The Hailstone program reads in an int then computes and prints the hailstone sequence for that number. It also prints the length of the sequence, the largest number in the sequence, the longest sequence from one to the number and the number that has the longest sequences from on to the number. I have everything correct except for the function startNum(int n) that is supposed to return the number that has the longest hailstone sequences from one to that number "n". i get a stackoverflow error

public class Recursion {

public static void main(String[] args) {

hailstoneSeq(16); System.out.println(" "+hailstoneLen(16));

System.out.println(largestValue(16));

System.out.println(longLength(16));

System.out.println(startNum(16)); }

public static int next(int n) {

if (n % 2 == 0){

return n / 2; }

else if (n % 2 != 0 && n != 1)

{ return (3 * n) + 1;

} return n;

}

public static void hailstoneSeq(int n)

{

int val = n;

if (val == 1)

System.out.print(val);

else

{ System.out.print(val + " "); hailstoneSeq(next(val));

}

} public static int hailstoneLen(int n) {

if (n == 1)

{ return n;

} else {

return 1 + hailstoneLen(next(n)); }

}

public static int largestValue(int n)

{ if (n == 1) {

return n;

} else

{

return Math.max(n,largestValue(next(n)));

}

}

public static int longLength(int n)

{

if (n == 1)

{

return n;

}

else

{

return Math.max(hailstoneLen(n), Math.max(hailstoneLen(n-1), longLength(n-1)));

}

}

public static int startNum(int n)

{

int val; if (n == 1)

{

return n;

} else

{ val = n--; Math.max(hailstoneLen(n), Math.max(hailstoneLen(n-1), startNum(n-1))); return val;

}

}

}