Messages

In the future, please post bugs from mod-enabled games in the "mod bugs" sub forum.

From the log file:

Exception from asynchronous event: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

Most likely, the saved game contains data from a mod that was disabled and/or removed.
Have you made any recent changes to the mod list?

First, try running the game with the -opengl parameter.

Steam:

Right-click "RimWorld" in the Steam library, and choose "Properties" from the drop-down menu.
Click "Set Launch Options..."
Enter -opengl into this box, then click "OK"
Click "Close" to close the properties menu.
Run RimWorld.

If the problem is now resolved,  there is something wrong with your DirectX installation.
You can continue to run the game in opengl mode, though there may be performance issues.

If the issue is not resolved, please upload a copy of your output_log file. (If it was created.)

Log File
Posting a log file means uploading the log RimWorld generated. Here's where to find it:
Windows (Steam): C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\output_log.txt
Windows (non-Steam) has TWO possible locations:
RimWorld####Win\RimWorld####Win_Data\output_log.txt
%userprofile%\AppData\LocalLow\Ludeon Studios\RimWorld by Ludeon Studios\output_log.txt
Mac (Steam): Users/<UserName>/Library/Logs/Unity/Player.log
Mac (non-Steam): /Users/[your user name]/Library/Logs/Unity/Player.log
Linux (Steam): /home/<UserName>/.config/unity3d/Ludeon Studios/RimWorld/Player.log
Note: You must run RimWorld from the console or the log file will not be created.  If you don't run RimWorld from the console, you may find the log at /tmp/rimworld_log
Linux (non-Steam): /home/[your user name]/.config/unity3d/Ludeon Studios/RimWorld/Player.log

Log file:

Log File
Posting a log file means uploading the log RimWorld generated. Here's where to find it:
Windows (Steam): C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\output_log.txt
Windows (non-Steam) has TWO possible locations:
RimWorld####Win\RimWorld####Win_Data\output_log.txt
%userprofile%\AppData\LocalLow\Ludeon Studios\RimWorld by Ludeon Studios\output_log.txt
Mac (Steam): Users/<UserName>/Library/Logs/Unity/Player.log
Mac (non-Steam): /Users/[your user name]/Library/Logs/Unity/Player.log
Linux (Steam): /home/<UserName>/.config/unity3d/Ludeon Studios/RimWorld/Player.log
Note: You must run RimWorld from the console or the log file will not be created.  If you don't run RimWorld from the console, you may find the log at /tmp/rimworld_log
Linux (non-Steam): /home/[your user name]/.config/unity3d/Ludeon Studios/RimWorld/Player.log

Depending on what the mods are, they may be a contributing factor. (The number of mods leads to instability, but less than 30 and an OOM error shouldn't be occurring yet.)
Max cell size and some of the mods are probably contributing most to the problem.

That being said, on a 64 bit system with 8GB of system RAM, this shouldn't necessarily be happening yet.
(It would still happen eventually, but unlikely before the 3 in-game year mark, and with a large colony.)

Do you have other programs open in the background?
(Antivirus, mounted disc images, media players, so on?)
If so, close those programs before running RimWorld again.

In addition to that, I would also suggest ensuring that you have at least a 2GB page file enabled for your system.
(2GB minimum and 3GB maximum should be fine, though if the defaults are already higher, leave them the way they are.)

These instructions should be valid for Windows 7/8/10.

Right click on Computer and open Properties.
Select Advanced System Properties
Click Advanced tab
Under Performance, click Settings
Under Performance Options, click Advanced tab
Here under Virtual memory pane, select Change
Uncheck Automatically manage paging file size for all drives
Highlight your system drive
Select Custom size
Change the Initial size value and the Maximum size value to a higher value
Click Set
Finally Click Apply/OK all the way.

Source: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/increase-page-file-size-virtual-memory-windows

I wasn't implying you were being a "rage filled bastard about it."
I apologize if it seemed that way.
I was only putting up the current (official) word on this topic.

In terms of your suggestion, it would seem to be a good idea.
The left "section" would allow you to see research as a list, while the right "section" would allow you to see what the research requires and where the research leads.

How many is "many many" exactly?
RimWorld tends to lose stability very quickly with more than a dozen or so mods, especially if the mods are large.

Did the game crash, or did the system show a STOP error?
(Blue/black screen crash.)

Please upload a full copy of the output_log file.
This may provide more information as to what was going on around the time of the crash.
If the file is too large to add as an attachment, cloud services such as Google Drive can be used, or sites like Pastebin.

Edit: If the issue is as I suspect, you likely have a large enough colony, with enough mods, that the colony is too large to save.

If you have an extremely large and/or mature colony:
Culling animals you do not deem absolutely necessary, removing work bench bills that are not in use, and selling large numbers of items in exchange for high-value single items may allow you to save the game again.
(More than 10 colonists, more than 12 animals, or more than 2-3 years in game time.)

Unfortunately, if this does not allow you to save the game again, you are likely running the game with too many mods to continue.
In that case, you will need to start a new colony with less mods.

I will likely not have internet for a few days, so I ask that anybody else that can render assistance does so.

I would suggest that anybody that looks into this also check a couple other drugs for similar issues.

-Flake is inhaled; may be subject to the same issue as in OP's report.
-Yayo is snorted; rate of snorting should not be directly affected by digestion.

System specifications?
(System RAM, main HDD free space.)

List of mods? (If any.)

How many colonies are active?
(More than 1 colony is currently unsupported by Ludeon, and a common cause of OOM errors while saving.)

AFAIK, factions as a whole cannot be "defeated" at this time.

Faction bases can be destroyed, but even if all faction bases on the world map are destroyed, the faction still "exists" in the game.

It should be noted that you can easily delete multiple colonies by opening the save folder and deleting the files.

In terms of the colony grouping, what you are talking of is basically the way that saves are grouped in Fallout 4?
(Saved game files are grouped on a per-character basis, and you must switch characters to access other sets of save files.)

If so, that seems like it would be a good method of grouping the saves.

In terms of the actual format of this organization, perhaps placing sets of saves in folders, within the save folder, named after the colony would work?

RimWorldSaveFolder
--ColonyAlpha
----Save01_*DATE/TIME*
----Save02_*DATE/TIME*
--ColonyOmega
----Save01_*DATE/TIME*
----Save02_*DATE/TIME*
----Save04_*DATE/TIME*
--ColonyLudeon
----Save08_*DATE/TIME*
----Save12_*DATE/TIME*

IIRC, Tynan has said that the "research screen" will be reworked (or at least fixed up) for the A17 release.
(Mainly, the menu will be able to scroll up and down as well as side to side, AFAIK.)

Of course, a trainer that has bonded with a pet would refuse to feed the pet food below a certain "quality" unless food at or above that quality is unavailable right?

While this is theoretically possible, it would be extremely difficult to do.

Opening your saved colony (after backing it up) in any text-editing program will allow you to edit it.

I would suggest Notepad++ as a free text editor that also supports code formatting display.
(Saved colonies are in XML code format.)

You would need to search for any and all references, pawns, and objects that are owned by, or have a history with, the given faction you wish to remove.
This will be a time consuming process.
You will likely need to manually look through each section of the file in order to ensure that all references to any of the faction members is deleted.
In addition, you would need to either reassign or remove any references to this faction that might appear on the world map.
All references to items added by the mod need to be removed.
All references to tile types added by the mod must be removed.

If any references to this mod-added faction exist in the saved colony after the mod is disabled, RimWorld will throw an error when you attempt to load the colony.

There are no automatic tools to do this kind of thing.
There is no easy way to do this.
It is extremely unlikely that a community member would be willing to do this for you.

If you undertake this endeavor, I wish you the best of luck.

[exclusive]

The Unity engine, outside of exclusive fullscreen mode, seems to always use VSync.

Exclusive fullscreen mode is slowly being phased out in favour of fullscreen display methods that allow multi-screen display setups to work properly.
Exclusive fullscreen mode has the advantage of using all display resources for the program that is currently in focus.
Exclusive fullscreen has the major disadvantage of disallowing any secondary display devices from showing anything of value.

It appears that the Unity engine, using DX11, currently defaults to a non-exclusive fullscreen mode.
In addition, DX12 does not allow for any "exclusive fullscreen" program display.

(As a note, KSP uses DX9 or OpenGL by default. RimWorld defaults to the newest DX version installed on the current system.)

Using the

Code Select Expand

-force-d3d9 parameter may allow for the game to run in exclusive fullscreen mode, thereby accepting the global VSync options.

To use this with the DRM-free release of RimWorld:

Create a shortcut to the RimWorld executable.
Right-click the shortcut and choose "properties" from the drop-down list.
Add a space and the command parameter to the end of the "target" line.
Click "Apply" and then "OK."

For the Steam release:

Right-click "RimWorld" in the Steam library, and choose "Properties" from the drop down list.
Click "Set Launch Options..." in the properties window.
Type in the command line parameter.
Click "OK" and then "Close" in these windows.

If the issue is still not resolved, using the

Code Select Expand

-opengl parameter instead of the d3d9 parameter may allow for the same functionality, though performance may be degraded.


I apologize for any misunderstandings created by my ignorance to "diagonal" tearing.
A strange issue indeed.

Looking around a bit, this does seem to be a known issue with NVidia M-GPUs.

If RimWorld still offers exclusive fullscreen mode, which is the mode that would be necessary to use in order to disable VSync entirely, it will automatically disable VSync as per your global settings.
If exclusive fullscreen mode is still available, setting RimWorld to fullscreen mode and setting the resolution to the "native" (maximum) resolution of your monitor should rectify the issue.

Some possible options to reduce the impact of these visual artifacts are as follows.

Using DX11 apparently may result in less of this "diagonal" tearing occurring.

Using OpenGL mode should remove all of this "diagonal" tearing, though it will result in degraded performance.

Using a third-party frame limiting software to cap the frame rate at a maximum of a couple FPS lower than the screen refresh rate should also stop this issue from occurring.
The RivaTuner fps limiting option should work to this effect.
(The issue only occurs when the frame rate is at the screen refresh rate.)

The exact cause of this issue is unknown.
There are no known end-user fixes; only work around steps.
MSI has stated that this is an issue with Windows.
NVidia has stated that they are "working on a fix."

Unfortunately, due to the fact that this is a Windows/NVidia issue, it is extremely unlikely there is anything that can be done by Ludeon to help rectify this issue.

Best of luck.