Multi Player Game Start Failing

[Power Man]

I am running SEV on a LAN at home. I have been able to start and play other games of SEV. I Have patched to version 1.45 ( the last one before the latest).
I have two different licenced games. One PC is windows XP and the other is running Vista.

I am trying to start a new Multiplayer, seperate PC, TCP/IP game. I have one as the host and one as a player. The player can see the host. The host sends the game info. The player sends the empire info to the host. The host player adds his empire.

When the host clicks the Begin game button it all goes to XYZZY.

A window that says Placing Players pops up and a bar starts moving about 3/4 of an inch. The window goes away and nothing else happens. No Disk IO no additional windows and no movement.

Checking the CPU meter the CPU is at 100%.

We have let the thing sit for a long time and nothing happens.

I can start a single player OK in 2-3 minuts.

The only "modding" has been to set the Maximum stars to 254 and use the big set of star names from SE4 .

Can anyone help me out ???

[Kana]

Thats alot of stars.

[MasterChiToes]

When I tried a really big list of stars, the SEV failed on me... be sure your list isn't too big.

[capnq]

Have you tried switching which PC is hosting the game?

[Power Man]

I have tried starting a game on both PCs. It fails on each.
I will try a smaller number of stars.

[Power Man]

I tried several different things to fix the problem.
I even uninstalled and re installed the game.
I tried with fewer systmes and it still died.

But I have discovered a work around to the problem.

Each time I would setup a new game I would pick the number of sectors and type of universe and then generate the map.
Sometimes I would even put in some starting locations.
But each time I would go to place the players the programed would die.
One time I did not genetate the map and skipped to the add empires stage.
That time when I clicked begin game I got a Generating map window.
Then the Placing players window popped up..
AND IT DID NOT DIE !!!!
The game went on and sent the player info and we were playing a new game !!!

I tried starting another new game.
If one does NOT generate a map before adding the empires the game works.
If one Does generate a map and then adds the empires the Game will die trying to place the players.

This is with the latest patch 1.58 reinstalled.
I am using a modded system with upto 230 systems in the huge universe.
SO were do I report this BUG???

[Suicide Junkie]

Send it to Aaron at Se5@malfador.com