[X3AP] Excessive & passive escort ships left behind (convoy mission script bug?)

[Alexology]

ok the image is not working at all, working on a better version now. Will post more and clearer images in a few minutes.

Sorry for that folks.

[Alan Phipps]

Yes a known issue I am afraid. It happens when an escort something to somewhere mission ends. The ship(s) to be escorted disappear but the escorts are left behind doing nothing. See this thread.

Sent to the bug-tracker.

[Alexology]

ok well at least I am not alone, is it likely to cause any major issues other then then these ships remaining as pirate fodder?

I have noticed a sharp (and I really mean sharp) increase in the number of pirate attacks in cloudbase south east which was a previously quiet sector. Is this likely to be related?

[Alan Phipps]

Pirate attacks are not related, no. The only likely issues are clutter round stations causing docking issues and maybe sector slowdowns if too many ships get left hanging around.

I think the RRF aspect of this is being addressed separately in the wider RRF problems.

[Alexology]

OK well I was thinking of starting a new game anyway and I am many days into this play through so hopefully I can get going again without this issue occurring anytime soon.

Thanks for the amazingly fast reply btw! Great to know that these issues can be spotted so soon. Of course a solution takes more time but that is to be expected.

Edit: off to bed now so my replies will not be so fast....

[Alexology]

OK I am starting a new playthrough but I can keep the saves where this issue is occurring if they are useful to fixing the issue.

I think I have a save or two that show the situation before the bug began and then a few where it has started, would these be useful at all?

[Alan Phipps]

Thanks that might be helpful if you can backup those saves somewhere safe for now. No need to upload them or link them yet as the bug-fixers will probably be able to see the escort non-clearance problem from their code, but they could be useful in playtesting any bugfix and the devs have sight of this thread.

[Alexology]

Well so many people have helped me out on the forums so it would be great to be able to give something back without having to take an advanced computer class so as to learn to start coding...

I have them set aside if ever they are needed all you have to do is ask!

[Alexology]

Ah NUTS! Well I started again because I had really lost control of things in my last game and wanted to start again to have a chance to set my complexes and ST/UT better.

Also this glitch had appeared and I had read that it would continue to get worse as time went on.

So I thought I would start a new playthrough and kill two birds with one stone. However it has not worked, the glitch is already present after a few hours of play. Maybe 2 to 3 hours, I kept my eye out for escort missions and the only thing that I spotted just before the glitch began was that I was using SETA as an escort mission group passed a jump gate in my view.

Very unlikely that is it but its just the only thing that I noticed happening right before I spotted stationary escort ships around stations.

I'll post this in the thread mentioned above but would this save game be more useful since it would contain an awful lot less data since it is a new game?


Finally, what should I do now? I really don't want to have to re-download and re-install through steam. Other then verifying the game files I am not sure what else I can do without a fix.

[Alexology]

Well I can confirm that this issue, once experienced; spreads to new game starts.

After having it appear in my second to last game I restarted for several reasons though mostly due to my having gone a little crazy with complex building that had just got out of control.

Anyway on my new restart this issue has immediately (or almost immediately) reappeared. I have been playing for about 3 hours (9 hours flying 6 hours saved with SETA) and it has just occurred again.

So whats a boy to do?!

<Info removed due to merge. Alan Phipps>

[Alan Phipps]

Well there is a faint chance that using SETA just as an escort mission ends could so speed things up that all the 'remove ships' scripts never get a proper chance to run. That might be something for the devs to look at. Yes, any 'different' saves demonstarting the issue may be handy at some time in the future.

Just a case of waiting and hoping for a patch I think. (That and a bit of creative no-blame ship removal. )

A question for you, would you mind if I merged this thread with the other one about this issue where you recently posted? It would keep things together for easy reference as needed.

[Alexology]

Not at all, I was actually going to PM you and suggest that that might be worthwhile. <Thanks, done. AP>

OK I have all of the saves set aside though unfortunately they are only spread over a 5 minute period of autosaves and all three have the glitch. So I don't have a before and after that could clearly show the progression of the issue.

Anyway there are here and ready to go when needed. <Thanks again AP>

Actually does anyone know if running a TC game after experiencing this in AP still results in the problem? You could save me 3 hours of gameplay and another game start if you know the answer.

[Alan Phipps]

The only 'history' linking play sessions is your gamesaves. Since X3AP and X3TC have totally different gamesave locations there can be no cross-contamination. I am also unaware of this particular issue ever being reported in vanilla X3TC which has no connection with RRF.