Abnormal sector insertion speeds on autopilot - bug?

[Reven]

My transport ships are experiencing some abnormal sector insertion speeds when using a jump drive on autopilot that uses a gate at the jump terminus (rather than a jump beacon).

So far I have seen the problem manifest on Drakes and Mercury Prototypes. When told to dock at a station in another sector, if the autopilot uses the jump drive to get there then when the ship arrives at the other sector the exit velocity coming through the gate is about 240m/s, far in excess of the ship's rated maximum speed. This becomes a serious problem when the station to be docked at is within a few kilometers of the gate. Transports have very low acceleration (and deceleration) so it can't slow down quickly and the collision avoidance seems to have problems since the speed is greater than the ship's supposed maximum speed. I have lost several ships from this.

I would appreciate if someone can verify whether this happens on their install.

Required:
1 x TS equipped with jumpdrive, nav software and sufficient energy cells

Steps to reproduce:

1. Enter the TS
2. In the ship's command menu, set Autojump to yes, and minimum jump range to zero
3. Execute the command Navigation -> Dock at, specify a station in different sector
4. Make sure the specified station is closer to a gate than it is to a jump beacon or that the sector has no jump beacon in it.
5. Allow the jump to occur on the autopilot
6. Observe the speed of the ship coming out of the gate.

[Timsup2nothin]

The only pilot that doesn't benefit from 'carryover speed' at the end of a jump is you yourself. So what you are seeing is normal. The problem is that you are there to see it. If you get out of the sector collision detection is turned off and your freighter will ride that extra speed right into the docking clamps.

[RainerPrem]

The only pilot that doesn't benefit from 'carryover speed' at the end of a jump is you yourself. So what you are seeing is normal. The problem is that you are there to see it. If you get out of the sector collision detection is turned off and your freighter will ride that extra speed right into the docking clamps.

Hi,

that's not correct. TLs definitely brake with their asses nearly touching the gate. They overlap even IS, when several of them arrive through the same gate.

cu
Rainer

[Timsup2nothin]

The only pilot that doesn't benefit from 'carryover speed' at the end of a jump is you yourself. So what you are seeing is normal. The problem is that you are there to see it. If you get out of the sector collision detection is turned off and your freighter will ride that extra speed right into the docking clamps.

Hi,

that's not correct. TLs definitely brake with their asses nearly touching the gate. They overlap even IS, when several of them arrive through the same gate.

cu
Rainer

Capital ships 'carryover speed' is barely enough to bring the back of the ship through the gate because they start slowing down when their nose comes through.

[RAVEN.myst]

The only pilot that doesn't benefit from 'carryover speed' at the end of a jump is you yourself.

Well, yes and no. When the player has simply entered the gate manually, then he/she comes out the other side at a crawl. However, if the player's ship is on autopilot (to some destination, say a station), then when the player comes out the other side, he/she is at a greatly accelerated speed. So the determinant here seems to be not whether or not it's the player's ship, but whether or not it's flying on autopilot (which non-player ships always are, unless the jump is the culmination of their order.)

@Reven: to avoid that speed issue, you can simply not use autopilot, but instead jump to the gate nearest the destination, and take it from there. For other ships that may be using the AP unavoidably (say, CLS or CAG ships, and the like), your only recourse is to not be in-sector (OoS, of course, both collision detection and even steering rates are ignored, so your problems disappear - and in fact I suspect that OoS the gate exit speed is simply the ship's rated current max speed.)

Incidentally, that "shot-out-the-barrel-of-the-jumpgate" phenomenon is quite handy when doing timed courier or taxi missions, saving one the time of accelerating up to speed, and even gaining some seconds from the overspeed. However, one must be careful to make sure one is accelerating/boosting fully once cancelling the autopilot (which is usually a good idea as the AP tends to be a bit slow aligning to its destination), because otherwise it can happen that the ship's speed declines down to somewhere around half or two-thirds, which is of course counterproductive to a deadlined mission.

[SirNukes]

I suspect that OoS the gate exit speed is simply the ship's rated current max speed.

Speed OOS isn't really tracked the way it is IS, since ships will just move [time units since last update]*[ship's listed distance per time unit], and acceleration aspects aren't going to matter. However, ships do come out of gates about 5 km ahead of it (and about 1 km vertically offset), which I suppose can be thought of as the OOS equivalent of a speed boost.

For the ship crashing problem, I suggest moving the factory or hub further away from the gate. Maybe aim for around 4-5 km further out from the point where the transports pop in, so about 9-10 km out total. A minute long OOS round should let a Drake move over 5 km, so it will hopefully still reach the docking port within 1 OOS round still, while IS having enough room to slow down. (A quick test of sending a Mercury to a point 9 km out from a gate seemed to work okay, finishing the trip just before the minute mark after exiting its starting sector, which is about when the target sector should have been updating.)

[jlehtone]

Incidentally, that "shot-out-the-barrel-of-the-jumpgate" phenomenon is quite handy when doing timed courier or taxi missions, saving one the time of accelerating up to speed, and even gaining some seconds from the overspeed.

To exit a Gate with auto-pilot requires starting the journey with auto-pilot. Either flying into Gate or jumping with auto-pilot rather than manually.

The auto-pilot coordinates with other traffic. It can take several seconds before a "lane is clear" for the "jump" to initiate. That is not acceptable on time-critical situations.


On the bright side, manual travel does not coordinate and other ships can exit the Gate more or less simultaneously with you. This leads to interesting visuals when you find yourself inside the rear of some bigger fish (or the fish pops in behind you with that extra speed). Rest assured, someone will die.

[Timsup2nothin]

The only pilot that doesn't benefit from 'carryover speed' at the end of a jump is you yourself.

Well, yes and no. When the player has simply entered the gate manually, then he/she comes out the other side at a crawl. However, if the player's ship is on autopilot (to some destination, say a station), then when the player comes out the other side, he/she is at a greatly accelerated speed. So the determinant here seems to be not whether or not it's the player's ship, but whether or not it's flying on autopilot (which non-player ships always are, unless the jump is the culmination of their order.)

That's why I said the only pilot, not the only ship.

[RAVEN.myst]

To exit a Gate with auto-pilot requires starting the journey with auto-pilot. Either flying into Gate or jumping with auto-pilot rather than manually.

The auto-pilot coordinates with other traffic. It can take several seconds before a "lane is clear" for the "jump" to initiate. That is not acceptable on time-critical situations.

True, except for one thing: you needn't start that journey on AP from start - you can hit the AP as you're about to enter the gate. However, on occasion, that might make your ship veer away to let through oncoming traffic for the reasons you describe, though I found that to be infrequent. (My recollections may be imperfect, though, as it has been a fetish of mine for some time to play without doing missions except station construction in the later game, once the mission payout is irrelevant to me. The only recent exceptions were completing the initial Tormented Teladi and Poisoned Paranid missions - I wasn't ready to run out of time on those, although with the amounts of time left on the clock on both, I think they too may be doable without missions, though it would certainly be challenging! Right... added to my To-Do list )

[RAVEN.myst]

The only pilot that doesn't benefit from 'carryover speed' at the end of a jump is you yourself.

Well, yes and no. When the player has simply entered the gate manually, then he/she comes out the other side at a crawl. However, if the player's ship is on autopilot (to some destination, say a station), then when the player comes out the other side, he/she is at a greatly accelerated speed. So the determinant here seems to be not whether or not it's the player's ship, but whether or not it's flying on autopilot (which non-player ships always are, unless the jump is the culmination of their order.)

That's why I said the only pilot, not the only ship.

Touche! (damn, I don't know where the accented 'e' is to be found... too lazy for Character Map ) The devil (or that other one) is in the details... My apple-orgies!

[Reven]

It's not just when a factory is close to the gate where the residual speed causes a problem. If there is a capital ship close to the gate it's especially bad too. It's probably a bug related to the visual effect of zipping into a sector, where the ship is spawned back behind the gate and zoomed into where the gate is rapidly to show it warping in. It doesn't happen with jump beacons, and I've just checked and the bug first shows up in X3R, which is the first game that introduced the visual effect of swishing a ship into a sector. In X2 and XBTF entering ships just appeared at the gate.

My factories are too entrenched to change now. I will either move the gate or deploy a jump beacon.

[Sirrobert]

This becomes a serious problem when the station to be docked at is within a few kilometers of the gate.

Yea, that's your own fault for putting a station right in front of a gate.
This is just not a problem when the area in front of a gate is open (which it always is when you autopilot through and don't intentionally block it).

[Timsup2nothin]

This becomes a serious problem when the station to be docked at is within a few kilometers of the gate.

Yea, that's your own fault for putting a station right in front of a gate.
This is just not a problem when the area in front of a gate is open (which it always is when you autopilot through and don't intentionally block it).

So you are saying that sticking an SPP on the gate like the lid on a pot was a bad idea?

[jlehtone]

Of course not. One does not simply watch the pot when it does boil.

[Reven]

Laugh it up boys, but no, I didn't do the Stargate SG1 gate iris manoeuvre with a SPP and my gate. Not a bad idea for sector security, though, now that I think about it. In a pre jump-beacon universe, there are actually some foolproof sector defense strategies. I digress though.

[ external image ]

This is the layout of the worst of the offenders right now. You can see the claws of my SPP complex, and can just barely see one of the SPPs. The claws aren't in-line with the gate, and are 4km ahead of the gate's drop point and 1.5km offset to the west. It's not a poorly designed or implemented system. As I was setting up this screen shot, a Drake of mine gated in (at 240m/s), lined itself up to dock, couldn't stop, almost smoked the claw, almost smoked the claw's back pylon, then managed to veer just in time. This all in about 20 seconds. I drew the path in red, which you can see it better if you click on the picture and view it full size.

If you hop in a ship and make a few trips in the worst affected ships you can tell the autopilot is really struggling with the ship's speed. It's quite obvious that certain decisions the autopilot makes are based on the ship's max rated speed, and when it exceeds that by a factor of two and a half it runs into trouble.

As I mentioned, I'll likely just move the gate. I have no issues with scripted solutions to game bugs.

[SirNukes]

One notable thing about the Drake is that it has exceptionally high speed for its poor acceleration. With some quick math, it looks like it will take 80 seconds and 9.6 km to come to a stop from 240 m/s. Replacing with Mistrals might be another solution; with 3x the deceleration they should stop in about 1/3 the distance.

Random theory:
I'm not sure the game has a particular problem with ships going over max speed, so much as with long braking distances. The docking behavior when a ship overshoots the end of the docking lights seems to involve looping around to try again. If the ship had to turn a little toward the dock to line up with the running lights, I suspect that would explain its overshoot-and-loop being aimed toward the dock itself, with collision avoidance kicking in at some point. If that is what's going on, another solution may be to aim the dock away from the gate a bit, eg. if the dock is on the left of the gate, point it some way other than right (down is my usual default), which should cause an overshooting ship to turn around in open space away from the dock.

[RAVEN.myst]

I didn't do the Stargate SG1 gate iris manoeuvre with a SPP and my gate. Not a bad idea for sector security, though, now that I think about it.

Actually, wouldn't work unless you are in-sector when the enemies try to come in - otherwise they simply flight right through. However, I do see one application for Tim's "iris" (good analogy! ) - come in from time to time and let lots of bugs go splat on the windscreen, then go OoS and send in a freighter to hoover up all the droppings.

Regarding gate placement, I always make sure my stations and the docking hubs are placed out of traffic, balanced against my desire to keep them close to a gate for obvious reasons. To that end, I place the hub about 5 clicks above (my preference - below would work equally well), often somewhat to the side (as I don't like to obstruct my map view of traffic that is passing underneath), and as close to the gate as feels comfortable, though not closer than 5km because then it looks cramped and harder to read on maps, as well as providing ample maneuvering room for incoming ships if I do happen to be in-sector (which I try to avoid - so I also place my stations primarily according to resource and customer availability, with ties broken by the inverse to the likelihood of my spending time in that sector.)

BTW: "Laugh it up boys" - I had a chuckle at that, nice!