[K0046][v4HF3]Guidance targets the wrong gate on highway

[Submarine]

This happens regularly but is hard to reproduce, in that on entering a system e.g. Silent witness from the Eighteen Billion gate, with guidance set to a target routing through Hatikvah's End, the yellow guidance highlight marks the gate at the opposite end of the highway, in this case Profit Centre Alpha gate.

If, for some foolish reason, one is not using autopilot this creates a completely unhelpful impression which one might term a "bum steer".

It happens often enough in many different systems that I now know I cannot trust guidance around a highway and have to pause and check the map. However if I go back and do it again it does not replicate and seem to be something to do with loading from low attention suddenly and the guidance is a bit askew momentarily and picks the wrong gate.

I would count this as a non functional interface glitch and suggest that...

• the guidance target gate itself should always be fully highlighted with a guidance marker for people avoiding highways for whatever reason and a smaller intercept marker be shown on the highway
• and the opposite gate on the highway must never be highlighted even if it is contiguous with the end of the highway nearest to the player
• and instead the guidance should show the smaller projected intercept marker for the highway one step beyond that location, for those wishing to to use the highway

Hope that makes sense.

[Alan Phipps]

I don't know if relevant in this case, but something to watch out for is that sometimes if a shorter route exists but has not been completely 'discovered' in the map, then the autopilot/AI can get confused and make some odd guidance suggestions or even make strange things happen in the game. See this thread.

[Submarine]

I don't know if relevant in this case, but something to watch out for is that sometimes if a shorter route exists but has not been completely 'discovered' in the map, then the autopilot/AI can get confused and make some odd guidance suggestions or even make strange things happen in the game. See this thread.

Thanks, mysterious goings on in jump space, definitely an X-File!

I think wayfinding would be top of the list of suspects for this "guide marker diametrically opposed to the correct exit marker location" problem.

It tends to sort itself out once you move far enough that you change angle to the highway and it recalculates the intercept which suggests the process of jumping in is creating erroneous routing in the first place, but it is erroneous, not excusable, this happened even with the whole map explored and the HUD marker does not correspond with the visible map guidance route either. Looks like a bug with initial painting of guidance on entering the sector.

Its almost as if it is trying to mark a gate and then choosing the wrong end of the highway and then giving up. I find it odd that there is no guidance to the correct exit gate for people who dont want to use the highway and I wonder if this is an abandoned piece of code which tried to do that and then got kind of forgotten about and has a bug in it of choosing the gate at the wrong end of the highway due to some kind of math sign typo or something.

And its not only Silent Witness, it has happened to me in other systems. Will try to grab a screeny next time I see it.

[Submarine]

OK I got screenshot proof. (v4.00 HF3)

Entering system Profit Center Alpha from Two Grand with guidance for a mission leading through Silent Witness I , the gate to Bright Promise is highlighted as guidance gate AND the game thinks it is the gate to Silent Witness I inside the sector playfield but I can prove that same gate is the gate to Bright Promise with a screenshot because if you target the gate to Bright Promise in the map it highlights the gate previously named as Silent Witness I and names it as Bright Promise ... !

Here is the in sector guidance highlighting the gate selected in sector using a mouse when paused, showing Silent Witness I.

1080p original.
https://imgur.com/JCPXHnP

Compare name at bottom right to the same gate targeted through the map.

1080p originall
https://imgur.com/cFcWhUR

Map view of the sector at this moment with the gate targeted, note the angle of the ship and the direction of the guidance line leading to the other gate, which is the correct gate for Silent Witness I.
https://imgur.com/vVx12g9

QED is borked!!

If you want to try to replicate here is a save (005), to replicate load save, change guidance mission to Teladi missions from mission manager guild missions list and fly into Profit Center Alpha through gate from Two Grand at top speed travel drive, disable flight assist / look to left and pause, take it all in. I cannot guarantee it will replicate but I can prove what happened to me just now with these screen grabs.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dpbmfpdvu7nov ... 05.xml.zip

[Submarine]

OK, shortcut, I have managed to replicate by reloading a save of the moment the screenshots above were taken. (v4.00 HF3)

Here it is, if you pause while loading then you should see the exact same scene and the problem persists.

If you continue gameplay it remains for about ten to twenty seconds until the game recalculates the guidance wayfinding route due to the movement of the ship and the highlight shifts to the highway.

If you apply the brakes and come to a stop ASAP the problem with the guidance destination gate marker misidentifying as Silent Witness I from sector (audio ID is "Highway Silent Witness I") does not correct itself and stays indefinitely so you can study it. Hope that helps.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/etvfq6qalbhq4 ... ug.xml.zip

[Submarine]

A couple of observations worth remarking on.

Firstly the overhead view of the map screenshot above shows that the current routing for guidance is not choosing a path through the apparently incorrectly highlighted gate as the yellow line does not go through it and goes straight to the highway and then through the gate at the other end of the highway.

Secondly the audio description indicates the highlight is for the "highway" leading to the correct gate. Also the guidance target which can be selected in sector view at long range from within the guidance marker is not a gate highlight but a highway highlight as it does not have the square corner brackets. This indicates that what is being highlighted is the first part of the highay leading to the gate, not the gate itself, but this is in the same place as the opposite gate which is continuous with the highway.

This suggests that the calculation on entering the sector about where to place the highlight has recognised the highway but failed to calculate the intercept point because the marker is nowhere near the intercept point evident in the map view. This changes when the intercept point changes in sector and a recalculation is triggered and the intercept point is correctly highlighted.

This would explain why the initial placement of the guidance marker is always the wrong gate because it is the first segment at the beginning of the highway which leads to the correct gate.

From a piloting point of view this is disorienting and unhelpful and not what you would expect guidance to do, which would be to at least show guidance to the correct intercept point.

But as a suggestion from a freebird who likes to fly around and not always use the highway unless speed is important, especially when exploring and looking for far out stations to drop a sat, it would help a lot if the exit gate was marked as well as the intercept.

As a point of trigonometric interest, when speed is a priority, the optimum intercept angle is not a perfect right angle and varies by 10° to 40° depending on the travel speed of your ship, because the dog leg right angle route is a longer path than the hypotenuse of an oblique intercept! So for that reason as well, knowing the right angle intercept and the correct exit gate would help to steer for an optimal intercept between the two.