Black Hole! Panic stations!

[dogscoff]

Hmm... Don't know why that would happen. Are you sure there's not an enemy presence in the system? Some shipsets are really hard to see against certain backdrops. Check on the galaxy map to see the system is marked with a "I'm on my own" circle or a "foreign influence" triangle.

[geoschmo]

Is it possible that your ships are passing through a damaging warp point? I think ships will clear orders when damaged as well. And it may be that the damage is less that it would take to destroy a component, so you may not actually see the damage. But you should get a log message about it.

Geoschmo

[Marvin Kosh]

I just had a second look for ships. It's pretty darn unlikely because (heh) the warp points leading to the black hole are of the really nasty variety, save one. The ones you explore when you've researched armour, repair, etc etc like I *had* to do just to get out of my home system

OK, I should probably shut up now lest I give my position away ;-) I just wanted to flag it up more than anything else, see if anyone's seen this happen.

Could it just be that the original path the ship plotted got disrupted by the black-hole movement? As far as I can see, that happens AFTER normal movement in simultaneous....

EDIT: I know they should have their orders cleared if they take damage, but I'd swear they went Scooby AFTER passing into the black hole system.

I checked my previous turns, and I think my repair ship cleared it's orders and fell toward the black hole instead of following it's plotted course out through the far warp point. Of course it's difficult to tell because my orders were naturally cleared when it entered the system.

I don't know if this is because it's a repair ship, because some of my other ships (colony/pop transport) have exhibited this behaviour whilst passing through the system.

A likely explanation for this is that I messed up my turn submission and the orders didn't take, and this wouldn't affect things in my empire too much because I have orders for everything stacked and queued, but it would affect ships whose orders were cleared because of damage.

However, what's the chances that I messed up my submission every time a ship passed into the black hole system? There's something at work here I just can't pin it down....

[ August 02, 2002, 14:09: Message edited by: Marvin Kosh ]

[geoschmo]

"Went Scooby". snicker. I'm not sure what that means, but I like the term.

[Arkcon]

Clearing their orders is a common occurance on non-simultaneous. Here's what happens. You order the ship to warp out a warp point on the far side of the black hole system (to get somewhere you want to be). The ship exhausts it's movement points AT THE WARP POINT INSIDE THE BLACK HOLE SYSTEM. If you look at it's orders (the little eyeball icon) it says only one thing -- WARP. Next turn, before it can move, the system's abilities pulls it 2 spaces in. Now it tries to execute it's orders -- and can't so it does nothing. I don't know if this is a more common problem on simultaneous.

Basically, you have to keep an eye on your ships in black hole systems. This will happen sometimes, and preventing it isn't really easy.

Maybe if you tell the ship to MOVE TO a sector past the warp point where you want to be warp wont appear in the orders list, but maybe not -- but I think still if it stops at the inside warp point, this still happens.

[Marvin Kosh]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
"Went Scooby". snicker. I'm not sure what that means, but I like the term.

LMAO.... exactly what it says. Just think of any time Scooby Doo has chickened out because of the scary monster-style villain, but he's running against the grain of a conveyer belt or something and actually not getting anywhere at all

EDIT: Come to think of it, when I say something is messed up, I tend to say it's 'scoobied'

[ August 02, 2002, 14:14: Message edited by: Marvin Kosh ]

[Marvin Kosh]

Originally posted by Arkcon:
Maybe if you tell the ship to MOVE TO a sector past the warp point where you want to be warp wont appear in the orders list, but maybe not -- but I think still if it stops at the inside warp point, this still happens.

This can't be it. I had my ships with orders to warp at each warp point, so I could see the plotted course. That would mean that if it couldn't warp it would still continue with its next order, to move to the next system and warp.

In this instance, they've scoobied up before they even got near the far (destination) warp point in the black hole system. I'm pretty sure it's been the same for the others.

EDIT: Anyway, I guess we'll see what happens when my next ship runs through that system - there was one a turn behind the repair ship on the same plot

[ August 02, 2002, 14:20: Message edited by: Marvin Kosh ]

[Arkcon]

[quote]Originally posted by Marvin Kosh:

Originally posted by Arkcon:
[qb]I had my ships with orders to warp at each warp point, so I could see the plotted course. That would mean that if it couldn't warp it would still continue with its next order, to move to the next system and warp.

'Kay. So maybe the fix doesn't work. But I still think my explanantion holds --

Situation A
IF (ship is on warp point) AND (order to WARP), THEN (warp through).

Situation B
If NOT(ship is on warp point) AND (order to WARP), THEN (BEEP at user) AND DO(nothing).

What happens is Situation A becomes Situation B when you're not looking.

[ August 02, 2002, 18:13: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

[Marvin Kosh]

Hmmm, you know I'm going to just stop using the Warp order for moving to systems I've already explored. That will eliminate that particular loophole

[Suicide Junkie]

Ships tend to clear orders when one of them fails.
I think Arkcon's answer is more accurate than it first seems.

Do(nothing) is instead: Clear Orders

I believe this also happens when you have a Launch order without cargo, or a load order without free space.

[ August 02, 2002, 14:53: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]