[#3860] Suit "Help!" Comm option greyed out - Sensitive to order of player actions.

[rotaerk]

I was floating in my spacesuit, and I commed a passing ship and used the "Help!" option. They came to me, I requested to dock, I docked. After a while, I left their ship. Later I was in my spacesuit again, and commed another ship, but the "Help!" option was greyed out. This was the case for all passing ships.

Testing this a bit, I started a fresh game, commed for Help and immediately tried asking a separate ship for Help. It was greyed out. So it appears that asking for help puts you into a state where you can't ask again ... only somehow it gets stuck that way once you dock to the ship you asked for help.

Update: I figured out what triggered the issue. I think it's a bug but it's avoidable. Basically, if you request Help, they will eventually come to you and invite you to dock. This seems to be the intended behavior. What I had instead done was requested to dock when they got close. I was able to dock, but they didn't have the "Can you take me to ..." dialog option, and think this interfered with the existing Help request, and caused it to get stuck.

[rotaerk]

A related bug: If I ask for "Help!" from a ship that's traveling down a highway, that ship just freezes in place, and I'm stuck waiting indefinitely for it to come get me. I also can't cancel the help request to ask someone else. I have to reload.

[Ketraar]

If you have a save for the com issue please share it. Also please don't add "related" issues to same report, just make a new one. In that you can mention that it may be related, but a ship being stuck is not related to a com option issue.

MFG

Ketraar

[rotaerk]

Any save should do. I just reproduced the issue from a fresh game (spacesuit-only start). I called a nearby ship, and after it got into range, I requested to dock. It let me dock, but the pilot didn't have the "Can you take me to" dialog option, and once I left the ship, I couldn't request "Help!" from anyone else.

[Treycore]

I would also like to say this bug is definitely still prevalent, I typically always save scummed when I blew up and never did the space suit help request before but, I have been locked out of requesting help since the first time I used it in this run.

[CBJ]

Again, please provide a save.

[1derAliceland]

I am quite certain I have the same replicate-able bug going as well.

attached is a link to my save file as well:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hrbSwv ... 4C25i/view

[Alan Phipps]

@ 1derAliceland: Your link is not open to public sharing.

[1derAliceland]

my apologies. The link should be viewable now.

Update on the issue: it persisted for quite a number of hours. But yesterday evening I hailed one ship from my suit just to check, saw that it was still greyed out. A bit later I tried another ship - and it did work! No matter how many ships I saw moving about and attempted to hail in the save above, they didn't give the help option, but something must have triggered those many-hours later that must not have earlier. And literally in-between initiating comms with ships over the course of like, a minute. I wish I could say what it was, but there was about 10h or playtime between that save and when it flipped back to working, so, it's kind of impossible to say. Maybe the freak coincidence that somewhere in space the ship I'd originally hailed those hours earlier happened to get destroyed finally to 'release' the original call for help?

[Moon Muppet]

I also like starting in suit and have encountered this bug a number of times. If you know what you're doing, deleting "<blackboard>
<value name="$rescuer" type="component" value="[NumbersAndStuffHere]"/>
</blackboard>" from your save file fixes it for me. Make backups obviously, and understand that doing this tags your save as modified.

[DarkHPnk]

I also like starting in suit and have encountered this bug a number of times. If you know what you're doing, deleting "<blackboard>
<value name="$rescuer" type="component" value="[NumbersAndStuffHere]"/>
</blackboard>" from your save file fixes it for me. Make backups obviously, and understand that doing this tags your save as modified.

Hi! I have a "legit" solution, thanks to your reply!

There's a ship entry in this file, looking like this

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<component class="ship_s" macro="ship_spl_s_fighter_02_b_macro" connection="space" attacker="[0x181f04fe]" attackmethod="hitbyareadamage" attacktime="57810.936" code="QPT-404" owner="freesplit" cover="ministry" knownto="player" level="0.463325" spawntime="52164.447" thruster="thruster_gen_s_allround_01_mk2_macro" id="[0x181bbac5]">

This id="[0x181bbac5]" is the value="[NumbersAndStuffHere]" ID from name="$rescuer" from your save file. And code="QPT-404" is the in-game ship-id that you can use to locate the ship on the map (can take some time, yeah), and destroy it.

After I have destroyed my "rescuer" the help option became available once again!

[Alan Phipps]

@ DarkHPnk: OK and thanks - others please follow those instructions entirely at own risk and heed the advice to back up first and the warning about becoming modified and possibly at risk to your game/saves after future update releases.

Hopefully this may help the devs with some ideas for use in any future vanilla fix but please don't further push or discuss modding solutions here in the vanilla Tech Sp forum. The devs are aware of this issue as shown by the tracking number in the title.

[FatalKeks]

So I ended up in the same situation...
Help is greyed out.

Here is my 9.0 savegame:

https://limewire.com/d/Qqm1H#6cEJHAb69Q

[dishduster]

I also like starting in suit and have encountered this bug a number of times. If you know what you're doing, deleting "<blackboard>
<value name="$rescuer" type="component" value="[NumbersAndStuffHere]"/>
</blackboard>" from your save file fixes it for me. Make backups obviously, and understand that doing this tags your save as modified.

thanks that worked for me, i deleted that line minus the <blackboard> </blackboard> bit and it fixed it. It was really getting frustrating so ty again.

[TestedBubble]

Overview
Version and language - 9.0 (611726)
Whether or not your game is modified using any third party scripts or mods - Vanilla
The game start you originally selected for the game in which the problem occurred - Custom Budgeted, no ship
Any possibly relevant changes you have made to your game, system, or software before the issue occurred - None

Exact nature of the problem, where and when it occurs and what you were doing at the time
After communicating with a nearby ship and requesting the 'Help!' option, future 'Help!' options are disabled.

I've noticed this state does not become enabled, even in the following scenarios:

• Failing to dock on the ship you've requested assistance with

• After successfully docking on the ship and leaving it's sphere of influence to try to request 'Help!' from another ship

• After successfully docking on the ship, it going to a station, and you boarding the station.

I'm unsure of whether there is an extremely lengthy timer between 'Help!' requests or it simply does not reset until you board one of your player owned ships.

This currently makes custom game starts without a ship significantly more tedious as you have to be highly cautious with saves as, after your initial 'Help!' call, you won't be able to request help until you're able to afford a ship.
Scenarios such as boarding a trading ship at a station as a stowaway and that ship encountering a Hive Guard in a derelict sector that it cannot kill will result in you having to find another ship to board at the initial station, despite other trade ship traffic flowing past the Hive Guard fight. If you save at the wrong moment, your save is soft locked and you have to restart.

Additional Information
https://media.discordapp.net/attachment ... da8d0e6d&=
Screenshot taken during 01/03/2025 when I first encountered the issue, but did not report it at the time, apologies!

System Specifications
Steam System Information

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Computer Information:
Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Model: Z790 GAMING X AX
Form Factor: Desktop
No Touch Input Detected
Processor Information:
CPU Vendor: GenuineIntel
CPU Brand: 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-13600KF
CPU Family: 0x6
CPU Model: 0xb7
CPU Stepping: 0x1
CPU Type: 0x0
Speed: 5100 MHz
20 logical processors
14 physical processors
Hyper-threading: Supported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Supported
SSE4a: Unsupported
SSE41: Supported
SSE42: Supported
AES: Supported
AVX: Supported
AVX2: Supported
AVX512F: Unsupported
AVX512PF: Unsupported
AVX512ER: Unsupported
AVX512CD: Unsupported
AVX512VNNI: Unsupported
SHA: Supported
CMPXCHG16B: Supported
LAHF/SAHF: Supported
PrefetchW: Unsupported
BMI1: Supported
BMI2: Supported
F16C: Supported
FMA: Supported
Operating System:
Nobara Linux 44 (KDE Plasma Desktop Edition) (64 bit)
Kernel Name: Linux
Kernel Version: 7.1.3-200.nobara.fc44.x86_64
X Server Vendor: The X.Org Foundation
X Server Release: 12401011
X Window Manager: KWin
Steam Runtime Version: steam-runtime_1.0.20260618.246542
Client Information:
Version: 1784778118
Browser GPU Acceleration Status: Enabled
Browser Canvas: Enabled
Browser Canvas out-of-process rasterization: Enabled
Browser Direct Rendering Display Compositor: Disabled
Browser Compositing: Enabled
Browser Multiple Raster Threads: Enabled
Browser OpenGL: Enabled
Browser Rasterization: Enabled
Browser Raw Draw: Disabled
Browser Skia Graphite: Disabled
Browser Video Decode: Enabled
Browser Video Encode: Disabled
Browser Vulkan: Disabled
Browser WebGL: Enabled
Browser WebGL2: Enabled
Browser WebGPU: Disabled
Browser WebNN: Disabled
Video Card:
Driver: NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti/PCIe/SSE2
Driver Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 595.84
OpenGL Version: 4.6
Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 179 Hz
VendorID: 0x10de
DeviceID: 0x2803
Revision Not Detected
Number of Monitors: 2
Number of Logical Video Cards: 1
Primary Display Resolution: 2560 x 1440
Desktop Resolution: 3640 x 1920
Primary Display Size: 23.50" x 13.23" (26.97" diag), 59.7cm x 33.6cm (68.5cm diag)
Primary VRAM: 8188 MB
Sound card:
Audio device: USB Mixer
Memory:
RAM: 31912 Mb
VR Hardware:
VR Headset: None detected
No VR configuration with trackers detected
Most number of trackers in a session: 0
Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
LANG: en_GB.utf8
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 115339 MB
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 26775 MB
Storage:
Number of SSDs: 5
SSD sizes: 2000G,2000G,1000G,512G,250G
Number of HDDs: 0
Number of removable drives: 0

Worth noting that the same issue occurred when I had differing hardware on a Windows 10 system

Vulkan Information

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Unable to upload due to size, but I'm assuming Vulkan information won't be required for this. Let me know if it is needed though!