3.1 Bugs

[Steve Walmsley]

Steve -

I got the following error when I gave my transport fleet orders to pick up five prefabbed PDC components, transport them to another planet, and drop them off:

Error in PickUpFactory
Error 3265 was generated by DAO.fields
Item not found in this collection

The orders appeared to work anyway, in that the components disappeared from earth and appeared to show up on the other planet, however, there seems to be a problem.  A line for the components shows up on the economic screen on the far right/bottom, but it shows that there are 0 components present.  

Two more items of weirdness.  I sent my freighters to ship them back to Earth to recreate the error (so that I could send this message), and the freighters picked them up fine, but generated the same error message.  However, I noted that the freighters took zero time to pick them up.  It should have taken them quite a while to pick them up, but they set out for Earth immediately.  Also, when they unloaded the components on Earth, they disappeared completely, not even creating an entry on the economic screen.  

I found a bug in the PDC pickup code. It looks like the code for removing the PDC components s from the planet was working but the number of items on board the freighters was being set to zero. Not sure how this crept in as I successfully used this functionality in my previous campaign. Anyway, it is fixed for v3.2 and I just moved some components in my latest campaign.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

Not sure if this is realy a bug it just seems very strange.

In a small game, I had race A getting an active scan of a race B ship.
Race A started to research communication, gets lucky and succeeds real fast.
Then Race A goes for a NAP and succeeds the first time.

Now, there are two races wich have a treaty with each other, but race B, which hasn?t have an active scan of any ship from race A, doesn?t seem to know that race A even exists. There is nothing in the diplomacy window, nor in the intel screen (well, the last one makes sense, as they haven?t scanned any race A ship, so there is simply no intel on them).

But not to be able to initiate diplomatic actions, when having allready signed a treaty seems very odd.

It's not a bug as such but rather an unintended feature . As you say its because you haven't had an active scan of a ship which in v3.1 terms means you don't know the race exists. This is corrected in v3.2 as an alien race is recognised by an EM scan of a population as well as by active scans of its ships.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

I noticed this as well, in my 6 Powers Campaign, and I meant to mention it.  I too have situations where one side has a relationship, but the other doesn't even know that race exists.  

Perhaps, once a race that has detected another initiates a communication attempt, the race being communicated with automatically gains knowledge that the first race exists, even if it doesn't detect that race's ships.

That's a good idea. I have added it to v3.2

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

There appears to be an issue with hanger reloading.  Actually I think there is a potential issue with missile reloading over all.

After launching missiles the battle window will start a reload clock, even if there is no magazine to reload from (ie box launcher on a fighter).  Clock runs down after the fighter lands on mothership.  Wait full hanger reload time.  The battle window shows that the launcher(s) is loaded and ready to fire.  The fighter window and ship display show that no missiles are available to fire.  

If no missiles are available for reload, shouldn't the clock not start and instead display message to the effect that there are no missiles available.  Once the ship/fighter is in a hanger then start the reload time, but only if there are valid (ie assigned loadout types) missiles available from the mothership magazines.

I'm getting around the issue by using the reload button on the fighter screen.  

It's entirely possible I'm just issuing orders to the fighters incorrectly.

Its not really a bug, more the way that Aurora operates at the moment. Missile reload time would be more accurately described as Launcher Recharge time. Once a missile launcher fires a clock is set for that launcher equal to the reload time. As time passes the clock counts down. For box launchers the clock will only count down if the launcher is on a ship within a hangar or in orbit or a maintenance facility. Once the clock has run out the launcher can fire again. At this point you could swap the type of missile to be fired and it would still be immediately available- the reload doesn't begin again because you changed the missile type. The reason I set it up this way was to reduce micromanagement. The alternative method as you suggest above is to require all missiles to be specified ahead of time and the launcher won't reload if they aren't available. However, this would require you to specify ahead of time for every ship you build which missiles were to be loaded into which launchers so they would be ready if the ship was attacked (rather than at the moment where you can choose the misiles before firing). If you wanted to change missile types mid-battle you would have to specify the change at just the right moment to avoid a longer than necessary reload time. In addition players would likely want to specify alternative missiles ahead of time in case the first choice missiles were exhausted. All of this would add a lot more work to fighting battles and in 95% of cases there would be no difference in outcome between the two methods. I decided to go for the slightly less realistic method to make things a lot easier for the player. One way to look at it is that your staff will make sure the right missiles are loaded for when you need them.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

Started a new campaign.

Emplaced a colony on Mars pre-start. Built a pre-fab PDC on Earth, for transport to Mars. It got constructed. 59 parts.

Sent a cargo fleet to transport the parts. They carried 50/59. The 9 remaining disappeared from Earth (cannot issue a pickup order), and Mars has only 50. The fleet is empty cargo-wise.

I think I finally figured this bug out and why it escaped testing. The PDC pickup and delivery work if there are more components available than the fleet can carry. If the fleet carries less components than it could, you get the bug. Fixed for v3.2

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

During initial race setup, when you select Yes to "has this race surveyed system for grav" it does not mark the survey locations as surveyed. So a fleet on automatic, will do these, even though you can see all the jump points.

Survey Locations are added in v3.2

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

Here's an interesting one. If you have a yard that can build more than one ship class, and the "default" (alphabetically first) class has no class name theme, none of the ships built by that yard will use a theme, even if there is one assigned.

I haven't been able to recreate this one. I set the second class (alphabetically) in the eligible class list for a shipyard to have a name theme and left the 1st and 3rd with no theme. The 2nd class worked fine. I did fix a different problem in this area earlier today so its possible I fixed this too.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

Using the Ships requiring repair command... Generates an error "Too many fields defined" and then a cascade of Error 91's.

Fixed for v3.2

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

Should ships undergoing a major overhaul suffer maintenance failures?

I'll get the stupid question out of the way first . Does the planet have sufficient maintenance facilities for the size of the ship undergoing overhaul?

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

When choosing the Damaged Ships from the Empires Menu, the program ends up in an infinite loop of Error 91s.  There is also a message about being toomany fields in the query.

There are damaged ships to report on, athough the damage is due to maintenance failures.

Fixed for v3.2

BTW could you please note in the Class design screen the largest replacement cost?  I note that the most likely failures also tend to be the most expensive to fix, and therefore the ones most likely to exceed the maint capability - usually on the support ships too.

I have added this to the class summary for v3.2. Here is an example:

Code: [Select]

Arleigh Burke - Flight II class Missile Destroyer    4250 tons     368 Crew     418.5 BP      TCS 85  TH 125  EM 0
1470 km/s     Armour 4-23     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/0/0/0     Damage Control Rating 2     PPV 16
Annual Failure Rate: 72%    IFR: 1%    Maintenance Capacity 123 MSP    Max Repair 30 MSP
Magazine 266    

Nuclear Thermal Engine (5)    Power 25    Efficiency 1.00    Signature 25    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 21.2 billion km   (166 days at full power)

Standard II Missile Launcher  (8)    Missile Size 2    Rate of Fire 30
MFC-2 Missile Fire Control (1)     Range 12.0m km    Resolution 40
Trident (133)  Speed: 12000 km/s   End: 31.2 minutes    Range: 22.5m km   Warhead: 4    MR: 10    Size: 2

AGS-2 Active Search Sensor (1)     GPS 1200     Range 12.0m km    Resolution 40Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

Are civilian ships supposed to get naval officers assigned to them?

No, I have fixed it for v3.2

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

Typo in the civilian grav survey message when it cannot complete.

"survey" is spelled "surveu"

Corrected for v3.2

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

Not sure if this is just my game, but when a fleet qualifies for a conditional order, it stops moving, But still burns fuel! I am now running V3.11, can't say I saw it before this version

I am still getting this as an intermittent bug. It seems to happen when a task group has a series of orders such as ?transit Sol wp, go to Earth, unload minerals.? The refuel conditional order is inserted above the existing set so it becomes ?transit Sol wp, refuel at Earth, transit Sol wp, go to Earth, unload minerals?. This appears to cause the task group to either stay in place still burning fuel as if it was moving or go off in what appears to be a random direction.

I assume the fleet in question was not in the Sol system but was en route to the Sol system JP when it triggered the conditional order. It looks like what may have happened is the new orders got inserted and when they were completed the fleet reverted back to what would have been its next order. Unfortunately that order assumed the fleet was in a different system and it tried to move to a jump point that didn't exist. I'll give it some thought about how to avoid this. In the meantime, if you get notified that a fleet is changing systems as a result of a conditional order, it would be best to manually check the order list.

Steve

[Erik L]

Should ships undergoing a major overhaul suffer maintenance failures?

I'll get the stupid question out of the way first . Does the planet have sufficient maintenance facilities for the size of the ship undergoing overhaul?

Steve

heh yes. 12k ton capacity, 3000 ton ship.

[Steve Walmsley]

Not sure if this is just my game, but when a fleet qualifies for a conditional order, it stops moving, But still burns fuel! I am now running V3.11, can't say I saw it before this version

I am still getting this as an intermittent bug. It seems to happen when a task group has a series of orders such as ?transit Sol wp, go to Earth, unload minerals.? The refuel conditional order is inserted above the existing set so it becomes ?transit Sol wp, refuel at Earth, transit Sol wp, go to Earth, unload minerals?. This appears to cause the task group to either stay in place still burning fuel as if it was moving or go off in what appears to be a random direction.

I assume the fleet in question was not in the Sol system but was en route to the Sol system JP when it triggered the conditional order. It looks like what may have happened is the new orders got inserted and when they were completed the fleet reverted back to what would have been its next order. Unfortunately that order assumed the fleet was in a different system and it tried to move to a jump point that didn't exist. I'll give it some thought about how to avoid this. In the meantime, if you get notified that a fleet is changing systems as a result of a conditional order, it would be best to manually check the order list.

I have changed the code so that if a ship receives conditional movement orders taking it out of its existing system, any existing movement orders are cancelled and the player is notified about it.

Steve