Research materials vanishing...

[Scoob]

Hey all,

I'm about to do the "Teleportation - Range III" research. I've manually delivered:

1,500 - Advanced Electronics
2,500 - Field Coils
7,500 - Superfluid Coolant

Station has generated all required EC - plus some - via it's own Solar Modules, plus assigned Miners have gathered lots of Nividium. Great. Ready to go, right? Nope!

For some reason, the station is short of 8 Advanced Electronics, over 900 Field Coils and over 2,000 Superfluid Coolant. Storage levels were fine, then they weren't.

My first thought was Piracy, however, there's never been any evidence of such. The station is well defended, and I've seen Pirate after Pirate approach, then turn around and fly off before it gets too close. At no point has there been the tell-tale ejected cargo, though, weirdly, I can see that Field Coils (to pick one) dropped fairly steadily over the space of two hours. No sudden drop in a 5 minute Window that's normal for Piracy or storage destruction, rather the steady drop over time you'd expect from regular resource consumption. There are no Sell Offers for any wares, just buy.

Question: has Piracy perhaps changed? Do they now pirate MUCH smaller amounts over a couple of hours rather than LARGE single mass cargo ejections?

Just a little puzzled is all. I'm VERY familiar with Piracy - was so glad when it was toned down a few versions back AND nearby Military ships started properly dissuading Piracy. However, I've never seen a steady "drain" of a wares like this before.

HQ Has all three Storage Types, one each of Solid and Liquid, two of Container. All Large, all Split. It has four EC Modules. It's protected by multiple Fighters, Corvettes, Frigates and a Carrier loaded with Fighters. There have been no combat events since I've had the HQ.

Any ideas? 8 Advanced Electronics are easy to deliver again with a fast ship. Those missing 900 Field Coils and 2,000 Superfluid Coolant, not so much. Remember, the storage drop for those two wares is steady over over a two hour period and one hour respectively, according to the Storage Levels chart. Plot points are every three minutes on the hourly view.

[vvvvvvvv]

Possible scenarios:
* It has a sell order for those items.
* It uses those items as intermediates.
* It has an equipment dock and you equipped plasma weapons onto something.
* There's your shipyard nearby and trade rules allow it to buy intermediates.

I'd check station financial log.

[Scoob]

Possible scenarios:
* It has a sell order for those items.
* It uses those items as intermediates.
* It has an equipment dock and you equipped plasma weapons onto something.
* There's your shipyard nearby and trade rules allow it to buy intermediates.

I'd check station financial log.

Good thoughts, but I've confirmed that none of those cases are true.

- No sell Offers at the station
- No production other than ECs
- No Equipment Dock

I simply started the Research, which added the BUY Offers (limited to my faction only) and I then manually had an L-Class Freighter deliver all needed resources. Took several trips of course.

I'm currently monitoring the station VERY closely - I'm literally on or very near it - and Pirates continue to approach then flee, no active piracy. I've not seen any further ware loss so far... Puzzling.

[Nanook]

With those wares, I'd suspect weapons and shields perhaps being added to modules that don't currently have them. That's done automatically depending on your settings. In the build screen, do you have weapons and shields set to generic or custom? Do you also have weapon and shield parts in your storage?

[Alan Phipps]

Following on from what Nanook said, if your station build storage has offers out for wares that are in station stock then mass traffic/drones may deliver from station storage to build storage without you directly ordering such transfers.