Salvage randomly stopped working

[Agouti]

Hi All,

Got an issue with a station that has randomly broken it's scrap processor. Read through a bunch of threads, my situation doesn't seem the same as theirs. I've verified:

1. Blocked by pending trade - there was a incoming delivery when I first noticed the issue, however I cancelled it and changed the trade rule to same-faction only. Possible this is the cause.
2. Sufficient space / Buy Up To - Have Raw Scrap set to buy up to 15k and Scrap Metal still has over 10k capacity (ship under tow is a Corvette, should only be about 1200 scrap I think?).
3. Sufficient Energy Cells - 200k in reserve.
4. Sector rules - Manticore is parked next to station with ship in tow, I am OOS.
5. Station has 5 Star Manager and plenty of funds.
6. Tried saving and reloading.
7. Very lightly modded game (some balance stuff like increased RADAR for scouts, nothing which would affect trading behaviour).


Any other ideas? It stopped working a few hours ago, doesn't seem like it wants to fix itself.

[Imperial Good]

Can be mods...

Are you sure your scrap processor is broken? They processes raw scrap into scrap metal at a finite rate, each enough for 2-3 commonwealth recycling modules. As they can only process raw scrap from a single cube at a time, it is possible that more valuable scrap cubes can take hours to fully process during which time that processor module will not accept any more drop offs from AI controlled ships.

[Agouti]

I believe it is the processor causing the issue - the Manticore reports "Commander is not equipped to process scrap". Under production, Scrap Metal is red and has 0/1 Modules without resources: 1. Raw Scrap is empty.

I assume the Processor turns wrecks into Raw Scrap, then the Scrap Recycler turns Raw Scrap into Scrap Metal? If so, I'm not sure how to tell if the Processor currently has a job as it isn't represented under Production in the Logical Station View.

[Rei Ayanami]

1. Blocked by pending trade - there was a incoming delivery when I first noticed the issue, however I cancelled it and changed the trade rule to same-faction only. Possible this is the cause.

If that's the case, some questions that might help us decide whether this might have been the cause :

What kind of trade was it, was is another Tug ship delivering a wreck, or simply an energy cell trader? An energy trader should not cause any issues.

If it was another Tug ship delivering a wreck and you stopped the delivery, was the pending trade canceled before it managed to drop it of at the Processor or during the exact moments where it tried to get close and drop something into the Processor? I'm not sure how it works internally for X4, but perhaps, in order to avoid collisions, any Tug ship has to "reserve" the processor before dropping anything in and afterwards has to "end reservation" to let it accept other wrecks. If the delivery was canceled after the "reservation" but before the "end reservation", perhaps the scrap processor is now indefinitely waiting for the Tug ship to end the reservation. But that's just speculation.

Is the wreck of the canceled trade still near your station? If that is the case, perhaps the processor is still waiting for it to be dropped into the processor. You could try taking control of a Tug ship and manually deliver the wreck to your Scrap processor.

I'm not sure how to tell if the Processor currently has a job as it isn't represented under Production in the Logical Station View.

In the Logical Station View it should look like this:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 5645E5B6F/
"Raw Scrap" under "Storage" is the storage of delivered wrecks, "Scrap Metal" under "Production" is the Scrap Recycler work cycle and "Scrap Metal" under the next "Storage" is the wrecks processed into solid-category Scrap Metal wares. As long as the "Scrap Metal" under "Production" has that clock-circle at the far right, it is still processing delivered wrecks. Is it still processing anything?
But as long as the Scrap Metal storage has room, it should be able to accept new wrecks.

This is very subobtimal, but as a last resort, you can try removing the scrap processor module and build another scrap processor module in its place.
Alternatively, just build a second scrap processor module (without removing the seemingly bugged one) and try if your ships will deliver to the new processor module instead.

[Agouti]

1. Blocked by pending trade - there was a incoming delivery when I first noticed the issue, however I cancelled it and changed the trade rule to same-faction only. Possible this is the cause.

If that's the case, some questions that might help us decide whether this might have been the cause :

What kind of trade was it, was is another Tug ship delivering a wreck, or simply an energy cell trader? An energy trader should not cause any issues.

If it was another Tug ship delivering a wreck and you stopped the delivery, was the pending trade canceled before it managed to drop it of at the Processor or during the exact moments where it tried to get close and drop something into the Processor? I'm not sure how it works internally for X4, but perhaps, in order to avoid collisions, any Tug ship has to "reserve" the processor before dropping anything in and afterwards has to "end reservation" to let it accept other wrecks. If the delivery was canceled after the "reservation" but before the "end reservation", perhaps the scrap processor is now indefinitely waiting for the Tug ship to end the reservation. But that's just speculation.

Is the wreck of the canceled trade still near your station? If that is the case, perhaps the processor is still waiting for it to be dropped into the processor. You could try taking control of a Tug ship and manually deliver the wreck to your Scrap processor.

It was a tug delivering a wreck. From memory, it was showing as 0:00 but not visible in system - but I could be remembering it wrong. It's certainly not visible anywhere near the station now, nor is any wreck nearby. I'd love to do the manual tug method, but I couldn't work out how to do it - I dragged the wreck nearby but couldn't figure out how to manipulate it down into the processor.

I'm not sure how to tell if the Processor currently has a job as it isn't represented under Production in the Logical Station View.

In the Logical Station View it should look like this:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 5645E5B6F/
"Raw Scrap" under "Storage" is the storage of delivered wrecks, "Scrap Metal" under "Production" is the Scrap Recycler work cycle and "Scrap Metal" under the next "Storage" is the wrecks processed into solid-category Scrap Metal wares. As long as the "Scrap Metal" under "Production" has that clock-circle at the far right, it is still processing delivered wrecks. Is it still processing anything?
But as long as the Scrap Metal storage has room, it should be able to accept new wrecks.

This is very subobtimal, but as a last resort, you can try removing the scrap processor module and build another scrap processor module in its place.
Alternatively, just build a second scrap processor module (without removing the seemingly bugged one) and try if your ships will deliver to the new processor module instead.

The whole scrap processing chain is 100% empty, and has been for a few hours. I've got a builder there doing other tasks already, so I might try rebuilding the scrap processor and see if that helps at all - it won't cost materials (since you get them all back, and it isn't producing anything).

[Agouti]

For anyone else having the same issue, I believe I found it.

Rebuilding the Scrap Processor didn't help, and when I tried to put the scrap in myself it wouldn't open to accept it. I then noticed that the wreck (Kha'ak Queens Guard) had no available scrap on it. Dropping it out of the way and ordering the Manticore to Salvage for Commander resulted in it ignoring the empty wreck and flying off for a different one, which it successfully scrapped.

My guess is something happened to the wreck while it was being towed (can they get too old to be used?) and because it had no scrap value, it couldn't be fed to the Processor. The AI wasn't smart enough to abandon the wreck, the error wasn't helpful enough to identify, and you can't inspect the wreck from the map. If you are having a similar issue first try ordering the Manticore to stop towing then resume duties, and see if they leave for a different wreck.

[Rei Ayanami]

Khaak ships are, as far as I know, supposed to have no scrap value at all.
Also, Tug ships should ignore Khaak ships (due to them not having any scrap value). This was a known problem during 5.X betas, where Tug ships/Scrap Processors bugged out when a Tug tried to dump a Khaak ship, but that got supposedly fixed (by having Tugs ignore Khaak ships). Not sure why it happened with your game.