'll just work as-is. ark-tools simply converts what's in the save file and I simply make all of it available. Give it a go and let me know...

 

On ‎01‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 3:33 PM, jjchuckles said:

With the most recent update that was rolled out (or more likely a mod that was recently installed), I'm getting an error (see picture.) Should I be moving this over to Qowyn's thread?

Ah... ark-tools needs to be allocated more memory on bigger map saves (java -Xmx4G). I'll have to add a way to set those parameters in Larkator. Next version :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On ‎01‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 3:33 PM, jjchuckles said:

Edit: Confirmed the same error running ark-tools from the command line, so I'll be posting it to the ark-tools thread. I'll keep it here in case for some reason it's a problem in the future for Larkator.

I've had another idea which you can try immediately. ark-tools.exe uses launch4j which looks for an ini file with more options. Create a plain text file right beside ark-tools.exe called exactly ark-tools.l4j.ini and put only the following in it:

-Xmx4G

I don't have a big enough save file to test this works completely, but I can see the java process respecting this new memory limit so I believe it will fix your issue. Best of luck.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, coldino said:

I've had another idea which you can try immediately. ark-tools.exe uses launch4j which looks for an ini file with more options. Create a plain text file right beside ark-tools.exe called exactly ark-tools.l4j.ini and put only the following in it:


-Xmx4G

I don't have a big enough save file to test this works completely, but I can see the java process respecting this new memory limit so I believe it will fix your issue. Best of luck.

Adding -preventhibernation actually fixed the out of memory error, oddly enough.

 

2 hours ago, coldino said:

I haven't tried modded creatures yet but there's a good chance it'll just work as-is. ark-tools simply converts what's in the save file and I simply make all of it available. Give it a go and let me know...

 

I tested and it seems to take a few reloads to actually get the modded characters in, but it did indeed work flawlessly. The only real issue it has (and this is ark-tools, not Larkator's obviously) stems from ark-tools adding character data from mods by character filename instead of the actual character name data, and also not deleting characters that are no longer present in the game (i.e. uninstallation of mods). Larkator has no problem pulling fully modded dinos from Eternal and Primal Fear, so that's pretty seamless there. The no-longer-present modded dinos from Eternal are still in Larkator's On the Hunt list, but it's trivial really. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

49 minutes ago, jjchuckles said:

Adding -preventhibernation actually fixed the out of memory error, oddly enough.

Interesting - that must change the format/layout of the save. You might still be near a point where you'll hit out-of-memory even with -preventhibernation. The .ini file trick should a better fix for ark-tools in all situations.

1 hour ago, jjchuckles said:

I tested and it seems to take a few reloads to actually get the modded characters in, but it did indeed work flawlessly. The only real issue it has (and this is ark-tools, not Larkator's obviously) stems from ark-tools adding character data from mods by character filename instead of the actual character name data, and also not deleting characters that are no longer present in the game (i.e. uninstallation of mods). Larkator has no problem pulling fully modded dinos from Eternal and Primal Fear, so that's pretty seamless there. The no-longer-present modded dinos from Eternal are still in Larkator's On the Hunt list, but it's trivial really. 

I'm hoping the reloads were due to your own experimentation.

As for the removed-mod creatures being present, it may or may not be possible to extend ark-tools to handle this. You could check for yourself by using 'ark-tools m2j', but be warned there's a lot to sift through. If you can find something in the translated json to distinguish those creatures I'll happily add support to hide them in Larkator. As the ark-tools dev seems a bit quiet I'm working on a few of my own additions, including a 'dead' flag, which is surprisingly missing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, coldino said:

Interesting - that must change the format/layout of the save. You might still be near a point where you'll hit out-of-memory even with -preventhibernation. The .ini file trick should a better fix for ark-tools in all situations.

I'm hoping the reloads were due to your own experimentation.

As for the removed-mod creatures being present, it may or may not be possible to extend ark-tools to handle this. You could check for yourself by using 'ark-tools m2j', but be warned there's a lot to sift through. If you can find something in the translated json to distinguish those creatures I'll happily add support to hide them in Larkator. As the ark-tools dev seems a bit quiet I'm working on a few of my own additions, including a 'dead' flag, which is surprisingly missing.

I'll certainly use the .ini. 

I was indeed reloading myself, so no fear for a bug in your code. :D

I'll look into the m2j a bit and see how they're stored at some point today, and report back here with any finding, if I can .

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Hi coldino!

This is a really foggy bug report for which I apologize. Larkator worked fine for me on initial install. That was a week or two ago. Now I'm getting the error in the attached picture whenever I start it, and it doesn't populate the lists with any creatures (tamed or wild).

The only thing that I'm aware of that changed in between was ARK's big TLC phase 1 update.

Things I've tried (unsuccessfully):

1) Re-installed ark-tools, larkator, got fresh copy of Aberration_P.ark.

2) Wiped out cached data in the larkator temp directory.

3) Updated my java installation, which uninstalled the older version that ark-tools depended upon, so then I re-installed the version that ark-tools pointed me at.

Any ideas?

 

larkator-error.PNG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Foggy bug maybe, but a decent attempt at reporting it, so thank you. There are two things I can think of to do:

  1. Grab a copy of your settings file from %LocalAppData%\LarkatorGUI, then remove it. If this fixes it I would appreciate a copy of the broken settings file so I can stop it happening again.
  2. If the above didn't work, a zipped up copy of Larkator's Temp directory after conversion would help me to debug the issue.

I just hope this isn't two creatures with the same unique IDs!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the tool Coldino.

I think this would be extremely useful for unofficial servers if it ran in a web browser.  That way, all Survivors on the server could see dino locations.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, coldino said:

Foggy bug maybe, but a decent attempt at reporting it, so thank you. There are two things I can think of to do:

  1. Grab a copy of your settings file from %LocalAppData%\LarkatorGUI, then remove it. If this fixes it I would appreciate a copy of the broken settings file so I can stop it happening again.
  2. If the above didn't work, a zipped up copy of Larkator's Temp directory after conversion would help me to debug the issue.

I just hope this isn't two creatures with the same unique IDs!

1) The file or directory LarkatorGUI didn't exist within %LocalAppData%. I created a folder by that name in case it would help, but no change. I may have deleted it earlier in my attempts to solve the problem. I've re-run Larkator since creating the folder and nothing seems to be written to it.

2) https://www.dropbox.com/s/3oiraqpoqhzdmtx/Larkator-data.zip?dl=0

Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, Wumpus said:

1) The file or directory LarkatorGUI didn't exist within %LocalAppData%. I created a folder by that name in case it would help, but no change. I may have deleted it earlier in my attempts to solve the problem. I've re-run Larkator since creating the folder and nothing seems to be written to it.

My mistake - an installed version puts its config file in a nasty location in %LocalAppData%\Apps. But...

From the data you zipped up I see Aberration has two species with the same name (Nameless,has a surface version). Re-launch Larkator twice and you'll pick up a new version with a fix. Let me know if you have any more problems...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, coldino said:

My mistake - an installed version puts its config file in a nasty location in %LocalAppData%\Apps. But...

From the data you zipped up I see Aberration has two species with the same name (Nameless,has a surface version). Re-launch Larkator twice and you'll pick up a new version with a fix. Let me know if you have any more problems...

Thank you very much! Did you implement a general fix or do you need to handle each case like this? Because I think Seekers and some aquatic species (I forget which ones) have this situation as well. I can make a list once I'm back in-game, it's easy to see on the menu of the S+ Tek Transmitter's Dino Scan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

44 minutes ago, Wumpus said:

Did you implement a general fix or do you need to handle each case like this?

Originally there was a fixed workaround just for Coelacanth, which has an Ocean variety.  Now there's a more general fix in place with a nice solution e.g. Nameless (Surface) when the species blueprint format is recognised, or e.g. Nameless* if a different format is found. If you find any that use the not-so-nice solution I'll be happy to add handling for that, too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...