Plutarch Overwatch repairs itself from destroyed to almost fully functional

Defektiv · Post by **Defektiv** » Fri, 30. May 14, 04:58

I don't know what just happened. Plutarch Overwatch was completely destroyed less than an hour ago when I went to Albion, captured a Midir and brought it to DeVries. I just returned to the gate with my Balor and although it still says all its weapon systems are destroyed, it just wiped the floor with my Balor.

What in the actual ****? That thing took for ever to destroy. And I took out every weapon system and section of the station/ship/thing.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =265128152

Defektiv · Post by **Defektiv** » Fri, 30. May 14, 06:54

And I can destroy entire sections (I just spent the last hour destroying every section again) and the sections will repair instantly to 100% hull as each component, which I can only assume, is reaching some timer limit before it comes back online.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =265151050

This is the most blatant and horrible time sink known to man. And to put it on the DeVries side means that it destroys the mining ships that DeVries station managers inevitably send to that area. And you can't destroy it because it just magically starts bringing everything online from a completely destroyed state.

I want to play this game but I keep running in to horrible design decisions. What were you guys thinking with that one?

Le_PoUnT · Post by **Le_PoUnT** » Fri, 30. May 14, 11:29

I found the same problem, and i talked about it, in the french forum:

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=367664

ragamer · Post by **ragamer** » Fri, 30. May 14, 11:58

I think it's related to the Beta 2.10RC2. I'm also testing it and "suddenly" I got casualties on the zone due to Overwatch becoming active.

I went in with my modest fleet: 2xSucellus, 1xTaranis and 1xFulmekron...

...And was able to supress it in direct combat. Now I'm watching what happens after leaving the 2xSuc there OOS and they are slowly loosing Hull... It will end bad for them. Seems that, contrary to IS, that the station sections that get instarepaired are destroyed without a chance to fight back, on OOS Combat the station seem completely operative, damaging everything on site. As the JUMP beacon is literally next to it... This means that, like in the plot, Devries is cutoff from Albion. I will keep adding more OOS ships to see if I can "keep it under control" with enough Firepower but something tells me will not be enough with my modest fleet

.

I can't be sure it's Beta 2.10RC2 OR reaching enough AG reputation to trigger the new Secret Service missions... Because both important events happened more or less at the same time in my savegame.

D.O.S. · Post by **D.O.S.** » Fri, 30. May 14, 12:27

There Plan A Up in Smoke

I have a Food supply station just north of the jump beacon in twilight sentinal
With some light defence
2 x Arawn
8 x Taranis

if the over watch can magical repair its self . Im going to have to evacuate the zone & replace the Station

this seems to be the same problem with wreckvile jump beacon
I jump in destroy it move ship through jump away jump back a few mins later & its Fully Funcinal AGAIN ! in normal dif it takes 5+ Novadrones just to disable the main weapon

ragamer · Post by **ragamer** » Fri, 30. May 14, 12:50

Normal Stations, AFAIK, always repair themselves like that. The Cell Recharge Fac at Wrecksville, indeed, has always been a problem but it has a tiny fraction of the Firepower of Overwatch (My Titurels never had a problem "outrunning" before too much damage was done... Obviously, HoA CV Transit require a preventive cleaning operation before ordering them... Which I always thought was intended as an extra challenge to rebuild Devries under constant PMC harrassment)

Overwatch was "special" because after it got destroyed by the plot scripts... Stayed that way allowing player to operate with the entire Albion system for trading, etc.

ATM I added a Taranis to the 2xSuccellus with permanent attack order on it to "suppress it". Works wonders when I'm in Twilight but OOS things are weird... I need to more time to do a precisse report, but seems that Taranis's Hull Shield makes the difference but somehow I'm seeing the Phalanx modules been rebuilt without been damaged at all by the 3 destroyers.

Le_PoUnT · Post by **Le_PoUnT** » Fri, 30. May 14, 13:05

@ragamer

And if you go in this area, ships starts destroying the station.

Actually, I can't check, if there is a difference between the 2 options:
- destroy all ennemis in area
- destroy the phalanx

Too few ships available.

ragamer · Post by **ragamer** » Fri, 30. May 14, 13:22

And if you go in this area, ships starts destroying the station.

That's what I've written... IS stands for "In Sector"... It's an old way to refer to when the player is "close" to the action. In XR a more correct way to refer this is through Attention "levels"... But over the years the Community has adopted IS/OOS as an acronysm to refer to this whole issue. Sorry for the confusion if it triggered any.

In the same Zone, my small fleet (With the "Attack Object" order) can supress the Station without problems and the Miners/Traders can jump in and move around safely... All ships constantly attack the wreckage of the station destroying almost immediatly any section that's rebuilt... But that's not practical, I can't stay there forever...

...But OOS (When the player is in another zone/sector) things change, that's what I'm testing ATM, the Ships receive damage (In a weird way... 2xSucellus were constantly loosing hull... While adding a Taranis just briefly reduces its Shield but the 2xSucellus never receive a single hit... Probably how the OOS part of the scripts evaluate combat). The real weirdness seems to be that the Phalanx Sections of Overwatch are slowly reapearing, repairing themselves to 25% hull and my ships, that are constantly maneuvering around the station and reporting that they are "Attacking Target Overwatch", seems incapable of killing them. I repeat I need more time because I want to test what happens when a Trader jumps in OOS on its way to Albion to see if it's instantly squashed by Overwatch... But I'm waiting for enough Phalanx to reapear before issuing the order.

D.O.S. · Post by **D.O.S.** » Fri, 30. May 14, 13:32

@Le_PoUnT

I have not tryed this on the Overwatch station

in other zones The Attack Zone Command Seems to time out when all enemys currently in the zone are destroyed & ships stop attacking anything till you give the order again

I have not tryed the Attack target order yet

werewolves? · Post by **werewolves?** » Fri, 30. May 14, 15:27

How long does it take to repair, played through the overwatch mission with 2.1 beta this morning and it got destroyed by the Canterran Arawns, its stayed destroyed for quite a while.

ragamer · Post by **ragamer** » Fri, 30. May 14, 16:17

How long does it take to repair, played through the overwatch mission with 2.1 beta this morning and it got destroyed by the Canterran Arawns, its stayed destroyed for quite a while.

It recovers after I kill it IS in minutes. OOS your ships end dying because they receive damage (Detailed... With surface elements damaged even) while the station recovers 3 Phalanx Sections (in my test at 30%, 25% and 0% hull respectively) and even with 0 weapon systems available is able to damage and finnally kill anything that gets close (A fleet of 2xSuccellus, 1x Taranis and 1xFulmekron was completely wiped after 20 minutes... The last survivor the Taranis, probably thanks to the Shield Regeneration and top notch Engineer it got).

I completed that step of the plot on 2.0 and didn't suffered any casualty until:

a) The Secret Service Missions were available.
b) Beta 2.10RC2x32 was released (and installed).

I wish to remark that I wasn't paying attention to what was going on there in detail before the 1st casualty (A Hermod miner)... But after been destroyed at the plot I have passed physically there 3 or 4 times without incidents and my miners are quite active all around Devries... Only after the above 2 events happened the station "reactivated" itself. I can't confirm which of the 2 seem to trigger this or if it's just some long term timer that ends and triggers this... This is the first time I manage to complete the Plot and thus I don't have experience to what happened with Overwatch on the past.

My intuition (based on Beta 2.10RC2 changelog) tells me it's highly likely the beta that triggered this (In particular all those changes in the repair logic used by the AI)... But we need some1 that is not subbed to the Beta program, still playing 2.0 to confirm it's happening to him/her also.

wwdragon · Post by **wwdragon** » Fri, 30. May 14, 17:45

I agree with op.

1) Stations should be completely destroyable, unless plot critical.
This should free up it's build spot, too.

2) When repairing, it should only be able to repair one section at a time and based on it's actual build time.

3) Weapons should be repaired last and totally non-functional until everything else is restored.

ragamer · Post by **ragamer** » Fri, 30. May 14, 18:27

For those of you that want to keep playing after the Campaign ends and have a station infrastructure built on Devries...

...I edited ownership of Overwatch on my savegame to HoA.

Look for the string:

struct_econ_weapon_ar_defence_macro

Then you will have to change the ownership in 4 places following the above string. Search for:

owner="plutarch"

And replace "plutarch" with "heartofalbion" (Or whatever other faction string you like to... I think HoA makes the best sense overally, storywise).

You have to do this plutarch search 4 times in total (the station itself and the 3 NPCs inside, commander, engineer and defense officer. I think only the commander ownership matters... But lets play safe

).

Fenhris · Post by **Fenhris** » Sat, 31. May 14, 16:21

*sigh*

If Overwatch and other NPC stations suddenly cannot be killed, I seriously think this game is heading in the wrong direction all of a sudden.
Would be very sad, as to me, every update so far has been a step in the right direction.

Looking much forward to see what happens once I get to that part of the game (third plot playthrough, destroyed overwatch eventually in both other playthroughs).
This time I will be setting up stations in DeVries upon reaching it (15 CVs build, just working to fill them with recources).
If Overwatch can instarepair, I will be loosing a lot of ships, and possible the 2 stations I plan to put up in Twillight Sentinel...
No matter what... If we cant kill stations every wareffort becomes pointless in my oppinion...

D.O.S. · Post by **D.O.S.** » Sat, 31. May 14, 20:53

Fenhris wrote:If we cant kill stations every wareffort becomes pointless in my oppinion...

More like the Game Becomes totaly pointless!!

from what i have read in above posts

One of three things have to be dun
1 Move Jump Beacon to a safe zone
2 Overwatch Moved to albion Side of the gate
3 NPC Station should need the construction Materials like the player needs to repair & it takes time no more FixIt Jr From Wreckit Ralph

Le_PoUnT · Post by **Le_PoUnT** » Wed, 4. Jun 14, 03:06

OK. We found a bug. But ragamar's solution isn't good. It's just a hack.

I can spoke, about it on the Devnet forum, & give them the links of the threads, but if moders read this, they know that we already found a bug... And they never say anything about it(no one respond)

PLEASE MODOS, what do you think about we found?

Should we talk about it on the Devnet forum, or you can talk with devs & tell them what we found?

(sorry for my bad english)

Defektiv · Post by **Defektiv** » Sat, 28. Jun 14, 04:54

I don't know if they even consider it a bug. I haven't played since I last posted here because its simply pointless for me to keep grinding the overwatch and wrecksville every single time any ship of mine needs to move through either place. I do know that if you do not let it come completely live (all hard points too) and repairing before destroying it, it will just keep coming back online instantly each time any module on the section gets to whatever point they have set them to instantly come back online with no other NPC intervention.

Who the hell has time to sit there and do that in this game? That is literally all I would have to be doing if I wanted to continue my current save game, just constantly destroying overwatch and the cell recharge defenses in wrecksville so maybe my ships can survive.

YorrickVander · Post by **YorrickVander** » Sat, 28. Jun 14, 10:11

On a 2.10 started plot, I killed Overwatch and it stayed dead.

Nexuscrawler · Post by **Nexuscrawler** » Sat, 28. Jun 14, 13:11

Overwatch stayed dead for me too.....BUT....my ship are still firing at the wreck, as it is recognized as an enemy.
I initially hoped for it to dissapear over time, but it doesnt.

It's a bit annoying when your ships (Canterans, and HvA too) start to fire at the wreck each time they are passing by. It should at least be switching to neutral if it doesn't dissapear.

Post by **Sparky Sparkycorp** » Sat, 28. Jun 14, 13:54

Nexuscrawler wrote:Overwatch stayed dead for me too.....BUT....my ship are still firing at the wreck, as it is recognized as an enemy.
I initially hoped for it to dissapear over time, but it doesnt.

It's a bit annoying when your ships (Canterans, and HvA too) start to fire at the wreck each time they are passing by. It should at least be switching to neutral if it doesn't dissapear.

Yeah, my 2.1 start was the same and it was annoying. Might have been wasting ammo (not sure if our capitals use it yet), distracting turrets from shooting proper targets and left me wondering if it caused standings drops.