Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread: C# Edition

[nuclearslurpee]

Usually missile launchers are "automatically" loaded when you auto-assign the fire controls (typically the first step in configuring ship/class weapons), but since buoys lack a warhead I think they confuse the game a bit which cannot quite figure out what to do with them.

[CaiusIuliusCaesar]

Hey guys, sorry to ask again. For some reason, the clock in my game only advanced by 2 hours per increment now... No I idea why 
There's no ship combat happening, I can't spot any hostiles. No matter what I select in pulse and sub-pulse, it seems to be locked to 2 hours per pulse. Any idea why that might be?

Cheers!

[Garfunkel]

Check all fire controls.

[Ragnarsson]

Hey guys, sorry to ask again.  For some reason, the clock in my game only advanced by 2 hours per increment now. . .  No I idea why  :'(
There's no ship combat happening, I can't spot any hostiles.  No matter what I select in pulse and sub-pulse, it seems to be locked to 2 hours per pulse.  Any idea why that might be?

Cheers!

You may have a couple NPR ships playing "tag" through a jump point.  One is trying to flee from the other by jumping, the other pursues it, round and round we go infinitely.  Thankfully this should be strongly mitigated in 2. 0, but for now your only real recourse is to crack open the database, look at the FCT_GameLog table, sort the table by time and look at the most recent events.  If you see a couple fleets repeatedly transiting through the same two JP's, you may have found the culprit.  By altering the database entry for one of those fleetss (offset it's X or Y axis coordinates by some large number, for this look in FCT_Fleet) you can often break the loop.

[nuclearslurpee]

Check all fire controls.

Active fire controls always trigger the 5-second (i.e., combat) increments, IIRC. The post above is probably it as NPRs playing with JPs is usually what causes infinite minimum increments and gives good advice.

[kilo]

Dumb question regarding ground combat and artillery:

You can use long range artillery for counter battery and attacking rear elements like supply units. How do you set them up to do that? Which field position is used and should they support frontline units or not?

[SpaceMarine]

From the Ground Forces Rules Post in the Changelog

"Support and Rear Echelon formations that contain formation elements with bombardment weapons can be assigned to support front line formations that are part of the same organisation. Formations in a support position with light bombardment weapons will fire with the front line formations (see next paragraph). Formations in a support position with medium/heavy bombardment weapons or formations in a rear echelon position with heavy bombardment weapons will fire in a subsequent phase - see below.

Once a front line formation (or a light bombardment element in the Support position) has been matched against a hostile formation, each friendly individual unit (a soldier or vehicle) in that formation engages a random element in the hostile formation, with the randomisation based on the relative size of the hostile formation elements. The targeting on an individual unit level represents that the different elements in a front line formation will generally be attacking in conjunction (infantry supporting tanks, etc.).

Once all front line attacks have been concluded, each unit in each element providing supporting bombardment will engage either the hostile formation being targeted by the friendly formation they are supporting, or one of the hostile formation's own supporting elements (counter-battery fire). If the hostile formation is targeted, each unit in the supporting artillery element engages a random element in the hostile formation, with the randomisation based on the relative size of the hostile formation elements (the same as front-line vs front-line). If a hostile supporting element is targeted, all fire is directed against that element. This represents the difference between providing supporting fire in a combined arms front-line battle and targeting specific hostile artillery for counter-battery fire. The decision to target the hostile front-line formation vs hostile support elements is based on the relative sizes.

Supporting medium artillery will choose between hostile forces in Front-Line or Support field positions (and will ignore any elements in Rear Echelon field position for purposes of relative size), while heavy artillery can select targets in any field position. In other words, if the enemy has supporting heavy artillery in a rear echelon position, you will only be able to target those elements with your own heavy artillery (or ground support fighters, or orbital bombardment support)."

[CaiusIuliusCaesar]

Check all fire controls.

I did... no FC has any targets or is set to engage...

[CaiusIuliusCaesar]

Hey guys, sorry to ask again.  For some reason, the clock in my game only advanced by 2 hours per increment now. . .  No I idea why 
There's no ship combat happening, I can't spot any hostiles.  No matter what I select in pulse and sub-pulse, it seems to be locked to 2 hours per pulse.  Any idea why that might be?

Cheers!

You may have a couple NPR ships playing "tag" through a jump point.  One is trying to flee from the other by jumping, the other pursues it, round and round we go infinitely.  Thankfully this should be strongly mitigated in 2. 0, but for now your only real recourse is to crack open the database, look at the FCT_GameLog table, sort the table by time and look at the most recent events.  If you see a couple fleets repeatedly transiting through the same two JP's, you may have found the culprit.  By altering the database entry for one of those fleetss (offset it's X or Y axis coordinates by some large number, for this look in FCT_Fleet) you can often break the loop.

Ok, will do so. How do I open the database? Is it a SQL db?

[Garfunkel]

Check all fire controls.

Active fire controls always trigger the 5-second (i.e., combat) increments, IIRC. The post above is probably it as NPRs playing with JPs is usually what causes infinite minimum increments and gives good advice.

Right, I was thinking that if he clicked 30-day turns, game might do 2-hours instead of 5-sec increment but yeah apparently that's not the case.

[nuclearslurpee]

Ok, will do so. How do I open the database? Is it a SQL db?

Yes, SQLite specifically. Something like [urlhttps://sqlitebrowser.org/]DB Browser for SQLite[/url] will do the job.

[Ragnarsson]

Ok, will do so.    How do I open the database? Is it a SQL db?

To piggyback on what Nuclearslurpee recommended - and I too use the utility he linked - here's a detailed breakdown of what you'd do if you use that utility:

NOTE: Before you do this, be sure to make a copy of your existing DB in case something goes wrong, you make a mistake, etc.    This *shouldn't* cause any problems with your game, but I'm not an expert.   

- Open the DB Browser for SQLite program
- File > Open Database > navigate to, select and open your AuroraDB. db
- Near the top left you'll see a tab that says "Browse Data".  Click it.
- Slightly below that you'll see Table: with a drop-down selection box next to it.  Go into that.   
- Scroll down to FCT_FleetLog and select it.  Click on the "GameTime" header to sort the list in descending order.   
- Scroll down to the very bottom of the page.  Under the heading of Description you can see every fleet action that's been carried out for all empires in the game, including NPR's.   
- You should see a message that says something along the lines of "JP3: Midgard: Standard Transit" (The JP number and name will of course be different for your game)
- Look for repeating messages of this sort in close succession.  You might see "JP3: Midgard: Standard Transit" repeated twice, then "JP1: Jotunheim: Standard Transit" repeated twice, with two different FleetID's in the FleetID column.  This pattern should be repeated over and over.  This will indicate which fleets are (likely) to be the issue.   
- Write down one of the associated FleetID's.  Now switch your table from FCT_FleetLog to FCT_Fleet.  Sort by FleetID at the top, and navigate to the row with the fleet corresponding to the one you wrote down.   
- Scroll to the right until you find the column labeled "Xcor" and "Ycor".  These will probably be a very large number, in the 10's or 100's of millions.   
- Here's where you fix the problem: For the relevant FleetID, increase or decrease the Xcor or Ycor by some arbitrary large number, add 50,000,000 to one of them, for example.   
- Once that's done, File > Save All and you should have your increment problem fixed.   

[CaiusIuliusCaesar]

Ok, will do so.    How do I open the database? Is it a SQL db?

To piggyback on what Nuclearslurpee recommended - and I too use the utility he linked - here's a detailed breakdown of what you'd do if you use that utility:

NOTE: Before you do this, be sure to make a copy of your existing DB in case something goes wrong, you make a mistake, etc.    This *shouldn't* cause any problems with your game, but I'm not an expert.   

- Open the DB Browser for SQLite program
- File > Open Database > navigate to, select and open your AuroraDB. db
- Near the top left you'll see a tab that says "Browse Data".  Click it.
- Slightly below that you'll see Table: with a drop-down selection box next to it.  Go into that.   
- Scroll down to FCT_FleetLog and select it.  Click on the "GameTime" header to sort the list in descending order.   
- Scroll down to the very bottom of the page.  Under the heading of Description you can see every fleet action that's been carried out for all empires in the game, including NPR's.   
- You should see a message that says something along the lines of "JP3: Midgard: Standard Transit" (The JP number and name will of course be different for your game)
- Look for repeating messages of this sort in close succession.  You might see "JP3: Midgard: Standard Transit" repeated twice, then "JP1: Jotunheim: Standard Transit" repeated twice, with two different FleetID's in the FleetID column.  This pattern should be repeated over and over.  This will indicate which fleets are (likely) to be the issue.   
- Write down one of the associated FleetID's.  Now switch your table from FCT_FleetLog to FCT_Fleet.  Sort by FleetID at the top, and navigate to the row with the fleet corresponding to the one you wrote down.   
- Scroll to the right until you find the column labeled "Xcor" and "Ycor".  These will probably be a very large number, in the 10's or 100's of millions.   
- Here's where you fix the problem: For the relevant FleetID, increase or decrease the Xcor or Ycor by some arbitrary large number, add 50,000,000 to one of them, for example.   
- Once that's done, File > Save All and you should have your increment problem fixed.

So I checked the DB. The actual problem doesn't seem to have to do with jump points. The log entry that keeps on repeating is:

Code: [Select]

CJ Niagara Falls III 004 is unable to carry out its primary standing order: Join Operational Group
CJ Niagara Falls III 005 is unable to carry out its primary standing order: Join Operational Group
...
CJ Niagara Falls III 010 is unable to carry out its primary standing order: Join Operational Group

I mean I could try to just delete the ships (how would I do that, btw?), but I'd rather not damage the NPR's ships in any way. Is there any other solution?

Many thanks!

[Ragnarsson]

So I checked the DB.  The actual problem doesn't seem to have to do with jump points.  The log entry that keeps on repeating is:

Code: [Select]

CJ Niagara Falls III 004 is unable to carry out its primary standing order: Join Operational Group
CJ Niagara Falls III 005 is unable to carry out its primary standing order: Join Operational Group
...
CJ Niagara Falls III 010 is unable to carry out its primary standing order: Join Operational Group

I mean I could try to just delete the ships (how would I do that, btw?), but I'd rather not damage the NPR's ships in any way.  Is there any other solution?

Many thanks!

That shouldn't be causing your shortened increments.  I've had NPR ships caught in those exact kinds of loops before according to the game logs, but without any interruption to normal play.

That said, if you were to want to delete an NPR's ships for any reason:
- Find and delete the offending ships in FCT_Ship
- Find and delete the corresponding fleets in FCT_Fleet.  For single ships the FCT_Fleet entry is often (but not always) the same as the ship's name.

Worst comes to worst, what I'd do to diagnose the problem is the following.  I've done it myself a time or two and it *seems* to work, but as always no guarantees something won't be irrevocably borked.

- Make a copy of your database.  This is the copy you'll be altering.
- Open the database, navigate to FCT_Race.  Look for the appropriate GameID (if there are multiple separate games in your database).  42 is the GameID for the example game that the database comes with, so ignore that one, yours will probably be 43 unless you have multiple games.  In which case the RaceName or RaceTitle columns ought to tell you which you need.
- Find the offending NPR.  If there are multiple and you're not sure which is the right one, you might have to try this with each.  Ignore Precursors and Invaders.
- In the "NPR" column, change the value for the NPR from 1 to 0.  This will turn the NPR into a player race (and is why you're using a database copy, not the original)
- Save the database, launch the game.  At the top, under the options for increment length and sub-pulse length, you'll see a dropdown that allows you to switch the race you're viewing from your own race to the former NPR race.  Once you do, you can open their event log and see what seems to be causing the interrupts, and if necessary progress time for a bit to see what's causing the stoppage.  By inspecting the NPR empire and "playing" it for a bit (though it'll spoil a bit of stuff, it can't be helped), it ought to give you a good insight into what's causing your issue.  After which you can alter the original copy of your database to remove or modify whatever is causing the issue.

Good luck, hope this helps

[xenoscepter (OP)]

 --- If I build a GSF with shields and it takes AA fire, does the shield function against it like it would normal ship to ship fire or does Ground-Based AA bypass shields? Does ECM lower the to-hit chance of enemy Ground AA as well?