Why don't these transport orders work?

[martinuzz (OP)]

I've designed a transport class ship, with 5 cargo holds each.
I built 2 of them, and manually used them to bring some mass drivers to Luna and Mercury, which have plentiful minerals I want to mine.

Now.. I've set up some special orders:

primary order: deliver automated mine to mining colony
secondary order: pick up automanted mine from population

They pick up the automated mine from earth, but, instead of deliverinjg it to one of my mining colonies, they spam me with the message: 'failed to load automated mine at Earth, please reschedule orders'

I can understand that they fail to load that mine, since they already have one in their cargo holds.. But I don't get why they don't switch to their primary orders, and deliver that mine to a mining colony.

[MattyD]

Your ships will sit there trying to carry out the order at the top of the order list. In this case, they will try to load a mine.

If you already have a mine in your cargo hold then they cannot proceed and you will get the error message.

Change the orders to :

1. Deliver mine at mineral site
2. Load mine back at industrial site

Or delete your orders, unload mine at current location and then reinstate the orders.

..

The game does not recognise that it does not have to carry out your primary order as there is a mine already in the cargo hold.

[martinuzz (OP)]

But..but.. Their first order is already unload, and their second load.. That would be the logical order for these orders, to prevent them getting stuck on loading.

But it doesn't work. It looks like, the secondary 'pickup automated mine at population' order does not remove itself after completion, to make room for the primary 'deliver automated mine to mining colony' order.

I am talking about 'default' orders (the 'primary' and 'secondary' orders, above the 2 conditional order tabs), not about manually set orders.

I just want to have them continuously pick up a mine from earth, deliver it at a mining colony, pick up mine from earth, deliver at mining colony, etc. etc.

[Erik L]

Matty has it right.

The program will get the primary, and if unable to do it (due to full holds), will generate an event, and attempt to do the secondary.

[martinuzz (OP)]

Thanks you for trying to help me out here, but I'm afraid you've just got me more confused now.. You say 'the program will get the primary'.. In my case, that's 'deliver automated mine to mining colony', 'and if unable to do it (because of full holds)'....

But.. but.. That order *needs* the freighter to have it holds full (with a auto-mine) right, before it can deliver it to a mining colony, right??

To clarify what I set up, here's a screenshot..

Please, tell me, or show a screenshot of how I am supposed to set it up, to have a freighter keep on going back and forth, picking up and delivering automated mines.

[Erik L]

What you've got setup is how I'd do it, and in theory should work.

I just tried it both ways. Pick up in the primary and drop off in the secondary, and vice versa. Neither one worked.

Looks like a bug so I'm copying this into the Bug thread.

[Erik L]

The workaround for this is to manually set the following orders

• Load automated mines at colony
• Unload automated mines at mining colony
• Refuel at colony
• (Optional) Resupply at colony

Colony being the colony supplying the mines (Earth in most starting games).

On the Orders screen under the order list, you will see a check box "Cycle Moves". This will take the order list, execute the moves and as each is finished, tack it onto the end of the list.

[martinuzz (OP)]

Ah. I feared I was losing my marbles hehe..
Good to see I'm not going crazy.

Thanks for the help, and workaround tip, gonna try that now.

[Steve Walmsley]

These default orders were actually set up originally to help me manage NPRs. Now the civilian supply and demand requests for transporting installations are up and running, they are no longer needed and I should have removed them.

Steve

[SenniTreborius]

Does this mean that no matter how many cargo bays one has, one can only pick up and carry one mine at a time?

[db48x]

No. This is a really ancient bug report about a type of primary/secondary default order.

the "Load <item> at <colony>" order will pick up as many of the item as can fit in the cargo holds of the task group (if you have 10 ships which each have 5 standard cargo holds in the task group then you can pick up 50 standard installations). There's an optional limit box just below the order selection that becomes enabled which lets you pick up a specific number.

[SenniTreborius]

the "Load <item> at <colony>" order will pick up as many of the item as can fit in the cargo holds of the task group (if you have 10 ships which each have 5 standard cargo holds in the task group then you can pick up 50 standard installations).  There's an optional limit box just below the order selection that becomes enabled which lets you pick up a specific number.

Thank you for ending my frustration.  Cargo ships kept taking all earth's mass drivers.

[db48x]

Ah, that could be a bit troublesome

[boggo2300]

Thank you for ending my frustration.  Cargo ships kept taking all earth's mass drivers.

Why do you have more than one Mass driver on Earth?

[83athom]

Why do you have more than one Mass driver on Earth?

1) To supply other colonies with them. 2) To send emergency materials to other bodies in Sol without using a cargo ship.