Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Academy » Potential new bug to add to Stars! list
| Potential new bug to add to Stars! list |
Sat, 19 January 2008 10:46  |
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 Bystander |
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Messages: 141
Registered: June 2003
Location: Tampa, Florida, USA | 
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Came across this painful situation in an important game, so am documenting it for possible inclusion in the list of Stars! bugs.
Normally, any waypoint zero unload commands (using the slider bar or arrow buttons) can be undone by simply dragging the populations, minerals, or fuel back before saving a turn.
However, if
1) a waypoint zero unload by hand of any of your population over an uninhabited planet is performed
2) a waypoint zero dropdown command of "Colonize" is given to a fleet with a colonizer module present over that planet
3) the population is reloaded by hand
the reload will not be saved with your turn.
Rather, the unload happens, the colonizing fleet disappears, (leaving an amount of minerals consistent with a colonize task), but your people will die (even if you did not move everyone to the surface), and that planet will remain uninhabited. The message given is, "the colonists you forced to transport down to planet died because you did not colonize the planet first".
This has been verified by multiple players using JRC4/2.60j.
Interesting notes:
a) if you can split your fleet into several smaller ones, each capable of colonizing, then all but one of the colonizing missions will succeed, with population accumulating on the planet surface.
b) commands performed in these sequences are safe:
colonize, unload, load
unload, load, colonize
Only unload by hand followed by a colonize messes you up. Thanks Per, for verifying this.
c) Interesting and also a possible solution = If you split the fleet into multiple fleets with cargo space and merge back, it seems to erase the old unload command, but if you only have one ship in the fleet, the best solution may be to delete your .x file and redo ALL your turn's commands.
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| Re: Potential new bug to add to Stars! list |
Sun, 20 January 2008 04:23  |
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Yes, WP zero colonization will happen before WP1 unload but not necessarily before wapoint zero unload.
I suspect that the WP zero orders will be processed by fleet ID number, so, IF Fleet #7 does a WP zero colonize and Fleet # 11 does a WP zero drop, it 'might' work.
For waypoint 1 this definitely does not work. Waypoint zero colonize with waypoint one uload will work.
What I do is plan ahead - send the colony ship to colonize on arrival with the extra pop arriving the next turn.
In the case of packet attacks, you will probably need to make sure that the fleet ID's are in the right order - colonizer in orbit re-colonizes as WP 0 and the higher fleet ID freighter drops pop WP 0. Now, I have NOT tested if this will work, but I suspect it might.
The order of events has not been broked down into waypoint zero task processing specifically.
PTolemy
[Updated on: Sun, 20 January 2008 04:31]
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| Re: Potential new bug to add to Stars! list |
Sun, 20 January 2008 04:38 |
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Actually, looking at your original message, it makes sense.
| Quote: |
1) a waypoint zero unload by hand of any of your population over an uninhabited planet is performed
2) a waypoint zero dropdown command of "Colonize" is given to a fleet with a colonizer module present over that planet
3) the population is reloaded by hand
the reload will not be saved with your turn.
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1 - you dropped population on an uninhabited planet - so it died.
2 - you colonized the planet
3 - you attempted to upload population that was already dead.
Ptolemy
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| Re: Potential new bug to add to Stars! list |
Sun, 20 January 2008 09:56 |
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| Bystander |
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Messages: 141
Registered: June 2003
Location: Tampa, Florida, USA |
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| Ptolemy wrote on Sun, 20 January 2008 04:38 |
Actually, looking at your original message, it makes sense.
| Quote: |
1) a waypoint zero unload by hand of any of your population over an uninhabited planet is performed
2) a waypoint zero dropdown command of "Colonize" is given to a fleet with a colonizer module present over that planet
3) the population is reloaded by hand
the reload will not be saved with your turn.
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1 - you dropped population on an uninhabited planet - so it died.
2 - you colonized the planet
3 - you attempted to upload population that was already dead.
Ptolemy
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Even looking at just that portion of my post, I am covered by the use of phrase "any population" instead of "all population". If I have 100,000 colonists in cargo and move ANY population (such as 40,000) to the surface, all 100,000 die. Did the other 60,000 family members become suicidal? And if everyone is dead, who is building the colony module, zombies?
And why is it that every other combination of commands/methods can be safely and conveniently undone by just replacing the commands - so that what you have for a final set of commands on save/submit is what happens? But if you do by-hand unload and then dropdown colonize, you must take extra measures or else face the fact that what your final set of saved commands will not be what actually happens?
All I am saying is that this is either a coding oversight or the scenario of unload by hand followed by dropdown Colonize is just so complex, that it was decided by the designers it could not be automatically undone.
Either way, I can't find it documented on HWF - until now.
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| Re: Potential new bug to add to Stars! list |
Sun, 20 January 2008 11:14 |
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Thanks for describing and posting this bug.
With a big fleet arriving at a planet and the plan that some of the ships shall move on, some should stay, the planet colonized, a certain amount of minerals left on the planet... I guess all of us have at least once used the planet (or space) as a temporary cargo bay to make it easier to reload the different fleets with the exact amounts of pop and minerals.
Well, together with a WP 0 colonization order, I guess, from now on, everybody needs to be more careful with such actions. (Having said this, as a host, in future games even after this bug has been published, I would probably still regen the year if possible instead of pointing to this thread and saying "You should had known...". It's a rather complicated and unexpected behavior of Stars.)
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| Re: Potential new bug to add to Stars! list |
Sun, 20 January 2008 14:34 |
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I will test this as soon as I get a chance and then get it posted in the known bugs section once I have verified it if I can re-create it.
Ptolemy
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| Re: Potential new bug to add to Stars! list |
Sun, 20 January 2008 21:52 |
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| Bystander |
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Messages: 141
Registered: June 2003
Location: Tampa, Florida, USA |
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Thanks Ptolemy. Any research you do that further advances knowledge for the Stars! community is greatly appreciated.
Speaking of such research, Perrindom had noted that the .x file normally decreases when a load command perfectly offsets an unload command, but this does not happen when a colonize command is in between them.
One theory to what could be happening is:
start with 60,000 people
unload 60,000 people, .x file grows
load the 60,000 people back. x. file shrinks. Instead of adding a load command, perhaps Stars! erases the unload command.
This would be the ideal way of dealing with things because it is almost as if the unload never happened. And there is no permanent record from the player's side that they dragged the slider bar, especially if they are senile like me.
But the dropdown colonize command somehow causes Stars! to add the load command rather than erase the unload command.
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| Re: Potential new bug to add to Stars! list |
Mon, 21 January 2008 04:36 |
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| m.a@stars |
 | Commander |
Messages: 2765
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left | |
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| Bystander wrote on Sat, 19 January 2008 16:46 |
the reload will not be saved with your turn.
Rather, the unload happens, the colonizing fleet disappears, (leaving an amount of minerals consistent with a colonize task), but your people will die (even if you did not move everyone to the surface), and that planet will remain uninhabited. The message given is, "the colonists you forced to transport down to planet died because you did not colonize the planet first".
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Ouch! 
Looks like a GUI issue to me. 
I have seen that same message once. Couldn't for the life of me understand how I had managed to blunder in such way. Perhaps this is the answer. 
At any rate, I try not to use empty planets (or outer space!) as temporary placeholder for pop while I'm rearranging cargo. 
So many Stars, so few Missiles!
In space no one can hear you scheme!  Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Potential new bug to add to Stars! list |
Mon, 21 January 2008 11:16 |
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| Bystander |
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Messages: 141
Registered: June 2003
Location: Tampa, Florida, USA |
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| m.a@stars wrote on Mon, 21 January 2008 04:36 |
| Bystander wrote on Sat, 19 January 2008 16:46 |
the reload will not be saved with your turn.
Rather, the unload happens, the colonizing fleet disappears, (leaving an amount of minerals consistent with a colonize task), but your people will die (even if you did not move everyone to the surface), and that planet will remain uninhabited. The message given is, "the colonists you forced to transport down to planet died because you did not colonize the planet first".
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Ouch!
Looks like a GUI issue to me.
I have seen that same message once. Couldn't for the life of me understand how I had managed to blunder in such way. Perhaps this is the answer.
At any rate, I try not to use empty planets (or outer space!) as temporary placeholder for pop while I'm rearranging cargo.
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Ouch is right! 225,600 people in the main fleet perished along with the colonization fleet (but eventually resurrected by the host).
But even going forward, not using the slider isn't always an easy choice. If your cargo holds are full, you would have to take what Stars! gives you when splitting fleets, people and minerals evenly broken down by cargo space. And if you leave just a small amount of fleet cargo space to tailor cargo just the way you want, it can get very tedious. I don't want to be trying to move several 100's of kT of minerals/pop 10 or 15 kT at a time.
So I will just have to remember to ALWAYS do a colonize first or last thing, not in the middle of shifting population.
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