tug bugs

[PhilRoi]

still seeing tug's pushing ships out of bounds after the update.  though it was an old save game so i may not see that one when i start over with a fresh game.

also it seems tug's cannot move a ship that has zero engine.

tugs ARE dropping there tractor beams when ships get ehaled up now though! 

[x4000]

still seeing tug's pushing ships out of bounds after the update.  though it was an old save game so i may not see that one when i start over with a fresh game.

I'm wondering if that isn't related to the old save, yeah.  I still haven't seen it in any save except that one.  I'll take another look later if you see it in another game later, but for now I'm thinking it's probably okay.

also it seems tug's cannot move a ship that has zero engine.

Tugs can't move ships that are immobile, and that's by design -- no dragging turrets or whatever.  If they are having trouble dragging mobile ships with shot-out engines, that's a bug indeed -- I've added that to my list to check into.

tugs ARE dropping there tractor beams when ships get ehaled up now though! 

Great!  Thanks, as always!

[glyptar]

Hello hello,

I just bought the game (from Impulse) two or three days ago, and I noticed the repair station is completely unusable for me. It will only repair one ship at a time, if it repairs anything at all, and the tugs tend to push ships all the way to the left and right side of the map instead of taking them to the repair station.

I'm wondering if that isn't related to the old save, yeah.  I still haven't seen it in any save except that one.  I'll take another look later if you see it in another game later, but for now I'm thinking it's probably okay.

I don't know if PhilRoi saw it again, but I figured this would be a good place to post, instead of making a new subject.

I should have made some screenshots/attach a savegame... but may have kinda sorta got a bit frustrated and ragequit. Sooo, none of that, sorry.

Anyway, figured I'd drop a line here instead of just fuming.

[x4000]

Hi there glyptar, welcome to the forums, and thanks for your support of the game!

That is a very curious issue -- are you on version 1.009 of the game?  So far as I know, things should be working correctly in that version (most of those issues from PhilRoi were in releases, often prereleases, from before that).  Sorry to hear about your frustrations there, but if you're able to see that again, please do send me a savegame if it comes up.  Right now I've just tested this again, and I can't duplicate it at all -- I'm really wondering if you were on an older version of the game, where that was a known issue.

[MorphingJar]

Hi all.  I just got the game yesterday and immediately upgraded to the 1.010B release.  And I too have see this happen lots of times.  I even played my first multiplayer match with someone and was experiencing this.  At first he thought it was wierd until I brought a repair station up to help one of his pushes and my Tugs started running away with his units.  One of them simply spazzed out and shook all over the place.  

I have found the easy way to counteract this is to select all tugs and move them somewhere.

Engine damage is not a factor here as the ships being dragged more often than not have zero engine damage.

[x4000]

Hi MorphingJar, thanks for the post, and welcome to the forums!

That is very interesting, I'll take another look through the code and see if I can find where this might be happening from, but right now I'm still not seeing it.  If you have a savegame with this in it, or if you have any steps for duplicating this issue, they would be much appreciated!

[MorphingJar]

I'm actually starting up a game right now to see if i can reproduce it .  Happens frequently enough.

[glyptar]

Alrighty, here's a savegame with a tug doing it's merry thing over on the bottom left side of the map.

I was taking the system the station is in now (the only system I own that's not my home), put up the repair station, everything worked stellar until I moved the station. Now there wasn't much left to repair once I moved the station, since basically I wanted everything dead before bringing it out of the little defensive pocket over by the wormhole... but one tug managed to get lost anyway.

Hope it helps!

[x4000]

Thanks, glyptar!  That should really help, and I'll let you know as soon as I have a fix ready for it.  I had a stroke of inspiration about what this might be, and your savegame will help me test that out.

[MorphingJar]

Also noticing that Regular space tugs have been running my Starships around.  Can get quite annoying when they start to take just a single missle and my 100% tug grabs it to the other side of the map >.<

[x4000]

Also noticing that Regular space tugs have been running my Starships around.  Can get quite annoying when they start to take just a single missle and my 100% tug grabs it to the other side of the map >.<

This is actually by design... the regular space tugs are supposed to work on all ship types, whereas the starship ones just work on starships.  I'd probably suggest not having 100% tugs in that sort of planet, those are really designed more for use on friendly planets (healing everything back up to perfect), whereas the 33 and 66 ones are meant more for combat zones.  The secondary Starship ones are just to give Starships an extra-high priority, so that you can be better assured of not losing your costly Starships.

In other news, I think I've about got this problem licked with them sending the tugs off in the wrong directions.  I'll post a link when it's ready.

[x4000]

Okay, here's a version with the tug issues fixed:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,211.msg1788.html#msg1788

Thanks for your help on this, all of you!  I could not duplicate this in my own savegames for the life of me.  This is something where the ships had to be exactly at the right pixel distances away from each other to trigger it, which is why it was such an intermittent issue (relatively speaking).

[glyptar]

Absolutely great! You post a bug, 3 minutes later it's gone! Woo!

Minor different issue with tugs and repair stations: Would be nice if they don't grab the repair station and hold it in place indefinitely if it gets damaged

[x4000]

Absolutely great! You post a bug, 3 minutes later it's gone! Woo!

Glad I could help!

Minor different issue with tugs and repair stations: Would be nice if they don't grab the repair station and hold it in place indefinitely if it gets damaged

Oh, haha -- great point.  I'll make the repair stations non-repairable but with a health recharge, like the force fields, etc.

[glyptar]

Here's a new one: The tugs tractor ships that are pretty far away, then fly to the station and sit there with their tractored ship out of range of the station. I included a save, the station and the tugs keeping those annoying damaged ships away from it are by a wormhole up and right from the command station.