strange sector behavior

[Neill Carson]

Problem: instead of the mission starting in the sector where it is suppossed to, I am placed in the Marander sector, and cannot get to any of the mission designated sectors. Also, the mission starts without launch sequence, even tho flying start is NOT enabled. It also seems to put you thru the farcaster sequence, but leaves you stranded in space. The only way out is to abort the mission. Am I doing something wrong?[&:]

[Burzmali]

No, the carrier jumped to a different sector just prior to your take off, just abort and fast forward a few minutes and try again.

[Neill Carson]

Thanks.

[John DiCamillo]

I'm trying really hard to reproduce this bug so I can fix it, but I just can't seem to make it happen. For those of you have have seen it, is there a reliable course of actions that will bring it about?

Also, can I get a clearer description of exactly what is happening? That might help me diagnose it or lead to a method for fixing it. As I understand it,

1. You have "flying start" disabled
2. You start a campaign mission as a fighter (any particular type?)
3. Your fighter appears floating in space next to your wingman, as if you were on the deck of a carrier, but the carrier just isn't there
4. Your fighter goes through the catapult sequence, as if it were sitting on a real flight deck
5. At some point, you see a warp effect (before or after you "launch"?)
6. After the warp effect, you are still in space, stranded in a different sector from the carrier (does this seem to be the same sector you started out in?)

Did I miss anything? Does anyone know if the sector you are left stranded in follows any pattern (e.g. is it the sector your squadron has been assigned to, is it the sector that is listed as the starting point for the mission)? How soon after the simulation loads does the warp effect occur?

It seems to me that it should be possible to duplicate this with a scripted mission. The dynamic campaign engine is simply a means for creating scripted missions on the fly; the simulation doesn't really know or care whether the mission comes from a mod, a dynamic campaign, or is downloaded from a multiplayer server. But I can't find the wacky set of parameters that will cause this behavior to manifest.

[James Sterrett]

The dynamic campaign engine is simply a means for creating scripted missions on the fly; the simulation doesn't really know or care whether the mission comes from a mod, a dynamic campaign, or is downloaded from a multiplayer server.

Sooo...... How hard would it be to enable a multiplayer cooperative campaign mode? [X(][:)][&o]

[John DiCamillo]

James: Really hard. The multiplayer code doesn't have any support for transmitting campaign state, just mission events. There's also no GUI support for multiplayer in the campaign screen. Months of work, minimum.

Getting back to the main topic, points 3 and 4 in my list above suggest to me that the carrier is simply in a different sector from the player's fighter when the mission is loaded. The flight deck code doesn't check to make sure the two ships are colocated. It just moves the fighter through space along the catapult track. The question is, what bizare combination of mission settings will cause that to happen?

The second question is, why does the player see a warp animation? That should only happen if the carrier goes through a jump sequence while the fighter is within 5km, and that code only works if the fighters are in the same sector as the carrier.

My head hurts.

[Burzmali]

It usually happens after a jump has been annouched in the Intel Screen.

[James Sterrett]

Too bad. [:(] (Seemed to me that your comments on the campaign engine implied that the campaign could be hosted on machine A, and only A; and on mission selection, that mission goes out to connected players {B, C, ...n}, with the results tabulated only on machine A.)

[John DiCamillo]

James:

That's mostly true. Except that in that case, only player A would even know he was playing a dynamic campaign. All of the stuff in the campaign screens would not be visible on any other machine. And one other detail - campaign missions usually have way more ships in action than multiplayer missions can support (meaning the network bandwidth is prohibitive).

Burzmali:

Yes, I've read that. Another player reported that the problem would usually show up on the first mission after a cold-start of the game. Unfortunately, I still can't reproduce this behavior. I mean, I've never seen this problem happen even once in more than seven years of playing and developing Starshatter.

[James Sterrett]

Gotcha. The nothing-visible could be worked around by player comms ("We've got these missions available next!") though I agree that's not great; and the bandwidth issue is a killer.

Ah well. Thaks for explaining, in any event! [:(]

[DarkkOrbit]

John:
I am surprised to read that you have not been able to reproduce this behavior, because it happens to me every single time I re-enter a campaign. The way I deal with it is to skip ahead several missions until eventually I reach one that launches normally.
But last night, I experienced The Ultimate Bug. Every mission I launched in Operation Firestorm stuck me [literally] inside a farcaster. Pressing ESC/Abort Mission didn't work; the game was completely locked up. The only way out was ALT+F4. [I think this is because of the single-auto-save-file thing.] I'll attempt to attach a screenshot.
There was no way around it; I was forced to start Operation Firestorm back at the beginning. This all happened toward the very end of my third swing through the campaign and, as I was assured of victory this time, to say I was frustrated is putting it mildly.
I'm running Starshatter on Windows XP with a 2.6GHz Celeron, 768 MB Ram, and a PNY 128MB GeForce FX 5200 video card, so there is no way the problem lies with my computer.
Having said all that, you're becoming my personal hero. Starshatter is the one I've been waiting for all my life [I'm 35]. I can't say enough about it. The background history, the GUI, the manual -- they're all brilliant. The first computer game I ever played was 'Star Trek' ... on a teletype.
I'm looking forward to the inevitable patches, tweaks, and mods as Starshatter continues to develop. I'm glad I'm here at the beginning.
Kind regards,
Jack Higgins aka Como. DarkkOrbit
22nd Tactical Fighter Wing
'Atlas' Carrier Group
Kolchev System

[Pheonix Starflare]

ORIGINAL: John DiCamillo

1. You have "flying start" disabled

Yes

2. You start a campaign mission as a fighter (any particular type?)

Yes. I know it's happened to me flying a falcon, but it might have happened flying either a thunderbolt or stormhawk also, i tend to jump around a lot from squadron to squadron.

3. Your fighter appears floating in space next to your wingman, as if you were on the deck of a carrier, but the carrier just isn't there

Trying to remember, I don't think I had a wingman next to me on the 'deck.' I believe I had an element i could order around via the comm menu, but i think they didnt respond to any orders to form up or report in (out of radio range?)

4. Your fighter goes through the catapult sequence, as if it were sitting on a real flight deck

Exactly.

5. At some point, you see a warp effect (before or after you "launch"?)

It happens, iirc, immediately as you enter the mission, before the launch sequence.

6. After the warp effect, you are still in space, stranded in a different sector from the carrier (does this seem to be the same sector you started out in?)

Sorry, can't be any help here, this hasn't happened often/recently enough for me to notice a pattern.
The only pattern I've noted is what Burzmali noted, that this usually occurs after the carrier task force has made a jump, perhaps as a response to enemy attacks. Are the mission locations being updated correctly when the jump occurs when the player isn't flying a mission? If the missions are generated then the carrier jumps, perhaps the missions aren't updated retroactively?

Another thought, milo. If you have a mission scripted that you feel should/ought to trigger this bug, but its not happening on your rig, post it/e-mail it to people to have them try it. Perhaps there's some wonky hardware thingy involved.

Good luck with this milo. And again, let the community know if you want us to test anything for you.

[Pheonix Starflare]

I just had this happen to me again. My wingmen were there and the jump happened as soon as the mission loaded and right before the launch sequence.

[DarkkOrbit]

Since updating to 4.0.3, I haven't experienced this behavior.