Why do stations sometimes "unbuild" themselves?

[RegisterMe]

I'm trying to build a pretty basic station at the moment, a Hull Parts fab, in Eighteen Billion. At one point earlier it had all the Clatronics and Energy Cells needed, but was short on Hull Parts. So I started "manually" delivering hull parts to its build storage with one of my freighters.

The next thing I know the station plan indicates that it is unbuilding L liquid storage when I never told it to. On successfully completing that it then rebuilt it, but it is now short of a handful of Claytronics and Energy Cells.

This is... frustrating.

[Alan Phipps]

That *normally* indicates that one or more completed modules have been moved or rotated (even very, very slightly) and sometimes that change is entirely unnoticed and unwanted while doing other stuff in Plan Build before hitting 'Confirm Changes' - ie changes which now include the unwanted slight module adjustment. Theoretically, it might happen by itself across multiple save/reload cycles if small rounding errors in each save's positioning and orientation data accumulate to form a model-significant change.

I don't think that changes to surface elements such as shields/turrets on modules (player-ordered or through change of default preset) will trigger the rebuild, but I might be wrong in some cases.

It isn't always down to the former case, but that does cause a few unintended, time-wasting (and frustrating) occurrences.

[RegisterMe]

Thanks Alan. That's at least plausible even though I don't think it happened in this case (it's my first station, it consists of pier, dock, three types of storage, e-cells, refined metals, graphene, hull parts and connectors - I hit confirm once and have never edited it / added to it deliberately or by mistake). I can't be 100% certain but...

Oh, and no turrets or defenses of any kind.

[Imperial Good]

In 5.10 there is a bug where under some situations a station incorrectly cancels or re-issues all its module build orders when the player did not intend to issue such an order. This might help explain spontaneous module deconstruct orders that are not expected. This should be fixed in a future version.

[Caedes91]

In 5.10 there is a bug where under some situations a station incorrectly cancels or re-issues all its module build orders when the player did not intend to issue such an order. This might help explain spontaneous module deconstruct orders that are not expected. This should be fixed in a future version.

Had this happen to me too. In my case, I was expanding my shipyard and also replaced/relocated already existing modules. After hours of planning, hit confirm. As intended, some modules get deconstructed. Left it alone to do something else.

Upon returning to check the progress I already noticed the builder gone, which couldn't be right as too little time had passed for it to be finished. When opening the station planner, all planned modules were deleted from the build order. It somehow was considered finished by the game. Somehow, the builder started deleting modules, then just ****** off somewhere else and took my money. Did not expect a real world scam in this game
Needless to say, it screwed up the entire internal station logistics and workforce. Infuriating to say the least Was a substantial expansion too, and the design just lost forever...

It seems to only happen, when existing modules were affected. For example removing an existing habitat or a production module. Merely adding modules without affecting existing ones, does not seem to trigger this bug. I was able to consistently reproduce this issue on the same station.

[RegisterMe]

In 5.10 there is a bug where under some situations a station incorrectly cancels or re-issues all its module build orders when the player did not intend to issue such an order. This might help explain spontaneous module deconstruct orders that are not expected. This should be fixed in a future version.

Thank you. Shame it was my first station. Oh well. Carry on etc .

[grapedog]

In 5.10 there is a bug where under some situations a station incorrectly cancels or re-issues all its module build orders when the player did not intend to issue such an order. This might help explain spontaneous module deconstruct orders that are not expected. This should be fixed in a future version.

This explains why a few of my stations lost their build plans randomly for no reason. Thank you.

[Alan Phipps]

For information, that particular issue report along with the dev response is here.

[RegisterMe]

For information, that particular issue report along with the dev response is here.

Thanks. Yes, I've seen similar.

[RegisterMe]

So I saved the game. I then spent an hour(ish) designing the expansion of one of my stations. Nothing very extravagant, adding six production modules, some storage and appropriate connectors. "Everything OK". So I hired a builder and clicked confirm. Then I saved the game again "post-design". Then I let it play out. Twice now after the first cross-piece has been built the build has borked for unknown reasons and the design has forgotten itself.

I don't mind the massive time sink X games require, I do mind the fact that it can just be wasted :/.

EDIT: To add, the only interaction I have with it other than checking on incoming transports occasionally is to flip the trade rules from "only me" (to use up some product I have) to let any and all supply the necessary wares.

[RegisterMe]

This is just broken .

I have my save immediately after the design phase, when "everything was ok" and I'd clicked confirmed build. This is before any wares have been delivered to build storage. I load that up and I don't touch the Plan Build screen at all. You can monitor progress from the map screen by looking at station module details. There are seven production module builds queued up, and a load of connectors.

The first vertical Argon connector gets built and then every other projected module / connector build simply disappears.

[Alan Phipps]

Well, to be fair to the devs, if it is the issue that I linked above then it will not be fixed until the next release following 5.10. In the meantime, there may indeed still be instances of this issue being seen during gameplay using the current version.

[RegisterMe]

Well, to be fair to the devs, if it is the issue that I linked above then it will not be fixed until the next release following 5.10. In the meantime, there may indeed still be instances of this issue being seen during gameplay using the current version.

Well, to be fair to the paying customer, I guess I have to sit on my hands until some arbitrary point in the future where a pretty fundamental aspect of game play might be fixed. Or it might not be.

That was pretty snarky - whilst it was in reply to you it was not meant to be taken as being aimed directly at you Alan (more "ggrrhh life ggrrhh") - there's no point shooting the messenger.

But I think I have cause to be a little irked.

[Alan Phipps]

@ RegisterMe: I didn't take anything personally and was not being 'snarky'; I was just pointing out to you and all other players that there was no cause for expectation of a fix to this issue in current gameplay. (ie I'm a messenger too. )

Personally, I'm building stations quite frequently and not seeing this issue in vanilla 5.10, so I would guess there is some specific situation or sequence of actions that can trigger it. That would probably be what the devs have found from player-supplied saves and have addressed in the next release version.

If you still feel that your issue might be a new or different one to the above, then I would suggest posting in Tech Sp along with a link to a vanilla save so that the devs can check if their fix includes your situation. That might remove some doubt and perhaps speed up a comprehensive resolution.

[RegisterMe]

@ RegisterMe: I didn't take anything personally and was not being 'snarky';

No. It was me recognising that >>I<< was being snarky .

[Alan Phipps]

Ah, totally crossed wires. (Gotta love the internet!)

The Tech Sp thread and save could still set minds at rest though.

[RegisterMe]

The Tech Sp thread and save could still set minds at rest though.

I've add a link to a save and relevant details.

[jlehtone]

Personally, I'm building stations quite frequently and not seeing this issue in vanilla 5.10

I don't build "frequently" -- save says {stations_constructed: 141, station_modules_constructed: 2066} -- in game versions from 3.10 to 5.10 and haven't noticed the issue. Then again, I build for NPC and do not care whether the building holds or crumbles after I get paid.