Gameplay Bugs and Issues List Tech Support Summission Discussion.

General discussions about the games by Egosoft including X-BTF, XT, X², X³: Reunion, X³: Terran Conflict and X³: Albion Prelude.

Moderator: Moderators for English X Forum

pmenso57
Posts: 53
Joined: Sat, 7. May 05, 22:36
x4

Post by pmenso57 » Sat, 26. Aug 06, 13:01

Gameplay:

Given the lack of decent fleet control, we should at least be able to use the simpler controls that we have for small ships like "follow" or "protect" for capital ships. As it is, it is *extremely* unsafe to have one capital ship follow another and have the leader jump to a sector (IS). Collision at the target gate is nearly guaranteed. If the player is the lead ship, you can avoid it only with a massive vertically strafing nose dive with boost extensioned full throttle.

Capital ships following capital ships need to, at least, wait for the lead ship to clear the gate. Without this, just *moving* a fleet from one place to another is an arduous and unnecessary micro-management task.

User avatar
apricotslice
Posts: 14129
Joined: Sun, 16. May 04, 13:01
x4

Post by apricotslice » Sat, 26. Aug 06, 14:51

MeGrand wrote:note also one of the side turrets fails for orcas, not just the rear
Noted.
Also i suspect your on a hideing to nothing on the pathfinding issues, its been a bugbear for as long as thier have been computer games,
Possibly. X2 1.4 AP was significantly better than the current X3 one. Thats the basis of my gripe, going backwards. What I'm doing now is trying to isolate the actual serious issues and why they occur, so the devs can look at each part of it, and decide if a fix is possible or not. We just ahve to hope they can fix it. But up until now, the actual problems with the AP have never been properly analysed and documented, just winged about.
where'd shortcut X go for exchange freight?
Quite a few were changed. Can this not be reassigned in the gameplay options ?

User avatar
apricotslice
Posts: 14129
Joined: Sun, 16. May 04, 13:01
x4

Post by apricotslice » Sat, 26. Aug 06, 14:55

pmenso57 wrote:Gameplay:

Given the lack of decent fleet control, we should at least be able to use the simpler controls that we have for small ships like "follow" or "protect" for capital ships. As it is, it is *extremely* unsafe to have one capital ship follow another and have the leader jump to a sector (IS). Collision at the target gate is nearly guaranteed. If the player is the lead ship, you can avoid it only with a massive vertically strafing nose dive with boost extensioned full throttle.

Capital ships following capital ships need to, at least, wait for the lead ship to clear the gate. Without this, just *moving* a fleet from one place to another is an arduous and unnecessary micro-management task.
I dont disagree with you. But this is a gameplay issue rather than a bug, and is extreemely unlikely to be addressed since it needs a substantial amount of work to rewrite.

The way around is to use all the gates of the sector, and jump your ships in alternately and rendevous somewhere. Not ideal I know.

I just havent bothered getting M1 or M2 in X3. The problems with using them like you could in X2 are too much to be bothered. I went straight for an M0 that I dont move around much. That will be replaced by the player HQ when it makes it into the game.

Jon Tetrino
Posts: 3276
Joined: Mon, 2. Aug 04, 22:27
x4

Post by Jon Tetrino » Sat, 26. Aug 06, 14:59

Apricotslice, may i suggest you start listing the bugs by name in order in the OP.

User avatar
apricotslice
Posts: 14129
Joined: Sun, 16. May 04, 13:01
x4

Post by apricotslice » Sat, 26. Aug 06, 15:06

Lost Ark wrote:Apricotslice, may i suggest you start listing the bugs by name in order in the OP.
Ok, will do a list. But I am actually assembling a proper submission to the devs using an html page and have promised CBJ first look at this before publishing it, in order that anything already deemed not a bug or an issue thats not going to be addressed for some reason, be removed before presenting to the devs.

User avatar
apricotslice
Posts: 14129
Joined: Sun, 16. May 04, 13:01
x4

Post by apricotslice » Sat, 26. Aug 06, 15:14

I've said the following about Lasertowers oos :

OOS Lasertower performance is pitiful. I have seen 50 LT's take 20 minutes OOS to kill 2 ships out of 6, with 2 casualties. Jump in and IS, the same LT's take 20 seconds to destroy the other 4 ships without casualties themselves.
I have modded the LT's to take 1gb sheilds, and yet, OOS, you still lose LT's at the same rate as 25mj shields.
This appears to be hardcoding issue in the way LT's fight OOS, where the specs of the gun are ignored, so any scripting/modding changes are ignored.
Any hardcoding of OOS LT combat, must access the spec files for sheilds and gun values.

regarding Suzie, I've said all X2 stations announcements should be replaced.

User avatar
moggy2
Posts: 5505
Joined: Wed, 6. Nov 02, 20:31
x3ap

Post by moggy2 » Sat, 26. Aug 06, 16:37

apricotslice wrote:I've said the following about Lasertowers oos :

OOS Lasertower performance is pitiful. I have seen 50 LT's take 20 minutes OOS to kill 2 ships out of 6, with 2 casualties. Jump in and IS, the same LT's take 20 seconds to destroy the other 4 ships without casualties themselves.
I have modded the LT's to take 1gb sheilds, and yet, OOS, you still lose LT's at the same rate as 25mj shields.
This appears to be hardcoding issue in the way LT's fight OOS, where the specs of the gun are ignored, so any scripting/modding changes are ignored.
Any hardcoding of OOS LT combat, must access the spec files for sheilds and gun values.
This goes for all OOS combat
5 pirate busters vs 1 pirate falcon. In sector, piece of cake for the busters. Out of sector the falcon owned them, barely a scratch on the shields.


another thing on In Sector Combat. Small ships, M5's and M4's, don't shoot at the very large ships. M3's fire very occasionally. They make attack runs but break off, avoiding target, before they fire.

pmenso57
Posts: 53
Joined: Sat, 7. May 05, 22:36
x4

Post by pmenso57 » Sat, 26. Aug 06, 22:36

apricotslice wrote:
pmenso57 wrote:Gameplay:

Given the lack of decent fleet control, we should at least be able to use the simpler controls that we have for small ships like "follow" or "protect" for capital ships. As it is, it is *extremely* unsafe to have one capital ship follow another and have the leader jump to a sector (IS). Collision at the target gate is nearly guaranteed. If the player is the lead ship, you can avoid it only with a massive vertically strafing nose dive with boost extensioned full throttle.

Capital ships following capital ships need to, at least, wait for the lead ship to clear the gate. Without this, just *moving* a fleet from one place to another is an arduous and unnecessary micro-management task.
I dont disagree with you. But this is a gameplay issue rather than a bug, and is extreemely unlikely to be addressed since it needs a substantial amount of work to rewrite.
It shouldn't take that much work to make a following capital ship wait enough time for the ship its following to clear the gate before jumping. I'm not really referring to the pathfinding or collision avoidance in general, as I know that would be a massive amount of work. I'm just talking about the much more limited scenario of capital ship X follows Y which follows Z. When Z jumps to a sector, Y waits until Z has had enough time to clear the gate before jumping. Then, when it jumps, X waits until Y has had enough time to clear the gate before jumping. This is actually pretty basic.

smashmouth
Posts: 42
Joined: Sun, 12. Mar 06, 23:41
x2

Post by smashmouth » Sat, 26. Aug 06, 23:59

Issue:the station announcer keeps saying "all departing pirates please be careful,pirates have been spotted in thre sector"she mixes it up a bit with the suzie announcement(as i write i cn hear her on my other computer askin for suzies parents).

User avatar
apricotslice
Posts: 14129
Joined: Sun, 16. May 04, 13:01
x4

Post by apricotslice » Sun, 27. Aug 06, 01:14

Bug : Auto-pilot after collision

If a ship survives an actual collision, it continues to have full speed ahead and attempts to change course to avoid what its already hitting.

If the object it hit is a station connector within a complex, the ship is unable to veer away from the connector, and continues to "Head Butt" the connector until it dies.

Once a ship has collided, speed should be cut to zero, it should back away from the object (the same as backing away from docking), find a vector that it will not collide on, turn while stopped, and then slowly add speed on that vector.

pjknibbs
Posts: 41359
Joined: Wed, 6. Nov 02, 20:31
x4

Post by pjknibbs » Sun, 27. Aug 06, 07:56

apricotslice wrote:
where'd shortcut X go for exchange freight?
Quite a few were changed. Can this not be reassigned in the gameplay options ?
By default X is increase throttle--it presumably had to be moved to there because A is now Strafe Left.

teladianium
Posts: 1331
Joined: Sun, 25. Sep 05, 13:49
x3

Post by teladianium » Sun, 27. Aug 06, 08:42

@slicemeister

Here are a couple of fairly obscure (and mainly cosmetic) problems I noticed in my current game:

1. Boring Boron start. The player ship is an Octopus spawned in Kingdoms End. When you push the throttle forward using X key a small bar of light slides forward along the centre axis of the ship and stops just in front of the nose of the ship. Decreasing the throttle moves it back towards the ship. It is always there at full throttle. After a while you stop noticing it though - it is not too intrusive.

2. Boring Boron start. Don't know if this is general - when going into a trade station barter menu, if there are M or Larger goods (the Octopus is an M5 that can only carry S type goods) the quantity column shows M or XL e.g. instead of 0. I think this is just for goods bigger than S type, as the S tyep show a qty of 0. I'll confirm that later and edit the post. I've seen this at several trading stations and have screen shots that I can post if required.

brett

Dungeoncrawler
Posts: 1093
Joined: Sun, 7. Dec 03, 05:32
x3tc

Post by Dungeoncrawler » Sun, 27. Aug 06, 08:54

Something I have noticed, although I would consider this minor as there are obvious workarounds. When auto-docking to a station with Autosave 'On', it occasionally takes an exceptionally long time before the game will actually Autosave.

CDc

User avatar
apricotslice
Posts: 14129
Joined: Sun, 16. May 04, 13:01
x4

Post by apricotslice » Sun, 27. Aug 06, 09:07

Dungeoncrawler wrote:Something I have noticed, although I would consider this minor as there are obvious workarounds. When auto-docking to a station with Autosave 'On', it occasionally takes an exceptionally long time before the game will actually Autosave.
I've noticed that.

The time to save using insurance in space, is substantially and noticably less than the autosave when docking. Never known why though, they should be doing the same thing.

Dungeoncrawler
Posts: 1093
Joined: Sun, 7. Dec 03, 05:32
x3tc

Post by Dungeoncrawler » Sun, 27. Aug 06, 09:26

...that's a fact. I'm usually doing something else after instructing my ship to autodock (read egosoft forums), I look up and notice that my screen shows that I've docked and I start making keystokes, but nothing happens. Then I realize I've still not 'officially docked'. I've never had it CTD or anything. It's more of a 'oops' than anything else I think. Other more important things to fix I think :)

CDc

User avatar
apricotslice
Posts: 14129
Joined: Sun, 16. May 04, 13:01
x4

Post by apricotslice » Mon, 28. Aug 06, 04:11

Bug in Convoy mission :
richardthesane wrote:I've just started plot mission 5 where I am escorting the mammoths and the mission just never seems to end!

I killed all the Khaak from three turrets, then mopped the remainder up in my Nova. One of the mammoths did die (ran into an asteroid I think, not sure though).
I followed the convoy to Paranid prime and now they just keep flying round.

So does anyone know what should happen to complete the mission?

User avatar
apricotslice
Posts: 14129
Joined: Sun, 16. May 04, 13:01
x4

Post by apricotslice » Mon, 28. Aug 06, 06:03

New update to OP list.

The only one not listed as yet is the disappearing ships bug, but Nanook was going to post that one as he is the expert on it.

Also added :

Issue : IS Mobile Mining.

IS Mobile Mining is way to dangerous still. Part of this is the auto-pilot and its problems, but most of it is the fact the ship is moving while picking up the ore chunks, and vulnerable to collision. Picking up can only be done safely while the player is OOS. The whole process of a moving ship

I suggest that the pickup process be changed as follows. Require a transporter device. On activation of "collect rocks in sector" command, ship moves to a safe point within transporter range of collectable rocks. Ship stops. Ore Collector and transporter combination beams rocks into the cargo bay without opening the cargo bay doors. Ship is moved to another safeplace near collectable rocks, stops, collects, moves and repeat.

No messing about with the auto-pilot, no having to ensure 2 roids are not too close together and unable to avoid an impact.

Nanook
Moderator (English)
Moderator (English)
Posts: 27817
Joined: Thu, 15. May 03, 20:57
x4

Post by Nanook » Mon, 28. Aug 06, 08:13

Disappearing Ships Bug - captured spawns:

From my observations, this particular disappearing ship phenomenon is restricted to the pirate M5's and occasional M4's that spawn near the edges of sectors, in groups of three, and the civilian ships that spawn in regulated space. These spawns were introduced in the latest patch. They cannot be saved, no matter what you try. Believe me, I've tried everything I could think of. These disappearances occur some amount of time after you leave the sector where the ship is located, or send it to another sector. They disappear out of stations, out of TL's, as they pass through gates, and just out in space. If it's their time to go, they go. And you never get a message that they've been destroyed. It appears to be a 'despawn' flag or some such thing that doesn't get reset when the player captures the ship.

It doesn't seem to affect any of the other spawns, such as pirates at Teladi shipyards and pirate bases. I've never had any TS/TP/M3 disappear in that manner (other ways, yes). So far, out of some 500+ captures in the two games I've started since 1.4, I've had maybe 20 go missing due to this bug. So I don't thnk it's a major problem, unless you really want to keep one of these ships (for me, it was a Pirate Harrier Raider that I really, really, REALLY wanted, but it just wasn't to be :( )
Have a great idea for the current or a future game? You can post it in the [L3+] Ideas forum.

X4 is a journey, not a destination. Have fun on your travels.

Nanook
Moderator (English)
Moderator (English)
Posts: 27817
Joined: Thu, 15. May 03, 20:57
x4

Post by Nanook » Mon, 28. Aug 06, 08:23

Plot Ore Mine won't trade with Free Traders:

The ore mine you 'buy' in the plot doesn't trade with any free traders, neither buyers nor sellers. You have to give it your own buyers and sellers. And this applies to complexes made with that mine. I put it in a complex with a SQUASH mine factory and a Soyery, hoping to free up some of the buying/selling ships. The NPC traders refused to buy the SQUASH mines, and they refused to sell it energy or soja beans, despite drastically reducing/increasing prices appropriately. It appears that the 'Trade with other races' is permanently set to 'NO'. Either that, or it was made somehow 'invisible' to the NPC's to protect it when your Paranid rep was so low, and didn't get reset to normal. Either way, it doesn't work properly.
Have a great idea for the current or a future game? You can post it in the [L3+] Ideas forum.

X4 is a journey, not a destination. Have fun on your travels.

Augustini
Posts: 1604
Joined: Tue, 13. Dec 05, 21:55
x4

Post by Augustini » Mon, 28. Aug 06, 08:31

Plot -> The nividium mission in Ore Belt:

During the briefing, the player is instructed to head to the "Nividium Processing Plant" in Home of Light... The first time i got that mission i spent like 3 hours trying to find this elusive factory untill i finally checked the EGOSOFT forums to realise that it did not exist!!!!

Locked

Return to “X Trilogy Universe”