3.0 Bugs

[SteveAlt]

I think this is a small bug. When you have a conditional order "Fuel at <20%, refuel at nearest colony or tanker" my lone tankers are attempting to refuel from themselves

Is it too difficult to program the conditional order to exclude the ship in question?

I won't be able to exclude a ship as orders are given to fleets rather than individual ships. I could exclude the fleet with the conditional order but that would stop someone giving an conditional order to Refuel at Nearest Tanker, with the intention that the fleet would refuel from its own tankers.

If you want one tanker to refuel from another its probably best to manually create the order. Otherwise, your tankers should be set to refuel from colonies only.

Steve

[SteveAlt]

There is something definitely flaky with the colonist orders.

The Federation of Darkmoor found a nice system with a huge amount of minerals. The decision to colonize was made. I added a colony via the F9 screen on the planet, shipped 5000 infrastructure over and then gave the colony fleet the order to load colonists at 20m + and unload at < 15m. The systems are 2 jumps apart and the colony fleet includes a jump tender of sufficient size. However, I get events say "No acceptable destination in 4 jumps."

I ws going to say they would need jump gates but I checked the code and it looks like it should take any jump ships within the same fleet into consideration.

As a test, please could you go into SM mode and add jump gates to the intervening jump points and see if that makes a difference. You can add and remove jump gates on the F9 window.

Steve

[Erik L]

There is something definitely flaky with the colonist orders.

The Federation of Darkmoor found a nice system with a huge amount of minerals. The decision to colonize was made. I added a colony via the F9 screen on the planet, shipped 5000 infrastructure over and then gave the colony fleet the order to load colonists at 20m + and unload at < 15m. The systems are 2 jumps apart and the colony fleet includes a jump tender of sufficient size. However, I get events say "No acceptable destination in 4 jumps."

I ws going to say they would need jump gates but I checked the code and it looks like it should take any jump ships within the same fleet into consideration.

As a test, please could you go into SM mode and add jump gates to the intervening jump points and see if that makes a difference. You can add and remove jump gates on the F9 window.

Steve

Oops. The jump ship was 50 tons smaller than the colonizers  

[IanD]

have no idea what is happening here. I have issued a lot of overhaul orders and never seen this so there is definitely something weird going on. The overhaul order can only be given if the destination is a population with maintenance facilities so there should be no way for a ship to suddenly start an overhaul in deep space. Does the ship list on the task group window have " - Major Overhaul" next to each ship? Also, what is in the Plotted Moves list and is the fleet still moving? I just want to check you are not confusing the current order with the actual overhaul as a fleet will show the overhaul order on the system map while it is en route but the overhaul won't start until it arrives.

The task force had orders to "transit to Sol" "move to Earth" and "begin minor overhaul", however soon after transiting the Sol jump point the ship stopped moving and stayed there for several years, I even transferred 5 spares across to see if that had any effect (it didn't). The orders just read, "begin minor overhaul" and stayed like that until I abandoned ship, which incidentally did not leave a wreck, should it have?

Regards

[IanD]

There is no way to scrap a ship on the Task Force screen or the Task Group screen (at least I think so). Do you mean on the Population and Production window? I have tried adding a Scrap task and it shows up correctly

Sorry for my poor sentence construction. I scrapped the ship on the Pop&prod screen, but in the Task Force screen the ship was registering as "reactivating". The ship was one member of a Task Force in orbit at the time and only that ship was being scrapped. When finally scrapped the ship disappeared from the Task Force screen as it should.

Regards

[James Patten]

Fleet special orders "When fuel less than 20%" doesn't appear to kick in until fuel is at 10% or less.

I can't reproduce this one. There are conditional orders for both 20% or less and 10% or less. Please could you check that it is the 20% that is selected.

Steve

I give this as a standard order for my geo/grav survey ships, which are parasite ships attached to a mothership.  It seems as if the ships never are recalled to the mothership until the fuel is below 10% - however, just to be sure, I'll set up some situations where fuel is between 10 and 20% tonight when I play.

[Randy]

IanD said:

The task force had orders to "transit to Sol" "move to Earth" and "begin minor overhaul", however soon after transiting the Sol jump point the ship stopped moving and stayed there for several years, I even transferred 5 spares across to see if that had any effect (it didn't). The orders just read, "begin minor overhaul" and stayed like that until I abandoned ship, which incidentally did not leave a wreck, should it have?

Did the fleet have any conditional orders by any chance? They can sometimes get activated for a ship  under refit...

[IanD]

The task force had orders to "transit to Sol" "move to Earth" and "begin minor overhaul", however soon after transiting the Sol jump point the ship stopped moving and stayed there for several years, I even transferred 5 spares across to see if that had any effect (it didn't). The orders just read, "begin minor overhaul" and stayed like that until I abandoned ship, which incidentally did not leave a wreck, should it have?

I have managed to reproduce this bug under more or less controlled conditions, although accidentally.  I had a fleet of 3 ship ordered to Earth. 5-10 days later, not totally sure of their location I ordered them ?move to Earth?, ?begin minor overhaul? ?refuel from colony? the next event for the fleet said orders not possible due to ships in fleet undergoing maintenance (or a close approximation). The fleet was stranded just outside the orbit of Earth, no movement vector but a speed noted next to it. I left it for 3-4 5-day turns, then through the task force screen transferred the ships to a task group known to be in Earth orbit. The ships duly completed their overhaul I transferred them back to their original fleet still just outside Earth orbit and off they went. When I checked the event log and the fleet in question had already arrived at Earth before I issued a second ?move to Earth? while they were in Earth orbit and it is this that appeared to upset the process but I don?t understand how they moved from Earth orbit to space! If I order ?move to Earth? then after their arrival  ?begin minor overhaul? there is no problem even with conditional orders set.

Regards

[SteveAlt]

There is no way to scrap a ship on the Task Force screen or the Task Group screen (at least I think so). Do you mean on the Population and Production window? I have tried adding a Scrap task and it shows up correctly

Sorry for my poor sentence construction. I scrapped the ship on the Pop&prod screen, but in the Task Force screen the ship was registering as "reactivating". The ship was one member of a Task Force in orbit at the time and only that ship was being scrapped. When finally scrapped the ship disappeared from the Task Force screen as it should.

Found it now. It was a database field that needed updated. Fixed for v3.1

Steve

[SteveAlt]

I have managed to reproduce this bug under more or less controlled conditions, although accidentally.  I had a fleet of 3 ship ordered to Earth. 5-10 days later, not totally sure of their location I ordered them ?move to Earth?, ?begin minor overhaul? ?refuel from colony? the next event for the fleet said orders not possible due to ships in fleet undergoing maintenance (or a close approximation).

Once a ship is in overhaul, it won't obey any more orders until the overhaul is completed (to prevent ships under overhaul sailiing off into space). The warning you received would be for the refuel orders. If you are planning an overhaul, its best to make that the last order and refuel beforehand.

The fleet was stranded just outside the orbit of Earth, no movement vector but a speed noted next to it. I left it for 3-4 5-day turns, then through the task force screen transferred the ships to a task group known to be in Earth orbit. The ships duly completed their overhaul I transferred them back to their original fleet still just outside Earth orbit and off they went. When I checked the event log and the fleet in question had already arrived at Earth before I issued a second ?move to Earth? while they were in Earth orbit and it is this that appeared to upset the process but I don?t understand how they moved from Earth orbit to space! If I order ?move to Earth? then after their arrival  ?begin minor overhaul? there is no problem even with conditional orders set.

Just to clarify, if you normally order "Move to Earth" and "Begin Overhaul", there is no problem. If you order "Move to Earth", "Begin Overhaul" and "Refuel" while the fleet is already in Earth orbit, this causes the problem?

Steve

[SteveAlt]

While navigating the System Map window I had problems with displaying the third sytem I explored, eventually cumulating in a white screen which then reverted to blue with the error message  "Error 6 was generated by Aurora - Overflow - please report to etc. This then locked up the programme and some PC functions

Can you remember what you were doing and what problems you had before the white screen appeared? Were you zooming in or out for example?

Steve

[SteveAlt]

Adding EM and Thermal scanners to missiles adds not the MSP used but the strength of the scanner to the missile.

Fixed for v3.1

Steve

[IanD]

Just to clarify, if you normally order "Move to Earth" and "Begin Overhaul", there is no problem. If you order "Move to Earth", "Begin Overhaul" and "Refuel" while the fleet is already in Earth orbit, this causes the problem?

Yes, if the orders were separate in time, no problem, but if I order "move to Earth" + "begin overhaul" while already in Earth orbit the fleet is spatially dislocated and then overhaul starts with no way of cancelling, except for the way I achieved it in my last post. I am not sure whether another order after the "begin overhaul" is required. For this case and the last the fleets were given orders after the "begin overhaul" order.

Regards

[IanD]

While navigating the System Map window I had problems with displaying the third sytem I explored, eventually cumulating in a white screen which then reverted to blue with the error message "Error 6 was generated by Aurora - Overflow - please report to etc. This then locked up the programme and some PC functions

Can you remember what you were doing and what problems you had before the white screen appeared? Were you zooming in or out for example?

I was zooming in IIRC and seemed to have a problem, then got the overflow message. Unfortunately have now deleted all older games to start over from a saved game file off a memory stick. Found I could not get rid of the old games otherwise even though did a complete delete, re-install, possibly an effect of Vista/Raid 1? Of course I guess I could just have deleted the games using the first popup screen - but why do things the easy way .

Regards

[SteveAlt]

Yes, if the orders were separate in time, no problem, but if I order "move to Earth" + "begin overhaul" while already in Earth orbit the fleet is spatially dislocated and then overhaul starts with no way of cancelling, except for the way I achieved it in my last post. I am not sure whether another order after the "begin overhaul" is required. For this case and the last the fleets were given orders after the "begin overhaul" order.

This might sound completely unrelated but were there any sensor contacts in the system at the time you had the problem?

Steve