Timing out in non-plot missions. (bug?)

[Wolfgar]

Greetings,

I dont know if this is a bug Or a problem on my end.

I took a non-plot mission to recover an abandoned shipthe mission gave me about 3 hours and 45 min. I travel about 4-5 sectors away, I get the ship. and as I return to the Issuer of the missions sector with an hour and 40 min to go I get a msg from the employer that the time is up the ship is reported stolen and I get a status hit.. and the police show up and blow up the ship... this has happened twice in almost the identical way for two different corps....Thoughts?

Wolfgar

Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.vistasp1_gdr.080917-1612)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Gateway
System Model: LX6200-01
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) 9500 Quad-Core Processor (4 CPUs), ~2.2GHz
Memory: 8190MB RAM
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Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 10
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 6.00.6001.18000 64bit Unicode

[Legionnaire]

from what i have figured out while doing these missions and from reading the forum, the timer doesnt show seta use, so while you have plenty of time still showing its actually a lot less if you use seta to get to the ship. having a jump drive fitted so you can jump straight to the ship or if you are recovering an m5/m4/m3 class ship taking a jump capable tm with you means you can dock the recovered ship and jump back to sector, then order it to dock, otherwise i was taking a jump capable m5 along with me, transferring jd nav soft and e-cells and then jumping it back, retransferring the equipment onto another m5 before docking the ship and handing it over.

Legionnaire

[Wolfgar]

Thank You Ill try the Jump Drive im only a few hrs into the game yet..

Wolf

[Xenon_Slayer]

What version are you playing with? This was fixed in 1.3

[Ormac]

I don't think the SETA issue is fixed with the Return Ship missions in 1.3?

Although I was beginning to suspect SETA was really involved

I've applied patch 1.3 so the rep loss suffered means I'm not automatically considered a possible foe of the race in question which is good.

I am continuing a game that was previously 1.2.1 though

Made 5 attempts and succeeded with one

I am pretty sure all but the Dolphin which was my first attempt are all under patch 1.3

My Last Attempt an Express in Atreus Clouds to return to HoL [in 94 minutes]

I used SETA at 800% to get over there from HoL, Repaired Hull to 70% and sent on it's way gets to South Gate Argon Prime with (~35min on clock) when the owner decided to report it stolen.

I've usually applied some repair to the ship then claimed it maybe repaired the hull a bit more and sent the ship back. I've only been successful return of a ship by a Boron (repaired 100%) [Ore Belt -> CBSE]

I've tried four other of these return ship missions for the Argon I which I aborted (Buster [61 min, PowerCircle -> The Wall] maybe didn't repair enough but I SETA over to collect) 2 Express [these may be Return My Ship]
One Was attacked by Sector Police in AP for no reason .

and a Dolphin [Abandoned] (I could have returned it but with 45 min remaining I thought I'd try a trade run in The Wall between SPP and Cattle Ranch beta [Dolphin was to be returned there] (Cattle Ranch decided to report it stolen before I could do that)

[PaperDog]

Nah! its got nothing to do with seta or with all the gymnastics to get the ship docked in time.. Its a plain and simple bug (or a really stupid and annoying design flaw being passed off as as a featured challenge).

Do the math... If you have a ship two sectors away doing 39ms and you are given 3 hours to get it docked (less the 2 minutes to jump to the recovery point) you should be fine. But the clocking logic in the game engine is all wrong...

Its a bug, [plain and simple}

[Xenon_Slayer]

It's not that at all but I will look into this issue again.

If it helps, the inaccurate time is when you claim the ship. The time was reduced at this point and the briefing timer was not updated. The fix was to remove the time reduction.

[Wolfgar]

Sorry to be so long with a reply..I was indisposed.

I am Patched to the current 1.3 patch.

When I did the mission the first time I got it from Terracorp in home of light. The recovery was in Priest rings. I did use SETA to get there and I think for part of the way back. However the Buster I was flying only did 81 m/s where as the Dolphin could hit 103 m/s but I had it follow me thinking it might be attacked..Ill try again without SETA and Ill let the ship head back on its own.

Wolf

[Tenebrys]

Guess what bug wasn't fixed in 1.3. Mission that likes to fail with 40 or so minutes still on the clock.

Don't you just love going from "Argon Defender of the Federation" to "Argon Confirmed Enemy" in an instant?

[Ormac]

Don't you just love going from "Argon Defender of the Federation" to "Argon Confirmed Enemy" in an instant?

Actually takes a little longer in 1.3 as the rep balance is better your no longer automatically assumed an Enemy of the Federation but your rep sinks fast expecially since they go by their own clock.

[Cdaragorn]

I just started playing, updated everything and have no mods installed. Took one of these missions and it disappeared when the timer still showed 2 hours 4 minutes and said my time ran up. I have a save of just before this happens, have tried reloading a few times and it seems to happen again no matter what.

[Tenebrys]

Far as I'm concerned this is a game-breaker for anybody who didn't subscribe to the Fallout school of savegame discipline (e.g., keep a catalogue of backup savegame files dating all the way back to when you started the game.) Anyone who takes advantage of X3TC's autosaving is at risk of losing some or all of his savegames' progress to ruined faction reputation.

I'd like some word on this bug at some point.

['Airstrike' Ivanov]

It times out for me, at exactly 40m remaining, every time.

[shireknight]

Heh funnily enough I just posted about this problem in another thread and then found this one.

Oh Painman don't talk to me about those ship recovery missions grrr -I almost went loopy on the board last night telling everyone how I had lost all respect for the Egosoft staff for not fixing these missions in the last patch and thanking them for wasting 6 hours of my life -luckily I managed to log myself off from the internet before I started saying really really horrible things.

What happened was I took a recover a lost ship mission with something like 90 mins on the clock which I thought would be a breeze, found the ship sent it on it's way and carried on playing.

I wasn't saving my game as I was trading so the game was auto saving every 5-10 mins anyway. I had just (seriously) reached Queens Knight 0% and was eagerly awaiting the hub mission to start at any moment when I got a Failed mission report from the ship recovery mission -NO WAY I thought and reloaded my last auto save.

Hmm still 40 mins left on the mission timer so I carried on and BAM mission failed, I reloaded again and again and everytime the mission came up failed at around the 38 minute mark -the worst thing was that everytime it failed my rank was instantly knocked down to Acquaintance Evil or Very Mad

I tried everything to get around it but this problem really did come at the worst possible time, I had been playing for around 6 hours and all three of my auto saves were within 5 mins of each other so I couldn't go back to just before the mission started, I tried to use the destroy object script cheat to destroy the ship but couldn't get it to work and I even tried destroying the ship myself by ramming into it to see if I could get the ship destroyed so mission is cancelled message but no matter what I did the game penalised me 8 Boron ranks.

In the end I had no choice but to sacrifice the wasted 6 hours and went back to my last proper save -this time it only took me 2 hours to get to Queens Knight phew.

Although I've calmed down now I'm still pretty angry that Egosoft allowed this bug to get through Beta testing and 2 patches -that is really unforgivable really -what are you guys doing not to know about this very very very obvious bug?

Trust me Xenon_Slayer this bug is very much alive and kicking in version 1.3.

I'm using the DVD version patched to 1.3 playing a brand new game from the Boring Boron start if that helps you in any way -I've seen this bug 2 times so far.

Oh and the failed mission message was coming up at 36mins and 38 mins respectively.