Following a Spawn
 
If you haven't already read the pages dealing with Setting Chest/Pack Loot or Setting Combat Loot be sure to read them so you will have optimal loot in your chests and will understand what I mean by "setting the loot" in a room type.
 
I was struggling along trying to get all those 78 combats I found to load in the rooms and getting very frustrated when long periods of lag time occurred where not a thing was going on in those rooms. Some times I even had to go on to another chapter just to finish the sequence of combats out for one room type or another. Room Type 4 being the most notorious of all for stalling out. 
 
I wondered if the room types were stalling out because there were too few of them, since room type 4 gave me the most trouble. There are only 3 of them, one in the Sea Gate Sector and the other 2 in both sections of the Rainbow Parrot Sector. This gets even worse in Chapter 1 when the one room type 4 near the jail by the overturned wagon would not allow me to enter for the entire chapter. 
 
Then I noticed Room Type 1 in Chapter 0 wasn't following along the normal sequence, which by the way can be viewed in the log with a few exceptions you can read more on under Combat Results.  (By the time you hit chapter 3 this log is totally accurate.) I thought perhaps Room Type 1 was throwing a monkey wrench into the works so I started leaving all room type 1s until after the others were done. However, it didn't work. I still had room stalling out on me.
 
So I sat there pulling my hair out and biting my nails to the quick when my husband suggested I just do one room type at a time. Bless his heart, it worked! And it continued to work through 5 sets of save games where I took all the combats in each chapter respectively. For those of you who I am confusing, this means, I played 5 sets of games, where I fought all 78 random combats in each of the 4 chapters from 0 to 3. That's 20 games where the rooms never stalled out and I walked into a room and got a battle almost every single time I entered it until all the 13 combats in that room type were done. It made no matter if I just ran from one room to the next or took time in between to go sell loot. Nothing changed the outcome, all the battles were there when I stepped into those rooms. 
 
Another thing that helped was saving the game every single time before stepping into a room. If the room was empty I would restore rather than step out, and proceed on to the next room.  I got it down in the last few games where I was stepping into the rooms and forcing the combats and the chest or pack that was due to load to pop at the same time. One thing I never did was take a pack or chest without a combat in the later part of the progression. What I mean here is, I would set the loot for the room type and perhaps the chest had not been there. I would then take the next lone chest or pack that popped up in that room type. 
 
In order to work it out so your chests, packs, and combats all end in a room type at the same time is to take one chest, early in exploring the room type, then forcing all the other chests or packs and combats to load at the same time in that room type.  If, when setting your loot for a room type, the chest does not load with the combat then take the next 2 chests or a chest and pack if it is alone in this room type. Don't do this after you reach the point where you have completed around 6 combats in a room type. For some reason it can through off the spawn and may cause you to stall. 
 
One thing to remember here, if a room is spawning, its spawning. What I mean is if you step into a room type and see a chest or a pack then this is the room that will load the combat too. The reverse applies, if there is a combat then a chest or pack will also be here. It may take a few restores to get them together but it will happen. 
 
One thing that leads to stalling a game out is leaving a room late in the progression that be the spawn room. For instance lets say you enter a room type 3 in the Rainbow Parrot Sector. You see nothing there so you leave and go look in all the other room type 3s in every other possible location. You find nothing. The problem is you just missed the spawn some where. That is why it is vital save before entering each room. Always restore and step into any room a second or even a third time to see if you spot anything. It may not be spawning, but if it was and you walk off and leave it and enter all the other room of its type then the timer is thrown off and can stall out. 
 
There were times when I just knew this had to be the place but nothing was happening when I first stepped in. So I would restore and step in again and find perhaps a chest or pack and maybe even the combat waiting there for me. After doing this as much as I did I sort of developed an instinct where the next spawn would occur. I just had a feeling, it didn't matter if I had been in an area for awhile or had just left it, some times I would step right back into the room I just walked out of after I had gone and sold some items off and encountered my next combat. 
 
If I didn't like the way the loot was falling I would just restore from a save that was made before ever entering that room type. I normally would get to the Sailor and 2 Keshians and if that Sailor wasn't wearing something I liked, well poof off to start this room type over again. I actually got him to give up the best of the best in my latest encounters. 
 
Using this strategy one could create the Ultimate Heirloom game too. I decided I would do the Heirloom thing since all the good stuff WIlliam could use always seemed to pop up after he was gone. I tend to be conservative with this Heirloom thing and sell only a couple of the special items to each vendor, if that many show up that is. I never sell anything  except special items, potions, scrolls, recipes, and alchemical ingredients. Alchemy equipment only to the point where each of the vendors who will buy them has 2 of each piece. Potions to about 50, alchemy ingredients to 100, scrolls, books, and recipes to 10. 
 
I just don't like to push my luck glutting the vendors with a bunch of gunk the software needs to keep track of. My first heirloom game, totally unintentional, met with some ugly little bugs that made me nervous and gave me reason to use caution. I had no notion of heirlooming and just didn't like the way things were going so I started a new book. I thought those vendors looked like they had a lot more stuff in this new game and figured it was gonna be a real good game. Blah!
 
So basically to follow a spawn one must follow these simple steps:
 

 
1 Set your Chest/Pack Loot
2 Print out the Room Log to keep track of your progress
3 Print out the Krondor Sector Maps to find at a glance the room types you want
4 Make a new save game titled to identify which room type you are working on like rm1begin
5 Make another save game for snooping like rm1snoop
6 Set you loot in the room type you are working on
7 Save every time before entering a room
8 Restore every time you do not find what you are looking for in a room before proceeding on