Error in Execute Orders

[Zed 6 (OP)]

I've lost Hyper Capability. I noticed this on my Geo Survey ships with Magneto-Plasma drives but I also tested this on some older Courier ships with Ion Drives. Make a WP1 just outside the Hyper limit in a system. Make a 2nd for a destination. ( ships do have hyper capability) Ship moves to WP1 and enters Hyper-speed and shows speed  increase. Ship moves initially and then:

"Error in ExecuteOrders

Error 6 was generated by Aurora
Overflow
Please report to...."
 
Click ok, maybe get same error again and game continues on. Ship never moves again tho it says it is moving at hyper speed. I noticed wealth did not increase either and it should have. Not sure if other things are not happening. Clearing orders was of no help. The only way I found was to send another task group and absorb the stuck one. And then no more errors and back to normal. Not sure when it happened but it used to work. Repeatable every time so far.

[Father Tim]

Double-check that every ship is indeed currently hyper-capable.  An unrepaired maintenance failure may have damaged an engine.  Otherwise, the most likely candidate is that the speed is so high, or the distance involved so far, that the value for 'time required to execute orders' or 'distance travelled this increment' is exceeding the size of a variable somewhere, and thus can't be properly stored by the program.

[Zed 6 (OP)]

The ships in question are indeed Hyper Capable. The Courier ship that I tested is the exact same one that went to a far comet in the Sol system earlier in the game under hyper (my home system) and now cannot.  Ships are not damaged.

A thought occured to me- I play with No Overhauls Needed checked so no maintenance supplies are needed, (for a variety of reasons), but does doing so also turn off the maintenance clock for ships so it's ignored?

[Thiosk]

This doesnt sound exactly like what I encountered, but open the fleet orders window and check the speed settings for the ship.  Make sure the values are set to the correct speeds and not 1.  Sounds like something else, though.

[sloanjh]

Double-check that every ship is indeed currently hyper-capable.  An unrepaired maintenance failure may have damaged an engine.  Otherwise, the most likely candidate is that the speed is so high, or the distance involved so far, that the value for 'time required to execute orders' or 'distance travelled this increment' is exceeding the size of a variable somewhere, and thus can't be properly stored by the program.

IIRC, there was a bug in the time-to-execute estimation code while in hyperdrive - it doesn't use the hyperspeed, it uses the normal speed.  If this has not been fixed (and I don't remember seeing a fix go by) then that can make it easy to set A Way Point Too Far. :-)

John

[Zed 6 (OP)]

It looks like the situation is worse.  New system- Binary- 1 wreck at a planet for Star A and a bunch at a planet for Star B. A new contact appeared at the Star A site. Set up a Diplomacy team and they messed it up and I got communication impossible and the aliens are now hostile. (note: I read later in older thread that comms are never entirely impossible. Is this still the case? If so, how to re-open communications as this is greyed out). The hostile rammed my survey ship but destroyed himself also- so now 3 wrecks at Star A. Rescued some life pods but the commander of my ship didn't make it out and went down with the ship. Sent in an escorted salvager and scooped up the wreckage at Star A.

Used a LP point to get to the Star B planet (as my Hyperdrives don't work ). 4 new contacts (same type ship) ( Big Note: I am a total newbie at Combat).  Used my 15 meson gunboats to attack one ship. The enemy might be freighters ( not firing back and not ramming). I figured out how to target and fire and getting hits. 1 minute worth of 5 sec combats at point blank range. Getting 100% hits. Each hit is also accompanied with an error. "Overflow 6 error in Applying Internal Damage" so no damage.

Note: In SM mode there is no other race listed- only my empire- maybe this is part of the problem?

Conclusion: Probable Corruption. Need to restart game.

Capabilities:
Survey and Research  Good
Economy So-so
Combat Newbie

Questions:

1. If the Database is corrupted, I can just start a new game. Is it possible for the EXE to get corrupted and should I start from scratch and redownload everything?

2. Is there any way to get more info on the hostile ships and what damage is being done to their ships?

3. Economy:
Colonies
Earth 1.1 bil
Mars 40 mil
Lacille 7 mil
Gliese 832 1.5 mil

   A. I don't see how other players get such a great return off the Earth-Mars run. I get civilian trade but it seems bare minimum at best. Any hints?

   B. Earth and Mars are source colonists, but in general there is a growing worker shortage on all colonies. Not yet serious but could be eventually. Would it be wise to slow down expansion a bit and let the population catch up? For the next game.


The forums and wiki are an excellent source of info especially the ship examples including Steve's fleet from his latest campaign. I have a lot of "I never would of thought to design it that way" moments. Some missile examples would be nice.

[sloanjh]

As far as I can see from your description, at the 50,000 foot level everything is Working As Intended (with a couple of minor bugs you're hitting.)

1)  For the hyperdrive problem, try setting several waypoints closer together than the previous one.  At some point the overflows should go away.

2)  The "Applying Internal Damage" error is almost certainly because the bad guys you're hitting are a particular type of bad guy with special technology that appears to throw this error when it gets hit by damage.  I've been seeing it in my own game when fighting this type of bad guy, and I haven't seen it cause any problems.

3)  You cannot see computer-controlled alien races in SM mode.  SM mode only allows you extra commands/knowledge about human-controlled races.  In other words, SM mode won't make more races visible in the ctrl-r screen.

Hope that makes you feel more assured about your game.

John

PS - Please read the posting guidelines for bugs that should be stickied at the top of this forum.  In particular, Steve has requested that people not open new threads in Bugs (or Suggestions), but instead post in the official thread.  This is because he uses the official thread as a "filing cabinet"; it's difficult for him to track down half-remembered issues in other threads.  Also,
this thread probably falls into the category of new-user-questions, i.e. it probably belongs in The Academy (see the "where should I post" FAQ).

[Zed 6 (OP)]

Ok thanks. I will try that about the WP's. If someone wants to move the post or not, ok  thanks for the advice.

[LoSboccacc]

3)  You cannot see computer-controlled alien races in SM mode.  SM mode only allows you extra commands/knowledge about human-controlled races.  In other words, SM mode won't make more races visible in the ctrl-r screen.

you are supposed not to view them. so what I see is a bug of the sm mode?

I can replicate it 100% of the time: wait for a combat, enter SM, open the event screen, double click on a combat message. you'll see their system, their race, if you open the galaxy screen you'll see their empire and the systems they know, with the race they've discovered and so on and so forth.


beware, spoilers!

[sloanjh]

3)  You cannot see computer-controlled alien races in SM mode.  SM mode only allows you extra commands/knowledge about human-controlled races.  In other words, SM mode won't make more races visible in the ctrl-r screen.

you are supposed not to view them. so what I see is a bug of the sm mode?

First to clear up some confusion:  You've taken my point #3 out of context, which leads to a misinterpretation of "see".  The original poster was (I'm almost positive) talking about not being able to change to another race.  What I meant to say was "You cannot see computer-controlled alien races on the ctrl-r menu in SM mode."  This is a different topic from what you're seeing on the F3 screen.  If you've got a screen shot of a ctrl-r menu with "Precursors" or "Invaders" listed as one of the races, then that would be interesting in this context.

Second, yes - as far as I know you should not be able to see those contacts in SM mode.  I can't find the original thread in which you brought this up, so I don't remember the original phrasing and what Steve said, but I don't think you're supposed to see other race's info, even in SM mode.  Could you put this response (i.e. the screenshots) in a reply in that thread so that all the info is in the same spot?

Thanks,
John

[Zed 6 (OP)]

As far as a short hyper run, the overflow messages remain.

That is correct. I was referring to the Crtl-R menu

[Steve Walmsley]

2)  The "Applying Internal Damage" error is almost certainly because the bad guys you're hitting are a particular type of bad guy with special technology that appears to throw this error when it gets hit by damage.  I've been seeing it in my own game when fighting this type of bad guy, and I haven't seen it cause any problems.

I didn't realise this, probably because I haven't gone through the bugs thread in a while. Was this the most recently added bad guy?

Steve

[Zed 6 (OP)]

I'm too inexperienced to know if it's a new bad guy or not, and wouldn't begin to know how to find out or where to look.  Sloanjh seems to know I hope.

[Narmio]

I didn't realise this, probably because I haven't gone through the bugs thread in a while. Was this the most recently added bad guy?

Steve

Steve, there's a post by me in the recent bugs thread that was getting this error and a bunch of others.  I sent you an email with my DB. I hope it's helpful in tracking this one down now you've got a bit more time.  I wasn't sure in that game what race was causing that error, as it was happening somewhere beyond my sight in a game with lots of NPRs.

[sloanjh]

I didn't realise this, probably because I haven't gone through the bugs thread in a while. Was this the most recently added bad guy?

Steve

I'm seeing it when fighting Invaders.  So far, I've been killing one invader per salvo, and I get the apply internal damage error once for each ship destroyed.  I've also gotten a "strength 0 absorbtion shield secondary" message for each one, so I've been thinking it might be the shields (although I don't know how a-shields work, so maybe it's just the fact that they've always been down when I kill the ship).  In fact, that's an interesting data point - as far as I know, the Invaders haven't had their shields up when this happens.  And the reason you haven't seen it in bugs is that I haven't logged it yet - I figured you knew about it  Someone else might have logged it a while ago, though.

[EDIT] Like Narmio, as mentioned in the post I didn't read right above this one

John