Ship Destroyed, by what? Nothing in the Logs

[Scoob]

Hey all,

Does anyone know what it means when a ship is destroyed but there's nothing about an attacker in the log?

The log entry literally says: "Miner M - Drill V. (Mineral) (AWB-071) was destroyed", then the location and commander (Station). I got the log entry the moment it happened (0 Minutes ago) and I can see the bailed crew at the location the log entry takes me to. There are NO hostiles even remotely close by - none in that sector nor neighbouring sectors - there are no hostile regions (like Sanctuary of Darkness or the Avarice sectors), no mines deployed etc. Also, I'm not in the sector myself.

The ship in question had left the station (one of mine) after offloading Ice/Ore/Silicon - it's a mining outpost - and was on its way back out to mine. It was half-way between the station and the gate in a very secure sector, yet it appears to have just blown up.

Does anyone know which legitimate events can cause a ship log entry to just show it was destroyed and not by what? We can rule out sector hazards, enemy action, mines etc. what does that leave? I don't have a recent enough save to reload and see if it plays out the same again.

[BitByte]

Usually if ship is destroyed without reason in the logs it means it's parked to station or another ship which got destroyed.
For example if ship is docked to station and you dismantle dock then in the logs reads "ship is destroyed" but without any reason.
Another reason why similar entry comes if ship is destroyed in hazardous region.

There wasn't any other factions ships in same area which were destroyed too? As collateral damage (explosion of another ship) or it got in middle of 2 factions fight and got hit from missile / plasma / similar powerful weapon which wipes out your ship even it wasn't real target.

It would be interesting to know if same occurs again (if reloading from previous save).

[Scoob]

Usually if ship is destroyed without reason in the logs it means it's parked to station or another ship which got destroyed.
For example if ship is docked to station and you dismantle dock then in the logs reads "ship is destroyed" but without any reason.
Another reason why similar entry comes if ship is destroyed in hazardous region.

There wasn't any other factions ships in same area which were destroyed too? As collateral damage (explosion of another ship) or it got in middle of 2 factions fight and got hit from missile / plasma / similar powerful weapon which wipes out your ship even it wasn't real target.

It would be interesting to know if same occurs again (if reloading from previous save).

I thought about that, but the ship wasn't docked and nothing on the parent station was destroyed. I'm aware that dismantling a dock with ships docked - even if they're not docked on that specific dock module at the time - can lead to ship destruction. However, that's not the case here as the ship was in-flight at the time.

So, in this case, it's for none of the valid reasons I'm aware of. A ship was flying in space and exploded. That's about it lol. No hostiles, no environmental hazards, not dock dismantling. I'm at a loss.

[LameFox]

Weirdly, deconstructing modules can kill them in flight. There was someone who posted a save recently where, in the process of deconstructing a station, some of their ships did appear to have been docked during deconstruction, but still somehow ended up outside the station and flying. They had been milling around the station (IIRC all its docks were going so they couldn't land) and were each killed when the module they were previously docked in finished deconstructing. I managed to teleport to one of the doomed ships in their save, and I could fly it, but it was invisible in external view and even the inside blinked on and off. As soon as the deconstruct countdown ended, it was game over (although it managed to eject the crew if the player stayed outside of it).

But if nothing on your station was removed, I guess it would be pretty unlikely. If AI stations can do that and coincidentally take one of your ships, I've never seen it happen.

[euclid]

Happened several times but neither I was able to reproduce it nor to find the cause (reloading auto saves). If it was due to an attack the attacker should be named in the log. Also, with the corresponding setting, you should get a notification if any of your property is under attack. Current theory is either a rigged asteroid or a "lucky" hit from a Xenon grav beam (I doubt either of those). Still a mistery to me.

Cheers Euclid

[Nanook]

Quite possibly a random mine left over from a recent battle in that area. For example, I've run into mines a few times in Pious Mists II left over from a battle between PAR and HOP. I don't know how long they're supposed to remain active, but there weren't any observable wrecks in the area so it was probably well after the battle. In recent game versions, SCA fighters, for example, seem to spit out a lot of mines. I've found I've needed to be very wary when approaching a bailed ship to claim it due to mines dropped just as it bailed. Evil SCA!

[flywlyx]

Quite possibly a random mine left over from a recent battle in that area. For example, I've run into mines a few times in Pious Mists II left over from a battle between PAR and HOP. I don't know how long they're supposed to remain active, but there weren't any observable wrecks in the area so it was probably well after the battle. In recent game versions, SCA fighters, for example, seem to spit out a lot of mines. I've found I've needed to be very wary when approaching a bailed ship to claim it due to mines dropped just as it bailed. Evil SCA!

Sometimes when I teleport to a station and get a game over right away, it's usually because some SCA scumbag left an anti-personnel mine there.

[PV_]

Sometimes when I teleport to a station and get a game over right away, it's usually because some SCA scumbag left an anti-personnel mine there.

Btw, the "game over" after teleport to a station only happens if side view of any station (F3) wasn't canceled before teleportation happened => station missions seeking via observation exploit.
And that is an inconsistent bug. Hard to catch up and make a proper report.

[LameFox]

Mines still require the player to be present to work don't they?

[Imperial Good]

This is probably a case that the reason should be made more detailed. Any action that causes children to be destroyed should pass a reason describing the action itself. So in the case of ships destroyed due to station deconstruction it should be "destroyed by station module deconstruction". This could even contain useful debug information so if you have "destroyed by generic scripted destruction" it likely means some story mission or clean-up logic went wrong which could be reported (something I have experienced in the past).

Could potentially be nested in the case of one action causing another action that destroys a ship. For example "Nova was destroyed by current dock being destroyed caused by 6S3M dock was destroyed by XEN Branch 9 Destroyer I".

[Scoob]

Weirdly, deconstructing modules can kill them in flight. There was someone who posted a save recently where, in the process of deconstructing a station, some of their ships did appear to have been docked during deconstruction, but still somehow ended up outside the station and flying. They had been milling around the station (IIRC all its docks were going so they couldn't land) and were each killed when the module they were previously docked in finished deconstructing. I managed to teleport to one of the doomed ships in their save, and I could fly it, but it was invisible in external view and even the inside blinked on and off. As soon as the deconstruct countdown ended, it was game over (although it managed to eject the crew if the player stayed outside of it).

But if nothing on your station was removed, I guess it would be pretty unlikely. If AI stations can do that and coincidentally take one of your ships, I've never seen it happen.

Oh, that's interesting. I had dismantled a Dock module earlier - quite a bit earlier - and had ensured that no ships were docked when I gave the remove module order. Station had a regular 3M/6S dock originally, had an S/M Ship Maintenance Bay added, so I eventually removed the 3M/6S. No ships were docked when the order do remove given, modules dismantled cleanly. Zero issues. I then added a connector type module where the 3M/6S dock was - just to fill the gap - and that was constructed It was some time after this that the ship randomly exploded, long after any disassembly was complete.

Quite possibly a random mine left over from a recent battle in that area. For example, I've run into mines a few times in Pious Mists II left over from a battle between PAR and HOP. I don't know how long they're supposed to remain active, but there weren't any observable wrecks in the area so it was probably well after the battle. In recent game versions, SCA fighters, for example, seem to spit out a lot of mines. I've found I've needed to be very wary when approaching a bailed ship to claim it due to mines dropped just as it bailed. Evil SCA!

Good thought, but no. No hostilities in the sector for some time, certainly no mines left behind. Oh, my ship didn't leave a wreck either, which is a bit odd right? When clicking the > in the log to go to the location of my destroyed ship, the inventory items were there in a little cluster as usual, but no actual ship wreck model was present. I forgot about that. Seems significant, don't you think? Remember, I spotted this the instant it happened, and the log entry showed 0 minutes ago.

Sometimes when I teleport to a station and get a game over right away, it's usually because some SCA scumbag left an anti-personnel mine there.

You know, I never have issues with mines, I rarely encounter them - except the default Friend/Foe mines covering certain sectors that are totally unreactive. Have you really teleported to a Station and been blown up?

This is probably a case that the reason should be made more detailed. Any action that causes children to be destroyed should pass a reason describing the action itself. So in the case of ships destroyed due to station deconstruction it should be "destroyed by station module deconstruction". This could even contain useful debug information so if you have "destroyed by generic scripted destruction" it likely means some story mission or clean-up logic went wrong which could be reported (something I have experienced in the past).

Could potentially be nested in the case of one action causing another action that destroys a ship. For example "Nova was destroyed by current dock being destroyed caused by 6S3M dock was destroyed by XEN Branch 9 Destroyer I".

It would be nice to understand what the game thought destroyed that ship. I mean, it was flying in clear open space with no enemies for several sectors. It exploded with no further information regarding any attacker and it didn't leave a wreck, but did leave inventory items. A dock module had been dismantled at that station much earlier, but the ship wasn't docked, so that should be a non-issue. It may well have used that dock in the past, but died long after it'd been dismantled.

As mentioned, dismantling a dock can be buggy. Earlier this game, I had another station with the original 3M/6S dock and a new S/M Ship Fabrication bay. Three ships were docked to the original dock, so I manually docked them at the Fab Bay. So, we now have several ships docked at the S/M Ship Fabrication Bay and the original 3M/6S Bay EMPTY. No ships docked. No ships in storage. I then order the 3M6S bay to be dismantled. Those three ships that WERE docked there minutes earlier but I'd MANUALLY flown them to the other dock were instantly destroyed, with no further data. It's like part of the game still thought they were on the dismantled dock, but they weren't. Nor had they been moved to internal storage. I was closely watching this and had saves just before ordering to dock to be removed, as I was suspicious from a prior incident where I "lost" a ship docked elsewhere. If there's that level of delay when it comes to Dock disassembly, perhaps my ship was "deleted" by the same delay bug?

Thought: we all know about the message / log delay issue, introduced in v7.x. I assumed it was purely notifications. Perhaps there are more implications to this delay, i.e. the game wrongly thought a ship was still docked somehow? Seems a stretch, but hey.

I can't explain it, but it certainly looks like some sort of bug. A ship flying in space was destroyed by nothing (according to the log) leaving no wreckage. That strongly suggests some sort of scripted kill event, and not hostile action.

[Irushian]

They really do need to expand on this a bit more within the logs, I did the terraforming mission to unlock SCA rep last night and today I keep getting the unauthorised kill messages but it doesn't tell me anything useful at all, just that I've lost reputation. I have no idea where this happened or what ship(s) were involved. It's quite frustrating. It has been fine the majority of the day but now within the last 5 minutes it has happened 3 times.

Edit: Whilst paused I went around all of my military ships to look for loot crates to give an indication (We shouldn't have to resort to this..). It looks like SCA Harassers don't care about what your reputation is and will attack regardless. If this isn't a bug then in my opinion you shouldn't loose reputation from defending yourself against them otherwise you're going up hill to keep SCA friendly.