Yet more bugs

[Moriartie]

Ok, Some more bugs.

1) Give starships a nav point, and once they get there, they don't stop. Assuming it's their last nav point they'll just continue on indefinately.

2) I had a dynamic campaign mission which required I utilise a farcaster. Going out went fine, but when coming back, after having jumped, the auto-nav tried to fly me through the wall of the farcaster to the next nav point. I turned the auto-nav off then on again but it insisted on trying to fly through the farcaster itself.

3) I don't get the point in dynamically created missions for starships that are anything other than "assault". Anything else and it's just a waste of a cap ship.

4) Minor niggle: When I click "theatre" on the campaign operations menu, it shows me a picture of the star system. Fine. Except that none of the three buttons "Galaxy, System, Sector" are actually selected/lit.

5) Fuel usage bug using 5.01 - Using "standard" newtonian model, it follows that no fuel should be when "cruising" in space. Yet it seems that when using the "Auto" function in conjunction with auto-nav to speed up going between nav points fuel IS still used even though it's already at the nav-point speed.
Note: When the auto function shows you the brief cutscene of your fighter, the ships engines are lit - which implies they're on - even if the ship was already going at the relevent auto-nav speed.

[Dragonlead]

Moriartie,

1. It helps if you give them something to do at the nav point. I have found the hold command works well for getting them to stop in the general vicinity.

2. Manually move your ship out of the way of the farcaster so that you have a clear line of sight to the nav point, then re-engage the autonav. Collision detection has ben an issue that still needs refinement and this is an example.

3. This is your opinion.

4. This would be the system view if you had accessed it through your normal nav screen.

5. This has been discussed ad nasuem in other posts. Milo decided that the fuel usage was constantly "on" because it was feeding the FUSION REACTOR in your ship, not just the engines. That is why they continue to use fuel even when coasting.

V/R

[Moriartie]

1) There's a hold command? Shouldn't it default to that in the first place (if it's the last one)? Seems like a lot of work if you have to do that for each starship and you're the boss.
Also - the AI doesn't use this when it's creating dynamic missions. So if I'm not in command of the squadron leader the other ships will fly off into no-where land unless I quit the mission in a timely fashion after completion.

2) I did manually solve that problem. I was just pointing out path-finding wanted to kill me.

3) Opinion? Ok. I've been on about 8 non-assaults with cap ships. Only one of them even had fighters to kill. The other's just had me running about doing nothing - no threats. I got exactly 10 points from completing each of them! So I'd say it's a weighted opinion in that flying around empty space for 10 points isn't too fun.
Also: Isn't a destroyer's primary mission goal to destroy other cap ships? Sending it on a fighter hunt seems a little excessive.

4) I know it's system view. My niggle was that the system view button wasn't lit.

-------

And some more bugs:

6) Pathfinding again: I had command of the 60th destroyer squadrom. Off hunting we did go. I gave them some nav points. One of the frigates decided to crash into a space station. Sorta miffed me that one did.

7) Where you go to load/save a campaign game, I selected a save and clicked "delete" but it didn't get deleted. Tried several more and they didn't get deleted either.

8) Maybe I'm just doing this wrong, but when I had my destroyer squadron (I was in control of the leader) I ordered the other ships to "form up". But they didn't try to change their position. Simiarly I set them all to "box" and later "diamond" but they didn't try to assume either formation. I tried this when I was both stationary and moving but they didn't join up (their were no set nav points).
Note: I haven't tried using Alt-F yet.

9) When I'm in command of the 60th squadron, how come the radio list also has the capital ships from the carrier group? I can't order them around.

10) I have my destroyer squadron in a different Sector to the Carrier. When I open "nav" view and select "starships" before choosing the carrier or any of it's escort, the nav view centres on the Sun in the middle of the system, rather than the sector the ships are in. It also doesn't give textual information about those ships (i.e. location hull strength etc). Same lack of info or centering when I try and select a station (and those things don't move).

11) I'm not sure if this is a bug or intentional - When I select multiple ships in my Destroyer squadron, and then I right click over one of those ships to give orders (say to lower EMCOM), the orders will only be given to the ship that was right-clicked over, not to all selected. Now as I said, maybe this is intentional, but it makes giving the entire fleet orders something of a chore.


I don't mean to complain, it's just that some of these are quite unfortunate (ie. the lack of being able to leave your ships alone for 20 seconds without someone colliding with something) and I really want to be able to enjoy the game more.


Edit:
12) I'm flying my Destroyer with Xray lasers set to auto-fire as I don't seem to be able to gimball them myself. Except that when I'm cycling through targets I target one of my own destroyers. The xray lasers fire! Shouldn't they only fire for hostile IFF's? Or at the very least all non-allied IFF's?

[Dragonlead]

Moriartie,

6. Yes, this is a known issue and again seems to be tied into the collision detection programming.

7. You can go to the SaveGame folder in the main directory and delete the files there. I'm not sure why it doesn't work in-game.

8. The "form up" command and associated formations are for fighters (at least that's the only time I've seen them work). I have found the "cover me" command will at least get them near you most of the time.

9. This is probably a hold-over from the fighters where you can request back-up and clearnce to land, etc.

10. The nav view remains on whatever you were last viewing, so that could explain the issue.

11. Giving commands can be a chore. I have yet to find an easier way to do it.

12. 2 things on this one. All you have to do is get the target within the big ring in the F1 view and your lasers will automatically sight in (even on manual fire). If you have them on auto-fire, be careful. As the captain, your gunnery officer will shoot at anything the captain targets. To avoid this issue, put your XO in charge. The drawback is that the XO will not target subsystems.

V/R

[Moriartie]

7) I know this - but seeing as they're only about 50k I don't exactly need the disk space.

8) I've taken to making other capships "escort" me from the F3 view. Seems to be the best way to handle it.
And should commands that don't work not be available?

9) But you can't request backup (believe me I looked - had much need for it ). But one of the options for the carrier is "return to base" which seems odd.

10) I'm guessing I wasn't clear. I know the nav view stays on the unit. But when I go to select another unit, and that unit wasn't in the same sector as I was, the nav view didn't center on it or give any details.

12a) "All you have to do is get the target within the big ring in the F1 view and your lasers will automatically sight in (even on manual fire)" - They don't - at least on manual fire they only fire exactly straight ahead - no gimballing from what I can see.
12b) That makes "cycling" targets rather hazardous doesn't it? As I suggested it'd make more sense to fire on anything with a hostile or non-allied IFF. It'd only take one "if statement" to implement I suspect.



-------

And some more

13) This is more of an oddity. When I'm running the game, even on the main menu, the game itself uses practically zero CPU usage. The oddity is that when I alt-tab out of the game and am in Windows with the game still running in the background - the game uses 100% of the CPU.

14) On the nav screen on the right is shows details about the currently selected ship. One of those details is "Orders". Except that it shows "none" even when the F3 view shows that the selected ship does have orders (i.e. Escort).

15) Ok, I've already complained that fighters like to "off" themselves when docking, but here's some new behaviour to me:



It launched twice in a row with no docking in between. And it then it collided twice in a row. AND THEN it launched again.
This happened to several of my fighters actually after a long engagement (I was in command of a destroyer squadron so had no idea what the figs were doing).

[Moriartie]

16) See picture:


On the left we have "before" forces for the carrier, and on the right "after". I wasn't in command of the carrier and this was after a long operation. It seems the AI Hegemony carrier lost similar numbers.
Anyhow, as you can see, the fighter wing has practically nothing left - anything that wasn't killed by the enemy (about half) were destroyed in "collision with" events. So this really should be looked into, as I am now fighting with a severely weakened carrier for the rest of the campaign. Either that or I should make sure all the missions I fly are short enough as to not allow any fighters to RTB (less than 20 mins).

17) The above pic also provides confirmation of the theory (someone else posited it in another thread, can't recall which/who) that the AI doesn't use Thunderbolt's - there were plenty of enemy cap-ships flying around looking to get killed so there was no reason not to.

[Moriartie]

Bunch more bugs.

18) I control a destroyer squadron - rank commander. When I'm in-game on the nav screen I can't give orders/add navs to ships that are not in my squadron. Fine.
Yet in the pre-mission setup I can set up nav points for all ships, including the Archon!
Note: I can do this even if I'm not in command of the squadron leading ship itself.
Note2: You can cheat using this. Say you're given a pointless "escort freighter" mission with your over-powered destroyer squad (fighters are the only thing that're good against fighters). Can't be bothered waiting for the freighter? Just alter it's nav points so it only has a couple km to fly.

19) I'd used the above "cheat" to give a frieghter I was supposed to escort a really short hop (so I could use my destroyers for other, more useful things, like carrier hunting). The freighter had one nav point. But when I started the mission, the frieghter had added a second nav point to a farcaster. This happened several times.


20) Carriers run away (quantum jump) a lot. This is fine. Except that they jump into another sector and then seem to go as far away out of that sector as they can. I just had a couple of carriers jump to Solus. 20+ mins later I jumped into Solus, and even though the Nav page told me they were in-sector, when I clicked on their info it couldn't centre on them (one of them was 1200km away and well off the map.
Note: One of the carriers (Goliath) ran away to another sector and then flew in a straight line (as above). Except there was a space station along it's route. It just went straight into it - lost half of its hull points in the resulting collision.
Another carrier (the Manticore) died doing the exact same thing.

21) Relating to the above: Another attempt at the mission - the Goliath Q-jumped off so I q-jumped after to a probable system. Anyway, the system I jumped to didn't have the Goliath in (checked the nav-map - if you're in the same system as a ship it'll give you details about the ship) so I headed to a farcaster (QJ was still charging). I pressed Y to see if there was anything, and it selected the Goliath, but only few a fraction of a second. I managed to catch a screenshot in that interval (took a few tries) which shows the goliath "targetted" only 33km away but you can't see the goliath itself. The goliath was moving from left to right (from that perspective) and "appeared" to go through the farcaster you can see in the screenie.
Also - My X-Ray lasers were set to autofire and whenever I briefly selected the goliath they'd try and fire at it.
Note: The screenshot is attached to this post. I adjusted the brightness/contrast to make it easier to see the goliath isn't really there.

22) The two frigates in my group seem to have a fixation. I've aborted and restarted this mission a few times and they keep doing this:
Two enemy fighters come up from the south to try and kill something. My frigates are headed south so have a direct course to them. Both frigates keep repeating over and over:
Belfast engaging target. Lima 1
Canton engaging target. Lima 1
Belfast engaging target. Lima 1
Canton engaging target. Lima 1
Belfast engaging target. Lima 1
Canton engaging target. Lima 1
Belfast engaging target. Lima 1
Canton engaging target. Lima 1
It happens at least 4 times each in rapid succession. Funnily enough even though there is a destroyer nearby (closer than one of the frigates) it never participates in this, even though it has the same generic orders.
Note: This happens plenty of other times when the frigates had different orders.

23) The mission debreifing logs for a ship do not record farcaster jumps. Only Quantum Jumps.

24) On the nav screen, how can you have an "escort" mission for a nav point? Or an assault mission for that matter? I thought they required target ships? Also, there is a nav option to use the quantum jump, but no apparent way to chose the destination.

25) Should a wing of two Razor's be able to take out a (AI) frigate single handedly? I thought frigates were supposed to be good at anti-fighter stuff? This seems to happen far too often. And much of the time the fighters don't even take damage.

26) You can keep "transfering" yourself to the ship that you are currently in command of and the game will keep approving your transfers. Just seems a little silly.

27) How come the AI's auto-nav uses 100% thrust and yet mine only uses 50%? Even when the nav point speed is 1000 I only ever get 50% from auto-nav. And it can't be fuel use when this happens on starships.

28) I had ordered the other elements of my destroyer squad to "escort" me using the F3 screen. I then had cause to quantum out of the sector. Problem was, the other destroyer in the squadron (the frigates had died by now) then went flying in a seemingly random direction off the map (ignoring nav points and with no radar contacts for it to engage in that direction). I suspect it was trying to continue "escorting" me. I had no way of cancelling the escort orders as F3 doesn't work for other sectors.
Similarly a destroyer was targetting a carrier which jumped out. The destroyed didn't seem to obey nav orders after that.

29) I compeleted "Operation highland" by destroying the manticore carrier (before the goliath). I recieved No Operation Highland medal (as shown in the manual) and once I'd clicked "ok" to the debriefing I just saw a semi-blank screen, like the game wanted to show me something but didn't know what. Clicking close on that resulted in the next campaign starting.

30) Just started "Operating Shining fortress". Looking at the Marakan forces I note the 8th battalion, but when I click the + icon it doesn't open the list of the battalions contents (even though the scroll bar moves to imply there is content).

31) TAC Reference page inconsistancies:
- The DD Broadsword class says it has two "Rail-5" guns. However the weapons page of the TAC has no Rail-5 gun on it.
- The DD Volnaris class has text saying it has 3 fusion torp launchers. But the list of weapons to the left of the text shows only 1 fusion torp.
- The DD Volnaris text also says lots of stuff about it's ORCA turrets, however the left thing says it is using RAIL-12's.
- The model for the FF Marauder looks much more like a fighter than a frigate. The thing claims to be 400m long, yet the "bridge" windows extend at least 1/4 the way back making them about 100m long!
- The FF Tiger's mass is much lower than any of the other frigates, inspite of the fact it's by far the longest.
- The CA Couragous has a length on par with a destroyer (less than most of them actually!) yet it's mass is double many DD's.

32) When I exit the TAC to play the game it doesn't free the RAM. This can result in 600+MB of RAM being used by the game alone (and the min-specs are only 512MB)!

[Moriartie]

E-gads that's a long list.

Couple more:
19) Addendum - It also adds a Nav point for the frieghter even if I don't touch the frieghter's navs at all. Of course the really funny thing is that if I do protect the freighter it'll then collide with the farcaster at the final nav point (see bug 2 I guess). Fortunately I'd already "Completed" my mission by then.

32) The team score thing - Is it supposed to go down? Because I had it at 9770. I did another mission, 3 of our destroyers + 2 frigates were killed. He lost 2 destroyers + 2 frigates (no idea as to the fighter losses). Team score afterward = 9650 (I personally recieved about 1200+ points for that mission).
I did the mission again and this time it dropped from 9770 to 9600.

33) I was cruising in my destroyer. Full thrust, auto nav off but pointing at the nav point. I pressed "auto" but when I re-emerged, my thrust was only 3/4. If I'm manually in control why is it altering my thrust?

[Moriartie]

Even more of them (I'm now in campaign two and playing with cruisers ).

34) The Devastator class cruiser has a number of bugs:
- The engineering section (plus TAC) says it has Gamma beams. Yet the weapons console says Graser's.
- Shields seem to flicker, at least the shield bar in the bottom left does (the engineering is fine) - I haven't even been in combat yet so no damage. It settles down a little when shields are at max, but only a little.
- The Gamma Beam 3 is called Gamma Beam 33 in engineering.
- The engines produce a very very bright white glare, which is fine, except that it makes it near-impossible to use the F2 view with this ship type whilst engines are on.

[wdboyd]

Moriartie,

It seems you should find another game to play. You obviously are having problems and are displeased with this one.

You obviously have a lot of time on your hands. Hey, why not program a game of your own and share it with us. With your obvious attention to every detail, it would be allmost perfect. [:'(]

I will look forward to it. [:D]

We all will. We won't hold our breath while waiting though. [8|]

Have a nice day. [:)]

[FrattonFreak]

ORIGINAL: wdboyd

Moriartie,

It seems you should find another game to play. You obviously are having problems and are displeased with this one.

You obviously have a lot of time on your hands. Hey, why not program a game of your own and share it with us. With your obvious attention to every detail, it would be allmost perfect. [:'(]

I will look forward to it. [:D]

We all will. We won't hold our breath while waiting though. [8|]

Have a nice day. [:)]

What a strange comment[8|]
Clearly a game is bought on the basis it will be played. Moriartie's bug finding is exactly why a good game in principle is not allowed to become one, even the demo is bugged, not a good advertisement

Should the software vendor employee someone like Moriartie as their software tester or even beta tester then this would be a better game. Providing they addressed the bugs

However, despite Moriartie detailing the bugs, as others have done there is very, very little response for the software house regarding support and bug fixing.

This is a shame and a big disappointment[:-]

[Moriartie]

Find another game to play? Well apart from the fact that I come across bugs in practically every game I play. :-p
Also, had I paid money for this game, why would I want to set it aside to play another? That would be a bad idea from a fiscal perspective.

As I pointed out, I think this game has lots of potential, that doesn't mean I'm not allowed to find bugs in it. In this case it's clearly constructive criticism, plain criticism is just saying "it's buggy, live with it or play another game" without offering details.

I created that bug list with the intention that maybe the devs would read it and bother fixing them. It's apparent they either didn't/don't have access to decent Quality Control, or they just can't be bothered to fix bugs. I was trying to be optimistic and think it was the former, thus giving them the benefit of my bug finding experience.

Oh and I have done game programming before - it was an open source project and in its current incarnation there are practically no known bugs though it is significantly less complex than SS :-p .

I think I'll just mail milo a link to this thread seeing as hes been MIA for over a month apparently.

[Nerevarine]

I'd very much like the crash in the Nightfall campaign to be fixed. I patched the game but I guess this is a new crash-bug. I've been playing the game non-stop getting all into it and now this = not cool.

Annoying bugs I found, were launching and my HUD is gone, music track gets stuck playing, even if I turn music off or start a new mission, PDB shoots down incoming missiles but can't target those launched from fighters (*cough*-*cough*)...

[wdboyd]

"PDB shoots down incoming missiles but can't target those launched from fighters (*cough*-*cough*)..."
 
PDBs can shoot down torpedoes. Not missiles. In the simulation, missiles CANNOT be targeted by PDBs. Torpedoes are actually designated as drones in the simulation and they ARE targetable.
 
Missiles can only be DECOYED. ie the fighters decoy flare. Although, a missile can be destroyed by direct weapon fire, but it is difficult. 

[wdboyd]

"What a strange comment"

Not strange at all. There are characters like Moriartie that get there kicks and satisfaction from constantly complaining. He even admits his fault finding in other games. He's probably less concerned about getting problems fixed than just in venting.

I have experianced problems with the simulation, but many can be explained away in the games SDK documentation, game manual and other modding information. Perfect? No, but a great game nonetheless. [;)]

Keep em flying. [:D]

[Moriartie]

Not strange at all. There are characters like Moriartie that get there kicks and satisfaction from constantly complaining. He even admits his fault finding in other games. He's probably less concerned about getting problems fixed than just in venting.

Oh yes, definately. That's why I made a large numbered list with details rather than:

"THis is broken, that is broken, fix them".
The fact I sent a nice, polite email to milo also hints against this rather hap-hazard flying.
And of course there's the minor detail that I fix these bugs in my own programs, so it's not like I'm being a hypocrite.

Try not making erroneous assumptions

[wdboyd]

Nobody implied you were a hypocrite... just a chronic complainer. Not an assumption... an observation, based upon what you were doing.

So you fix such things huh... all I read were your many declared bugs... nowhere is there a suggestion from you on how to fix anythng. Ergo... my assertion remains... you complain just to be a complainer.

That's Ok. That's just who you are. So be it. Have a nice life. [:)]

[Moriartie]

I think you mis-interpretted my fixing comment. What I meant was that if I find such bugs in my own programs I fix them.
I don't suggest fixes to these bugs explicitly because they're obvious.
See number... 20 (random number)
Problem - ships running into stationary objects after quantuming. The solutions is obvious - fix the pathfinding.
I do NO complain to be a complainer (well not in this instance), I do it to get things fixed. It just seems I wasted my time here. In other games, things i've reported have been fixed and this made the game better for everyone.
You seem to find it hard to conceive of such a thing. No matter.

[Psycho0124]

I think Moriartie is doing a service to everyone by making a clear cut list of the games bugs. This is an easily referanced resource for anyone wishing to make a patch for the game and I for one commend him for making the effort.

Aircraft ground crews, building inspectors, medical professionals (especially dentists) make a living by noticing and pointing out potential problem areas. We dont label them as compainers (except those blasted dentists) because it is often usefull to be aware of the problems. The word "fanboy" comes to mind when I read your post WDBOYD.. The game is not perfect reguardless of how you feel about it. In fact, I think you assume that because Moriartie is pointing out bugs, he is somehow detracting for the game itsself. You seem to take this as some kind of personal attack (classic fanboy behavior) which explains your last abrasive post here. Bug reports have a very usefull purpose and the people that make them should never be disuaded. Shame on you boyd...

[wdboyd]

Salutations,
 
YES, I am a fan of Starshatter. Have been such for a L O N G time. [:'(] [:)] [:D]
 
No apology here. [:'(]
 
I'm not like some newcomers. [:-]
 
I know where the simulation has come from. A lot of people helped in the creation and in the process of its growth and creation. They had input into all facets of the game. So, I have no problem with that. I just know when someone is really sincere in helping with the simulation and when they are complaining just to see their copius list of real or perceived game problems/quirks shared for the sake of complaining.
 
I myself have been frustrated with parts of the simulation in the past. It isn't perfect but it sure is fun to play and mod with. [:'(]
 
I won't comment on this particular topic further. No sense in beating a dead horse.  [:D]