Autopilot Bug in 1.03A.057

Hmmm, I've been sort of suspecting something like this might of been happening in some of my games, but I could never actually catch them in the act of not moving. I wrote it off as my expectations of my ship speed being higher than they actually were... It takes a very long time for ships to get anywhere on large maps.

So Im not sure if I've seen this or not, but I think this deserves a bit of a bump.

When you set the autopilot do the ships in question have any moves left?

If they do, then they'll move immediately. If they don't then they will move at the end of your next turn.

Are you moving fleets or singel ships?

Remember fleets move at the speed of the slowest ships. Also if you just made a fleet, and one of the ships in it has no moves left, the whole fleet won't move even if every other ship in it has 7/7 moves left.

Are your ships moving through enemy starbase zones?

Maybe enemy starbases have -1 or -2 to your ship movement.

I've been playing with 1.03A.057 and haven't noticed anything like this.

If it is a bug, it would be extremely hard to reproduce.

Scoop26, if you can reproduce this in your save game, can you please zip it (both the .sav file and the corresponding folder) and send it to me along with your prefs.ini file so that I can see if it also happens with my build?

[email protected]

Unless your a computer player, in which case
this seems to happen all the time, I have never seen it
happen.

I've noticed this happening sometimes too. The autopilot ships are supposed to move after you've moved all your manual-move ships, but in some cases (depending on what that last ship does), they miss their cue.

A workaround what I did was after moving all my manual-move ships, I would take an arbitrary ship out of orbit, then put it back into orbit. Then the autopilot ships would perform their moves if they failed to do so earlier.

I no longer use autopilot much anymore because of the poor pathing issues, but I do remember this workaround from when I used to use it.

I only noticed anything in the later game, when my laptop (800Mhz) was starting to struggle with moving my ships. What sort of machine are you running on Scoop?

I'm guessing if there is a problem, it's a race condition or something. Which means it might not show up on the development machines.

Thats my wild stab in the dark for the day.

Ok I have at least part of the answer here.

Situation: You have one ship left to move manually, having N movement points remaining. There is a target that you wish to attack, N+1 squares away. Moving manually you cannot normally hit it, but if you autopilot-attack it, (right-click on that target to autopilot the ship to it), then you can hit it. If you do so as your last move of the turn, your autopilot ships will not get their cue to move, (this includes your civilian trade freighters), before your turn ends.

This bug may also arise in other situations as well, not just autopilot-attacks. (Possibly any situation that involves you invoking an autopilot move as your last move of a turn.)

Workaround: First, you must have the Auto Turn option turned OFF. After your autopilot-attack, move any ship out of orbit and immediately move it right back into orbit. Your autopilot ships will then get the cue to move, (including your civilian trade freighters). Now you can click the Turn button manually.

Hi Guys: Thanks for all the responses. Sorry I am just responding now. I was able to reproduce the situation and I have emailed the zipped save games to Senator CariElf.

I have a Dell Dimension about 4 years old. I have upgraded it a bit to 1.2 Mhz processor. I run Windows XP v. 5.1 (Build 2600.xpxp2.021108-1929 Service Pack 1).

This happens at the beginning of the game. I have only two ships: a colony and survey ship. I move the ships around for a couple turns. BTW, I usually never move them manually. I right-click on the location on the main map or mini map in upper right. Things are fine for the first few turns. I have built no other ships. No enemy ships are in sight yet.

Jun 2178 - I have two ships (not stacked) on autopilot (using right-click) to a destination several turns away for both ships. When I set the autopilot (using right-click) both ships move initially on the first part of their journey. OK. Nothing on my screen has any moves left. I clicked the 'turn' button.
July 2178 - Both ships do not move.
Aug 2178 - Both ships do not move.
Sep 2178 - Both ships do not move.
Oct 2178 - Both ships do not move.
Nov 2178 - Both ships do not move.
Dev 2178 - Both ships do not move.

At this point, I stop here and save the game to send to Senator CariElf. I feel like I have reproduced the problem. This problem never happened before build 1.03A.057.

-------------Citizen BuzuBuzu wrote:

**When you set the autopilot do the ships in question have any moves left?
Yes, but they move the first part of their journey and then say autopilot under them and then have no moves left.

**If they do, then they'll move immediately. If they don't then they will move at the end of your next turn.
They move immediately.

**Are you moving fleets or singel ships?
No fleets. Single ships.

**Are your ships moving through enemy starbase zones?
There are no starbases built yet. Too early in the game.

------------------------

OK, thats it. I see there is a new build available so I am going to dl it and try this issue again. I really hope it goes away or you guys can tell me what I am doing wrong. Again. THANKS for all the helpful responses.

Scoop26

~SDC~

Sigh.... Bug is still happening in build 1.04.058. I must being doing something wrong because no one else seems to be experiencing it. I cant tell you how frustrating it is to see several of my ships on autopilot just sitting there as the turns go by. I tell you this never happened prior to build 1.03A.057. Should I uninstall and reinstall the game? I am open to suggestions.

~SDC~

Ok, found the cause of this problem.  If anyone has HyperthreadEnhancement=1 in your prefs.ini file, change it back to 0.  This is not a fully implemented feature and can cause problems like this or crashes.

That fixed the problem! Thats Cari!! Sorry I didnt realize this on my own. Now, im going to go play a game!!

~SDC~