I've stumbled across an error with a
class III black hole. I moved a little fleet of separate task groups (stacking in the same location with identical speed) into a system, each of which consisted of a ship tractoring another smaller ship. They were flying with 7500 each into it (
which means they slowed down to 4500 in the influence of the hole), and took route towards another jump point close to the center. Strangely and despite their displayed speed still reading the same for everybody, for unknown reasons the formation broke up, leaving a sub-stack of 3 task groups behind, while the other 5 traveled ahead (also as a stack). When time passed I recognized that the stack of 3 was not just dislocated a bit, but indeed traveling slower than the others, again despite their speed reading being identical.
What happened here was only revealed to me when the first group had already passed the target jump point to the next system: Apparently the other task group was not even flying towards the jump point as it first appeared (jump gate and center were close), but directly flying to the central body, with their speed being ~3000, no matter what their display said. I couldn't see it for a long time, because again the target jump point was so close, and I was already distracted with battles in the next system. The issue seems to be that the tractored ships of those three have for some reason been recognized separately by Aurora, and given that they have no engines, thus this speed and direction... . I could confirm this by releasing the tractor for each object, which let my tugs roam the system freely again, but when I flew in to establish a new tractor connection, it would result in the same problem again.(appears Aurora remembers the speed of those tractored bodies somehow)
Right now there seems to be no way to save those tractored ships when tugs obviously can't do anything.What is really strange about this is that the others made it through, despite at least two of them having identical conditions. I have a save of the situation before I set route through this system, because in for Aurora empirically appropriate paranoia I figured something might just go horribly wrong here.
So I tested this a second time and had with the same fleet this time different ships suffering under the same effect. Obviously there is just some randomness. ..Next I will test is moving them through one by one.
Anyway, it seems tractoring and black holes currently don't go well together in Aurora.Here are spoiler containing pictures.
http://abload.de/img/unbenanntyfb0c.jpgThis one shows the three task groups with one having their module detached. As you can see the detached module flyies exactly in formation with the the other two tugs, indicating that they have the same speed of 2999, despite the reading being different. So those tugs actually just follow their tractored modules into the hole without resistance. The tug that detached its module however could break free of the deathtrap and is therefore slightly offset.http://abload.de/img/unbenannt20zrme.jpgThis only shows the system diameter and why I could not immediately tell where they were really going, which would have given of the problem instantly. Had I targeted another jump point, I would have seen the functioning parts flying left and the other ones strangely going right for the extermination route, and it would have been obvious.///Update: I found no way of preventing this by now. Bundling them in one task group renders that task group crippled all the time, no exceptions. Sending them through one by one, does strangely result in the exact same crafts being affected as in the first try. This indicates that there is something special with those, but I cannot see what. It is not the commercial tug part, as there is an identical one in the fleet that made it just fine. All of those three tractor military sections, but so do two of the other ones that made it through. The military parts are partly hangar, partly ordnance storage, and partly weapon platforms. There are no special differences from the building design that would explain the differences, so something else must be the culprit. I will test more.
///Update2: Ok, I have a hot tip that I could still not confirm. It turns out that the one difference between these free units with their military appendages that didn't make it, and the other two that did, is just the alphabetical order. The two that made it had the combinations H... against P..., as well as L... against P... for the tug part versus the tugged respectively, while the three that did not do it had E to D, and two times L to A.
I think it can not be coincidence that those groups that got dragged had their immobile tractored parts alphabetically first, while the others didn't.
Seems the alphabetically first ship dominates the task group in the check that considers if the fleet has enough engines to get away, without considering possible tractoring. However, I could not change this outcome even when renaming both, the design and the ships so that they should stand alphabetically lower. This could however be the case, because there may be some hidden flagging of the original design or something, that just stays with the ship id and makes it therefore impossible to change the order without building a new one.
I could also have overlooked something, or maybe this was just malicious coincidence and it is something completely different.
