Strange Reclamation Situation

[Jefferson]

I have encountered an interesting relamation situation without any clear cause.  Just now I reclaimed 14 ships from an exo-galactic strike force gunning for the shard I was escorting, although I have reclaimed a few ships during previous ventures into AI Territory.  My champion dosent have any reclamation turrents, nor do are there any parasite ships in the field that would cause reclamation damage.  The only parasites in the game are the 4 parasite starships sitting on my whipping boy, even the AI dosen't use parasites.  I do have the Botnet Golem with my fleet (more like Son of the Cookie Monster), but afaik it dosen't cause any reclamation damage.  I was wondering if anyone had any insight into what could cause this situation.

[Diazo]

As far as I know, the Botnet does in fact do reclamation damage.

From the first line of its description:

"Reclaims enemy ships it kills (reclaimed ships have health = full damage inflicted by reclamator). Reclaimed ships come back as Zombie Bots, which cannot be controlled but which will attack enemy ships mercilessly until they die."

Now, if you mean you are reclaiming ships into your control, not as zombie bots, then I'm not sure.

Did you grab a leech starship by accident when selecting your fleet earlier?

Also, did you have ships run away earlier? It is possible they were survivors of a previous attack on your whipping boy.

I'm not sure what the conditions for clearing reclamation damage is, I've had ships take damage from parasites and not lose them to AI control until 20 minutes later when a different wave of ships actually killed them.

D.

[Jefferson]

They were indeed under my control, and there was no leech starship in my fleet.  As for the running away, that would indeed make some sense since I only have 30 mk 1 tractors.  I had just assumed they were appart of the exo-galactic strike force.

[Diazo]

If it is important enough you can post a save for others to look at to see if there is a little detail somewhere.


However, I now have a question of my own for the forum. There is a Botnet along, the Botnet reclaims a ship that has the reclamation ability as a zombie. That zombie then reclaims a ship, what happens to that second reclaimed ship?

I don't think this applies to your game as you mentioned the AI does not have ships with the reclamation ability unlocked but this thread made me think about it.

D.

[Jefferson]

Nah it's not important, I just was curious and figured someone had a thought (as you did) as to what could have caused this.  Thanks 

[TechSY730]

Ships are supposed to get their reclaimation damage reset when they go through a wormhole, but I have long suspected something fishy is going on where sometimes it isn't. This may be more evidence for this suspicion.

Just thought about the "shots trying to hit a ship going through a wormhole will instantly hit the ship when it does go through" logic, does this fire before or after the reclaimation damage is reset? Because if it is after, that would be a way for reclaimation damage to survive wormhole traversal, by having the reclaimation damage hit the ship after the reset takes place.

EDIT:

However, I now have a question of my own for the forum. There is a Botnet along, the Botnet reclaims a ship that has the reclamation ability as a zombie. That zombie then reclaims a ship, what happens to that second reclaimed ship?

I think the reclaimers are immune to zombiefication (and indeed, reclaimation) in the first place, which would take care of this.

[Jefferson]

I think the reclaimers are immune to zombiefication (and indeed, reclaimation) in the first place, which would take care of this.

I just checked the game (cycling f1 is quite useful) and parasites (and the teleporter ones) are immune to reclamation.  Also, I'm wondering if its true the reclamation damage isn't being reset, if the occasional regenerator golem (which spawns ships elsewhere in the galaxy iirc) could be a contributor.

Edit:
Random Tidbit: on the note of Zombies, Zombie medic frigates are incapable of repairing anything, I guess since the faction they belong to doesn't have any resources.

[keith.lamothe]

I've checked the code multiple times over the past several months to see if it was resetting parasite damage when changing planets, and I can find no way that a planet's currentPlanet reference can be changed (by wormhole traversal or anything else) without the reclamation-damage-per-player array being set to null first.

[Jefferson]

Interesting, so there is no way that my parasites the reclamation.  Wonder what the cause was then, must be a Ghost in the Machine (AI).

[Bognor]

I've also had several experiences when my Botnet Golem generated many dozens of zombies but also a few player-controllable reclaimed ships.  I'm pretty sure that in at least one case I'd never had any other reclaiming ship on that planet.  These were before Botnets were split to a new faction.

[TechSY730]

I've checked the code multiple times over the past several months to see if it was resetting parasite damage when changing planets, and I can find no way that a planet's currentPlanet reference can be changed (by wormhole traversal or anything else) without the reclamation-damage-per-player array being set to null first.

Good to know that has been thoroughly checked. Thanks.

[Toranth]

I've also had several experiences when my Botnet Golem generated many dozens of zombies but also a few player-controllable reclaimed ships.  I'm pretty sure that in at least one case I'd never had any other reclaiming ship on that planet.  These were before Botnets were split to a new faction.

I've seen this occasionally, too.

By far the oddest reclamation strangeness I can recall seeing was when I used a Spire Capital Fleet (and nothing else) to destroy everything in an AI system except the Command Center - only to discover several reclaimed Remains Rebuilders sitting there afterwards.  It's happened several times, but I've never been able to duplicate it on demand.

[TechSY730]

I've also had several experiences when my Botnet Golem generated many dozens of zombies but also a few player-controllable reclaimed ships.  I'm pretty sure that in at least one case I'd never had any other reclaiming ship on that planet.  These were before Botnets were split to a new faction.

I've seen this occasionally, too.

By far the oddest reclamation strangeness I can recall seeing was when I used a Spire Capital Fleet (and nothing else) to destroy everything in an AI system except the Command Center - only to discover several reclaimed Remains Rebuilders sitting there afterwards.  It's happened several times, but I've never been able to duplicate it on demand.

I wonder if there is a (supposed to be) non-reclaim weapon somewhere that is erroneously doing at least a little reclamation damage.

[Hearteater]

I wonder, how long do Reclamation Parasites stick around?  If you land one shot on a ship for reclamation damage and kill it, those parasites could bounce around to a cloacked unit like a Rebuilder Drone or Engineer III.  Then, hour later you might kill those and get them reclaimed "magically."

[keith.lamothe]

I wonder, how long do Reclamation Parasites stick around?  If you land one shot on a ship for reclamation damage and kill it, those parasites could bounce around to a cloacked unit like a Rebuilder Drone or Engineer III.  Then, hour later you might kill those and get them reclaimed "magically."

They stick around until the unit changes planets.  Or, I just discovered, until save/load, but that will be fixed