Stuck with two hour time advance increments...

[Panpiper (OP)]

I have of course tried to fix this, trying all manner of button click variations on the 'Select Increment Length' buttons. The net result of that is that I have gone from two-hour increments to 20-minute increments per button click. This is 'regardless' of what button I actually click! If I click advance 30 days, I advance twenty minutes. I've tried shutting the game down and reloading. Nothing I do seems to fix this.

Have I "done something" to cause this situation? I am not aware of having done anything out of the ordinary. That said, in my newbieness, I do tend to do a whole heck of a lot of stumbling about in the menus and buttons, so I suppose I 'could' have inadvertently done something to cause this.

[nuclearslurpee]

This is probably caused by an NPR ship trying to instant-jump through a jump gate at every sub-increment, since combat would be interrupting you at 5-sec intervals. To fix it you will probably need to muck around in the DB to find the fleet that is doing this and then move it away from the jump gate.

[Jorgen_CAB]

The game will change the time increment when due to NPR activity.. it does not have to be anything that you do.

Just select one or five day increments and leave it on auto until the NPR are finished with whatever activities it is doing.

[Desdinova]

I find this is really common (and annoying) when 2 NPRs find each other. The one time I've directly observed it, 2 NPRs were staking out the same jump point and blinking their active sensors at each other. I think they usually give up once their relations deteriorate far enough.

[Ektor]

The game will change the time increment when due to NPR activity.. it does not have to be anything that you do.

Just select one or five day increments and leave it on auto until the NPR are finished with whatever activities it is doing.

This isn't true. When it does that, it tells you, this is a bug.

I turned my NPRs to playable (and then back) a while ago because I was having the same problem. It was two fleets from different NPRs sitting at a JP trying to shoot each other without the parts to do so, one of them might also have been trying to jump away with no functional JDs. They were broken up from either lack of maintenance or combat. I deleted the fleets and the problem went away, maybe you could try something like that.

[Jorgen_CAB]

The game will change the time increment when due to NPR activity.. it does not have to be anything that you do.

Just select one or five day increments and leave it on auto until the NPR are finished with whatever activities it is doing.

This isn't true. When it does that, it tells you, this is a bug.

I turned my NPRs to playable (and then back) a while ago because I was having the same problem. It was two fleets from different NPRs sitting at a JP trying to shoot each other without the parts to do so, one of them might also have been trying to jump away with no functional JDs. They were broken up from either lack of maintenance or combat. I deleted the fleets and the problem went away, maybe you could try something like that.

Yes... I have had that happen to me too... but it is not what happens every time. Sometimes it just require you to make it resolve itself.

[Desdinova]

I find that literally every game where 2 NPRs find each other devolves into multiple month-long periods of endless 2hr increments. Most of the time it resolves itself after a few real time hours - sometimes it doesn't. If it requires database editing to recover the game, it probably belongs in the bugs forum.

[nuclearslurpee]

I find that literally every game where 2 NPRs find each other devolves into multiple month-long periods of endless 2hr increments. Most of the time it resolves itself after a few real time hours - sometimes it doesn't. If it requires database editing to recover the game, it probably belongs in the bugs forum.

I think Steve had made some mention of correcting the instant-jump problem that was causing a lot of these issues, which in my experience seems to be the main thing that two NPRs interacting can cause.

Probably a helpful suggestion would be to not allow NPR vs NPR events to pause the game clock (although adjusting the sub-increment, sure), though this is probably tricky for Steve to implement.

[Desdinova]

I'm not sure it's the only cause, but the main cause does seem to be the instant NPR jumping. If an NPR catches a hostile NPR fleet at a jump point, they might instantly jump across to escape, but then immediately jump back in, creating an endless loop since neither side can attack each other.

[Droll]

Probably a helpful suggestion would be to not allow NPR vs NPR events to pause the game clock (although adjusting the sub-increment, sure), though this is probably tricky for Steve to implement.

It think a problem with this that Steve himself mentioned was that the NPR interrupts are an important part of how the AI actually reacts to events so he would need to rework a bit of the AI to make that work.

[Steve Walmsley]

Probably a helpful suggestion would be to not allow NPR vs NPR events to pause the game clock (although adjusting the sub-increment, sure), though this is probably tricky for Steve to implement.

It think a problem with this that Steve himself mentioned was that the NPR interrupts are an important part of how the AI actually reacts to events so he would need to rework a bit of the AI to make that work.

Yes, that is correct.

[Gabrote42]

Probably a helpful suggestion would be to not allow NPR vs NPR events to pause the game clock (although adjusting the sub-increment, sure), though this is probably tricky for Steve to implement.

It think a problem with this that Steve himself mentioned was that the NPR interrupts are an important part of how the AI actually reacts to events so he would need to rework a bit of the AI to make that work.

I posted a temporary workaround for that until that kind of rework happens in the suggestion thread. While it won't prevent those interruptions, at least the player can still have the desired time pass before having to click again, except for "Player" interrupts.

[chrislocke2000]

I have to say that to date this is the thing that has killed more of my games then anything else. If anyone has tips on what to look for in data base or how to spot those repetitive moves. It feels like the AI needs some break to say if the sam3 thing has been attempted 50 times without success it needs to stop!

[Zap0]

Set all AIs to player control, load the game and look around for stuff on a jump point. Progress time to find the issue if you need to. When you have identified the problem (or a potential problem), reload and delete or move the ships in question and save again without progressing time. Then flip the AI flags back and pray you didn't break anything important.

[Desdinova]

This seems to be inevitable whenever two NPRs spawn in close proximity. It seems like the AI isn't programmed to withdraw unarmed fleets from contested systems (or maybe it's just not being triggered), so you have two unarmed, hostile fleets facing off against each other, but obviously they don't fight, so it just drags the game down. It seems like usually it's something like a salvage vessel or an unescorted tanker or fuel harvester.

Suggestion:
Make the AI more defensive when it comes to withdrawing noncombat ships from contested systems

Exempt systems from the time increment check when no combat ships are present

Just like you can set a minimum distance for NPRs to spawn from Earth, have a minimum distance between NPRs so they don't start in the next system over and lag down the entire game.