New boarding bug?

[astreus]

(AP): I encountered something new strange (bug?) while boarding. New, because I had this game situation on a few similar boarding tasks some time ago, and such problem(bug) never happened.

I boarded a RRF Deimos for a JB in Unseen Domain. Everything went on as expected. After the pods arrived, I had to place a few more hits with my Ion Generator because to 1.) lower the shield and 2.) got a chance to destroy that f.... life system, otherwise I would have lost all 100% marines in the fight.

OK. After a few reload, 20 marines arrived at deck 4 - this means CLF down - my marines will win. The RRF was jumped to another sector because of some hull damage. OK - expected. In the past, this happens, but no problem, my marines on board keep going and if they win the ship, the new ship will wait for me in that sector. (I always have it on monitor).
But this time the ship (monitor) disappeared right after successful boarded!
Again and again (reloaded) - I thought, hugh, this is new, now I have to be in the same secor? Ok, can do so....

I reload and jumped (follow) the RRF while fighting on deck 4.
IS, I watched the hacking scene.
And - funny (or annoying?) - the ship (with monitor) disappeared! Sometimes right after capture, sometimes close before: Just when the ship was gone, I heard the last msg from my marines: '....we have access......that's it.....
But that was all, no marines, no ship anywhere.
I reload a few times and luckily, I got situation where the boarded green ship keep there....
Tried a few times more, at about 70% of all successful boarding jobs the ship disappeared...

So, is this a new bug, from an update or what?

[astreus]

Just to add: AP, no mod's

[X2-Illuminatus]

It's not a new behaviour. RRF scripts haven't been updated in years. The last update to the scripts was in 2013.

The reason for what you encountered is most-likely a missing check in the RRF patrol script, in which the ship will be destroyed if the owner changes.

[Alan Phipps]

Apart from what X2 suggests, here are a couple of other theories that might be possible (I think).

The RRF reaction force job might have been coming to end anyway after its target was neutralised, and so the Deimos was about to despawn soon after you started the boarding operation under any circumstances. You may have just run out of time and luck.

Further, if the Deimos was an escort rather than the principal capital ship of the RRF patrol or reaction force job, then the job clear-up script timer for any escorts might have been running down after the principal RRF ship was itself killed, boarded or despawned.

[Nanook]

Are you sure that's how RRF works? Because my understanding was that the RRF fleets were already in the game, in other sectors. When called, they jumped in. When they were no longer needed, they jumped back out.

The reason I believe it works like this is because you can wear down the RRF fleets, or distract them to other sectors, so you can attack somewhere else unmolested. If they were simply spawned into the game, this wouldn't be possible. Also, you can fly around and see that RRF ships exist, usually in a race's core sectors. My understanding is that the only time they respawn is sometime later after one gets destroyed.

[Doktor Teufel]

I've certainly seen RRF ships idling in quiet sectors and not doing much of anything, although they aren't exactly common.

[Alan Phipps]

@ Nanook: It has been known for game coding to 'simulate' the jumping around of NPC ships by destroying them in one place and creating clones in another. As I said, I am only throwing up possible theories for this illogical behaviour to maybe at least consider briefly - and that could probably be quickly confirmed or denied by a code-delver.

[Simon 24-7]

This is not a bug per se;

RRF ships will jumped out of sector when they have finished a task or when they receive a certain level of damage.

To find out where it went place it on the RH monitor before you begin your attack. If it jumps out you can follow it.
Be advised, it normally jumps into a core sector where there is a large sector fleet on hand. As soon as your boarding operation is successful, it will be destroyed by sector defence force that sees it as an enemy and is usually nearby.

[Alan Phipps]

@ Simon 24-7: I think the OP knows about the monitor hint and has suggested behaviour outside of that normal pattern after his marines take control. Quotes from the OP:

• "(I always have it on monitor). But this time the ship (monitor) disappeared right after successful boarded!"
  
  " the ship (with monitor) disappeared!"
  
  "last msg from my marines: '....we have access......that's it..... But that was all, no marines, no ship anywhere."

I suppose though that it is possible that a ship with no weapons and low shields and hull could be one-shot killed OOS and so without any 'One of your ships is under attack!' alerts. However, there would still be a related ship destroyed message in the Player log.

[ubuntufreakdragon]

had the same bug once loading an earlier save (while still boarding) helped.

[Simon 24-7]

Hi Allan,

Fair comment about the OP having on it on his monitor. (Missed that, Oops.)

Couple of questions to ask though, did he find out where the ship went that would give us a clue to what happened. Re my comment about RRF ships jumping back to core sectors.

Second, would the monitor still follow the ship once he gained control?

I would have thought the script might disregard it, as it is effectively a new object in the game. So perhaps a glance at his personnel or ship listings would be useful.

Just a thought.

[Cursed Ghost]

I've seen this before from what I can tell its a bug that happens sometimes when boarding rapid response ships don't know what causes it and it was supposed to of been fixed but it does still happen on occasion

Because I remember capping a rapid response Osaka and when I tried to jump the ship out the ship just vanished and de-spawned so what I did was to dock it at the closest ship yard and then striped the equipment and sold the ship before it had a chance to de-spawn

About the best advice I can give is to save before boarding a RRF ship in case this happens and if it does just reload and either try the boarding opp again or try a different target normally I'll save it about 20 to 30 seconds before my pods hit the ships hull so 99% of the work is done this saves a good amount of frustration if the ships bugs otherwise there isn't really much you can do about it other then not boarding RRF ships