Aggro spiral nearly ruined 7 day game

[Raylak]

Despite most of the wonky and awkward behaviour, I've been persevering and building an empire mostly AFK. Except today the AI and complete lack of diplomatic options just decided to ruin my save. I have a large mining presence in 'Asteroid Belt' and the Terrans obviously also have a large presence as they own the system. We've lived alongside each other fine and I had a perfect +30 relationship. Today, fortunately just before I decided to afk, a Terran miner turned hostile to one of my miners. How this happened is still a mystery, no ship that is hostile to myself or the Terrans can reach Asteroid belt. There is no Khaak infestation and Xenon raiders never even reach in Getsu Fune anymore as Savage Spur II is heavily defended and patrolled.

It going hostile caused a patrol carrier that was passing through to become hostile and engage to defend the Terran miner, this aggroed my destroyers and their escorts, which aggroed more Terran patrols including more than half a dozen destroyers. The mess was escalating out of control and there was no way back short of attempting to wipe the Terrans out of this system, which would have prompted a defense response and ended up with me in an all out war with the Terrans.

All this because one miner flew in front of another miner's mining laser... at least that is the only possible reason I could see this happening.

[Falcrack]

And the moral is, always save before going afk!

[Raylak]

And the moral is, always save before going afk!

I mean it happened while I was playing with station configurations and I spotted it before going AFK, but the moral should be one of the below
A, Implement some way to apologise for an accidently hostile act, like say that mostly useless 'Open comms' button
B, Tell ships not to fire at asteroids on the otherside of friendly vessels
C, Tell ships not to fly directly into active weapons fire
D, Make mining lasers just mine, or at least not damage friendly targets

Most of the above are easily implementable.

[LameFox]

Mining laser damage is so low already that I'm surprised it could cause that. Unless they care about the number of hits inflicted rather than damage dealt.

[rusky]

I don't see how this could ruin your 7 day save though. Surely by day 7 you're able to take any losses like this on the chin and rebuild.

Sometimes accidents happen, personally I'd see this as a cool case of my game potentially taking an unexpected turn.

[Artean]

Butterfly effect! Beautiful!

[Imperial Good]

I assume you were personally near the miner that went hostile? As there is not any friendly fire in low attention.

[Raylak]

I don't see how this could ruin your 7 day save though. Surely by day 7 you're able to take any losses like this on the chin and rebuild.

Sometimes accidents happen, personally I'd see this as a cool case of my game potentially taking an unexpected turn.

My main base of operations is, or was in the Terran Asteroid Belt, including the majority of my military, hundreds of miners and several large stations. Even with that built up, the Terrans can still roll me with their fleets as they have Asgards and I don't. I'd have lost like 85-90% of my networth, and that is assuming that the cascade didn't result in being red to Terrans who are also my main trading partner.

I assume you were personally near the miner that went hostile? As there is not any friendly fire in low attention.

I live on one of my stations nearby as in low attention large ships glitch out when docking/undocking.

[Imperial Good]

I live on one of my stations nearby as in low attention large ships glitch out when docking/undocking.

For longer AFK stints it might be worth parking on a carrier or battleship somewhere remote (unlikely to see much nearby AI activity) and away from your assets. This should both maximise performance and minimise the chance of friendly fire incidents occurring.

[Raevyan]

Why did it ruin your save? You barely even played it and instead just have it running while being afk. Sounds not like that you‘ve lost too much.

Besides that, in my opinion simulation games shouldn’t be able run afk for longer periods without needing input from the player. Things should go bad if I just afk.

[Raylak]

I live on one of my stations nearby as in low attention large ships glitch out when docking/undocking.

For longer AFK stints it might be worth parking on a carrier or battleship somewhere remote (unlikely to see much nearby AI activity) and away from your assets. This should both maximise performance and minimise the chance of friendly fire incidents occurring.

I have to stay within range of 2 particular stations due to the docking glitch, where the ship appears in the dock but also a few dozen K away and blinks between the two spots. 2 specific stations get this every time I'm OOS.

Why did it ruin your save? You barely even played it and instead just have it running while being afk. Sounds not like that you‘ve lost too much.

Besides that, in my opinion simulation games shouldn’t be able run afk for longer periods without needing input from the player. Things should go bad if I just afk.

Being AFK is suboptimal, but if you have it setup right, it is still better than not having the game running. In a simulation game, I believe it should be perfectly viable to leave the game AFK without player input. My game is somewhere around 250-300 hours now, and 3/4 of that is AFK. That still leaves over 60 hours where I've been playing the game.

[Imperial Good]

I have to stay within range of 2 particular stations due to the docking glitch, where the ship appears in the dock but also a few dozen K away and blinks between the two spots. 2 specific stations get this every time I'm OOS.

Have you reported this as a reproduceable bug?

[Raylak]

I have to stay within range of 2 particular stations due to the docking glitch, where the ship appears in the dock but also a few dozen K away and blinks between the two spots. 2 specific stations get this every time I'm OOS.

Have you reported this as a reproduceable bug?

No, as I use mods, though they wouldn't cause this behaviour. I've also seen other people mention this bug so I'm just assuming it's been reproduced and reported in the past, though I do have a save with the bug present I kept to one side incase I needed to demonstrate it.

[zebai]

I've had this exact same bug at a couple of my stations. I tried redesigning the station moving the dock around etc to no avail. One of the stations this happened on was the PHQ however after completing the teleportation quest line and moving the PHQ it no longer happened at the PHQ at least. So far I've only seen it occur with large freighters they just glitch and rapidly appear back and forth at 2 docks The orders screen would just be stuck at its selling/exchanging ware order. Both player and npc ships but i've only seen it on player stations so far.

Whatever the cause of the glitch it will permanently stall the ship in question until your are IS and it immediately fixes itself.

[Raylak]

I've had this exact same bug at a couple of my stations. I tried redesigning the station moving the dock around etc to no avail. One of the stations this happened on was the PHQ however after completing the teleportation quest line and moving the PHQ it no longer happened at the PHQ at least. So far I've only seen it occur with large freighters they just glitch and rapidly appear back and forth at 2 docks The orders screen would just be stuck at its selling/exchanging ware order. Both player and npc ships but i've only seen it on player stations so far.

Whatever the cause of the glitch it will permanently stall the ship in question until your are IS and it immediately fixes itself.

Yep, this bug exactly. I'm seriously having to consider scrapping the two stations that are affected and moving them to a new plot nearby but hauling all those parts would take literal days, not to mention the build time.

[builder680]

Could you maybe extend the station and move the docks further from the main structure? Totally a guess on my part but maybe there's some pathing or ship-collision logic causing problems. I know there was no OOS collision in x3 but no idea with x4. Maybe extend above or below the "ecliptic" significantly. Worth a try anyway

[Raylak]

Could you maybe extend the station and move the docks further from the main structure? Totally a guess on my part but maybe there's some pathing or ship-collision logic causing problems. I know there was no OOS collision in x3 but no idea with x4. Maybe extend above or below the "ecliptic" significantly. Worth a try anyway

Zebai already said they tried redesigning their station, and for me, the main L/XL dock is the hub of the station, meaning moving it means deconstructing and rebuilding the entire station. It isn't a clipping issue as the identical design works on a nearby plot. I thought it could be another nearby station blocking the flight path into the dock but I have other stations that have stations closer to their dock path.

It also affects all new docks built at that plot, as I tried adding 4 more docking areas to the affected station and now I can have 5 ships at that station all showing the bug at once. It also happens almost instantly from when I go OOS, and instantly fixes once I am back IS.