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In my current game, there are quite a few automated construction ships in Gravitic Storms that are idle. Meanwhile, there are plenty of queued construction jobs (mining stations to build). But they’re not taking those jobs and remain idle. Some are fully automated, others have specialized automation (ex: build research stations).

As far as I can tell, those ships have no damage, but their shields are almost completely depleted.

On the other hand, there are some manually controlled construction ships also in Gravitic Storms, but their shields are intact!?! And they have the exact same design as the shield-depleted automated ones (CST-4 Space Dock).

That design has a tier 1 Ion Shield (Ion Damage Defense: 24) and one tier 1 Ion Sheath Armor (Ion Damage Defense: 8.00 and a reactive rating of 5).

The Galactopedia says that the Gravitic Storms have the following effects:

* Ion Damage: 8 max (mitigate with Ion Defense)
* Standard Damage: 5 max (mitigate with Reactive Armor)
* Speed Modifier: -50%

According to that, those ships should be protected even in Gravitic Storms... Unless there’s some hidden mechanic at play... or a bug...

So my questions are:

* Automated CS not taking jobs and having depleted shield (while manual CS are OK): bug or mechanic?
* Any explanations for the shields difference between that automated and manually controlled CS?

In case anyone would like to look at the save:

Does this issue persist when reloading a save? Do you have enough resources and cash for the construction ships to take on the construction missions?

Yes to all your questions:

- the issue does remain after reloading the save
- I have plenty of money
- Plenty of construction resources (mining rate higher than demand in all cases)

Are you sure these are Gravitic storms and not Ion Storms or Radiation Zones? Sometimes they overlap. No shields and stationary sounds like no energy to me.

Yes, they are in Gravitic storms. And they DO have energy (for instance: 228 on 240 energy), it's the shields that are at 0 (or near 0). And all that without anything damaged, destroyed or disabled.

Do you happen to know what version of DW2 you started the game with?

Old implementations of certain Nebulas depleted shields (faster than they could recharge) at that point the shields could no longer protect against Ion effects. If this makes any sense.

It does make sense, and it matches what I'm seeing. But the game was started with 1.3.1.0 (Beta) and I'm now with 1.3.1.1 (Beta).

When you say 'old implementations', how far back are we talking?

Don't know if it was necessary or not, but I've created an entry in the tech support sub-forum, pointing to this thread.

The tier 0-1-2 Electromagnetic Defences research project in the ion weapons bit of the research tree used to make almost all of the nebula bugs/problems go away. Acquire it before you enter nebula.

If construction ships are broken I do wonder if this means fighter type ships in nebula's are back to being exploded by the nebula effects too.

In the game I have just finished I experienced the same thing throughout the whole game:
construction ships refuse to leave nebulas once they are inside.

I had to manually move them out then switch them back to auto mode.

varangy wrote: Fri Aug 29, 2025 7:42 pm In the game I have just finished I experienced the same thing throughout the whole game:
construction ships refuse to leave nebulas once they are inside.

I had to manually move them out then switch them back to auto mode.

Do you have a save showing this?