X3TC suicidal UT's? (2.1)

dalin80 · Post by **dalin80** » Sat, 13. Jun 09, 12:02

Just had a couple of messages pop up;

a caiman UT had been killed by a Q closely followed by a mercury being dispensed with by the same xenon big ship.

damn i thought, losing 2 UT's to a Q patrol.... bad luck theres a couple of million blown.

but then i see the location of the now floating debris...

Xenon sector 472.

WTH! i knew working conditions in those haulers arent great but come-on theres no need to end it all like that, just give me the ship back and the blow yourself out of a airlock.

I thought UT's were meant to be locked out from going through xenon sectors, keeping them alive when they visit pirates sectors is hassle enough.

bah.

Lyth · Post by **Lyth** » Sat, 13. Jun 09, 12:09

Jumpdrive installed? If not they will go at the appropriate level to any place they can get one - this would include flying through hostile space.

dalin80 · Post by **dalin80** » Sat, 13. Jun 09, 12:17

they were level 22+, jumpdrive had been long since installed, i believe they get it automatically at level 12.

JeffreyW75 · Post by **JeffreyW75** » Sat, 13. Jun 09, 16:43

I thought I saw that the 2.1 update made the UT's operate better. I quit using UT's a while back because of this problem, but was thinking of trying it again with the new update. I am curious if you are using 2.1? If so, has anyone else had this problem?

cyber-whelk · Post by **cyber-whelk** » Sat, 13. Jun 09, 19:04

I've posted a query in the tech support forum as I've had a similar problem. I've got a number of TS UTs and within a couple of hours of in game time of the upgrade I've had three UTs traversing Xenon sectors rather using the auto jump feature. I never had a UT in a Xenon sector before 2.1.

Luckily my UTs managed to do a RSLG manoeuvre and jumped before being destroyed.

It looks as if they aren't refueling in line with the auto jump settings and therefore end up taking a trip.

SIMON POPPLEWELL · Post by **SIMON POPPLEWELL** » Sat, 13. Jun 09, 19:10

I'm glad I'm not alone, I lost two UTs in Xenon sector 347 one after the other. I know trade runs can get a bit boring after a while, but death by Q is going a little far.

delray · Post by **delray** » Sat, 13. Jun 09, 19:16

When they run out of ecells on one side of Xenon sector, they decide to fly through it the normal way to buy ecells on the other side. They just are too stupid to realize there's a Xenon sector on the way and go other direction. I don't think there's much Egosoft can do about it so just keep them as STs and far away from those two Xenon sectors that are intersections.

Cobra_mkII · Post by **Cobra_mkII** » Sat, 13. Jun 09, 20:27

Don't know if we are seeing a snippet of a bigger problem here.

I rarely had ST problems previously. Post Patch 2.1 I have had some attacked by pirates. Instead of jumping out of sector they have tried to land on a station, reached safety (goodness knows how with 6-10 pirates chasing 'em), only for the ST to try and move on seconds after docking! Splat one ST

(Forgot to check how many jump cells they were carrying, they are all told to carry enough for Auto 20 jumps)

The other problem was even more bizzare. Got a message to say a level 10 ST had no fuel and could not jump to a new sector. Found it parked in a Solar Station in Ore Belt...packed with 3990 e-cells (of a 4000 cargo hold (mercury ST)) that it (I assume) had been stocking up on to trade.

Told it to jump to Argon Prime and commence a level 6 jump ST range and it is now happily trundling around the area looking to sell circa 3900 units of e-cells

dalin80 · Post by **dalin80** » Sat, 13. Jun 09, 20:31

just lost another 4 in pirate sectors.

its turning into a bloodbath out there!

iam not going to bother replacing them as a i now have several closed loop complexes providing me with a nice run of funds, but thats 6 million credits worth lost in just a few game hours compared to 3 days of playing without a single loss. very odd.

thiosk · Post by **thiosk** » Sat, 13. Jun 09, 20:38

use beefier UTs, imo

York Bro · Post by **York Bro** » Sat, 13. Jun 09, 21:37

updated to 2.1 today, this afternoon, from 1.4.

prior to update had not lost a UT anywhere since late April early May,
this afternoon\early evening i have lost three alone and all lvl 25 in x472,

summat somewhere not quite right,

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Sat, 13. Jun 09, 21:59

Going by my own experiences since 2.1, the patch stopped each UT/ST ship command at the end of the task it was on at the time of the update. It then restarted with the new command scripts. Hence a lot of trader blurb in your log. I think the problem was that at the changeover, some ships were at critical stages of refuelling, trading, jumping etc and the change stopped these actions happening properly and the new scripts did not know that it needed (or how) to set up those critical actions again. Some ended up returning home without jumping, others reported no fuel, and some reported they could not trade because the hold was full, etc.

Since the 2.1 patch, all the STs/UTs that correctly re-engaged the new scripts are fine. I recommend that everyone patching or having patched, check all their ST/UT to look for odd ones slogging their way home or stopped. Ordering the correct command after the ship's immediate problem has been resolved seems to work OK (maybe even better than before). I comiserate with those who have missed this switchover glitch and have lost ships beyond recovery.

fud · Post by **fud** » Sat, 13. Jun 09, 22:32

I haven't used UTs since Reunion 1.#.

They're too much of a head ache for me.

You can make complexes that out-profit a UT anyway, and those won't fly through X347.

TTD · Post by **TTD** » Sat, 13. Jun 09, 22:54

I have not been using UTs. Most of my traders are working on the last microchip stage of the Hub plot.But even some of them fell in 472 after the update.

However,I accept the explanation as perfectly plausible,and since I am now raking in 100mil credits every few hours,a couple of wayward suicidal pilots are just chicken feed for the xenon ....still annoying though.

If all works well after,then I can forgive the programmers for their oversight of this problem and say thanks for the work they have done.

Chealec · Post by **Chealec** » Sat, 13. Jun 09, 22:54

Alan Phipps wrote:...

I comiserate with those who have missed this switchover glitch and have lost ships beyond recovery.

It's not really a glitch - as I understand it the script needs to be reinitialised after an update - in the case of UTs this means that it's as if you've just restarted the command.

If your UTs are set to message you when they've completed their orders then it's probably best to order them to go dock at a trading station, sell anything they're carrying manually and start again.

I'm not 100% certain, but if it's the same as Reunion, when you start a ST/UT it won't sell/use whatever it's got in the hold (except possibly drones) so you'll find all your JD equipped UTs will be on "buy energy cells" orders after the update even if they're carrying ECells - and they won't jump because they won't use those cells in the hold.

Gibi · Post by **Gibi** » Sat, 13. Jun 09, 23:05

I think that here really exist some kind of trouble. I've got 5 UT, all lvl 25. After installing 2.1, lost two in X472. Before 2.1 i didnt lost no one UT.. Strange...

delray · Post by **delray** » Sat, 13. Jun 09, 23:10

Pure luck maybe. My UTs were flying there even prior to 2.1.

kurush · Post by **kurush** » Sun, 14. Jun 09, 00:33

delray wrote: I don't think there's much Egosoft can do about it so just keep them as STs and far away from those two Xenon sectors that are intersections.

Something as basic as avoiding going to sectors belonging to races marked as enemies?

I think it was available in some scripts since X2 or at least X3:R...

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Sun, 14. Jun 09, 16:49

As far as I know, high rank jumping UT/ST pilots should never deliberately go to a Xenon sector (no trade) so their passage of one would seem to be a bug (such as not-jumping when buying ship extensions/drones/e-cells) or possibly just running out of e-cells through bad luck in choice of sectors to trade in (or when you patch their commands - @ Gibi!). It would have been interesting to have noted the command being executed by the traders crossing those sectors.

Conversely, UT/ST will often trade in Pirate sectors for bargains/high buying prices: it is the penalty for being friendly with Pirates, for turning some of their stations blue through hacking, or for supporting the poor old NPCs forced into running fabs (some built by you?) in their sectors.

Normal command traders are likely to cross hostile sectors if you get the autojump command and set-up wrong or run low on e-cells in a critical resupply station. Classic errors are to forget the +1 bit when to setting refuel to the formula of at least 2 x (max jumprange +1), or to forget to manually load the first formula's-worth of e-cells before setting them off.

arcana75 · Post by **arcana75** » Sun, 14. Jun 09, 16:58

Don't use UTs; there are some dockable stations in pirate sectors and high level UTs will try to dock with them and end up being a meal for pirates.

Use STs instead. Find a good starting point and set their jump ranges properly. Here are some suggestions:

-- 5 jumps from Kingdom End.
-- 5 jumps from Cho's Defeat.
-- 5 jumps from Ministry of Finance.

Either route above will allow ur STs to earn as much money as UTs and never go near Yaki, Pirate or Xenon sectors.

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X3TC suicidal UT's? (2.1)

X3TC suicidal UT's? (2.1)

ST traders