Please post any reports about the new missions on the production server here. Also, try to remember to type 'bug some description' into the mission computer (or '/mission bug whatever' in any chat window/console) as soon as you encounter a problem.

~Michael

Totally forgot to do the bug things with these ones....
Also, I was using the beta4 client, so that might have had something to do with the bugs here.

I was taking a xith pirate mission and when I took back 120 crates of Xithricite Ore to the station, my mission comp thanked me for the 120 crates delivery and generously gave me 300 credits. Even more generously, they let me keep the 120 crates of Xithricite ore (which stayed on my ship). And yes, I still kept the ore even after relogging - so it wasn't an update hiccup.

I sent the bug one in on this one, but I think the mission quit before I did it. I took another xith pirate mission and later another person joined. I created a group and invited him. The last mission computer message that I got was that the mission would start in 1:30 minutes. The other person that had joined the mission said he got a message AFTER I had invited him to the group that "Kteln has aborted the mission" or something like that. I went back to the station... and even more strange - there were only two available missions. Avd combat practice and some generic pirate mission (different from the one I had taken). After I relogged, the station mission list was back to normal.

Sorry... these probably won't help all that much.

Posted this here because it kindof has to do with new missions. The escorts currently ignore NPC pirates attacking the convoys and vise versa. So the transports essentially have no defence and the NPC pirates have no threats. I checked the info screen and noted that Corvus pirates are respected by UIT. Not sure if that has anything to do with it.

Escorts also do a bad job vs. Hive bots. Of course, that's just the AI's fault. They don't consider hive bots to be a threat until the hive actually -shoot- something. And by the time a hive bot has started shooting at a ship, it's usually too late. The AI should react to threats -before- they start shooting.

These are bugs in the new hive behavior, not directly related to a mission:

Before the update, whenever the Leviathan's hull got down to 50%, 25%, and 10% (approx.), a group of seekers would jump into the sector. Last night, they didn't. I've only tested this once since the update, so I don't know if there's any other circumstances involved. It looked like a Hive Hunt mission had taken place before I arrived, so the cap ship may have already damaged the lev, and then it was repaired (it was 100% when I arrived). Kioal Darkblade may have been the one to take the mission, so perhaps he can comment on what happened during the mission (how much did the lev get damaged? did seakers show up?). I'll test again in the next few days and report back.

Also, I don't know if this is intentional (maybe it's always been like this), but I saw an observer repair the Leviathan last night. I've never seen them do that before. (There were no other bots in the sector, so I guess the responsibility fell on it...)

Thanks for the reports!

That cargo-not-being-removed bug is intermittent but known. It's not a super high priority, but it will be fixed soon.

The escorts and their defend behavior: There are several trade-offs and no perfect solution (at least until we have a much better reputation system). What they're really meant to do is get in between the trader they're assigned to guard and any aggressor, and for the most part in my tests, they do this. How exactly do you define aggressor? which is the highest priority? Would escorts really go after the first potential aggressor they see? Wouldn't this leave their traders exposed to ambush (which we hope to make more possible and common)?

The Hive bugs: A *lot* changed in Deliverator since the last update. For the most part, the Hive was just adapted with duct tape and chewing gum rather than being rewritten using the new tools (hivebots could now be more reliably controlled through unposted-missions). I'm working on adding a few more pieces of duct tape, hopefully fixing the bugs you listed, but it will need a rewrite (1-2 weeks I estimate) to advance much in functionality.

Is it possible to make the escorts function like CtC bots, but less broken? When a CtC convoy passes through the sector, if one is not nearby them, the bots will stay with the transport. But if a person with bad faction (respective to the convoy) comes nearby, the bots will break away from the transport and engage, but once they reach a certain distance, they go back to the transport.

Also, when you are attacked by a pirate on an escort mission, but have good, say, corvus faction standing, the pirates do not go red in your radar, making them much more difficult to fight.

I haven't seen any Leviathans since my last post, but I've been testing on queens, and the seekers don't show up when you damage queens either. So I'm gussing the whole "have seekers jump in when the queen/lev are damaged" code has been removed/broken.

removed for now.

This was tested yesterday afternoon by myself and in the evening by myself and one of the devs (You know who you are!)...

Before the new hive-related missions migrated to the production server:
- One could get combat xp by killing bots in mission sectors without taking a mission.
- One could get combat xp by killing bots in mission sectors after taking a mission.

After the new hive-related missions migrated to the production server:
- It is impossible to get combat xp in Sedina via killing Hive bots, with or without a mission active.

Also, the counter for the Hive Hunt mission is off according to the aforementioned dev -- the missions rarely (read: never) finish even after killing the prerequisite number of bots.

Your experience was the result of my replacing the reward system (neglecting XP), and several mission-ending related bugs (introduced earlier that day). Those are now fixed, though the XP doesnt yet take into account the type of bot (just how many of the mission-faction they've killed).

There is a still-at-large bug that occasionally causes the counter to be several off (bots get lost) and the mission not to end, but until today it was always off-by-one without the presence of this bug. The mission almost always finishes now, because killing all the bots isn't strictly necessary- just making the Hive retreat (by having over twice as many non-hive bots in the sector).

heh, I do think I saw a message that said "0 left in sector."

Yea, actually the last message *should* be 0 left unless there are some left when they retreat and get away (quite possible). Obviously, it should be special-cased to say something like- "That was the last one; bonus for Miharu!"

In other news, I just updated the server with all my changes from the test server. My first test (of the guard mission) indicates that it's still not bug-free :/, but it should be a pretty solid improvement. I had a pretty productive awake-period, which is now nearing its end:)

Please post only bugs that occurred after the time of this message, and remember to use the in-game bug reporter, by typing from any console/chat-entry "/mission bug short-description" without the quotes, or any quotes or apostrophes at all.

Thanks to all those who've been so helpful in testing! :)
~Michael

I know that this isn't -truly- a bug, but it comes really close to being one.
With some of the missions, creating/joining a group aborts the mission for you. This is especially confusing when the missions are group-oriented.

Why aren't there queens in the Leviathan sector anymore?

Because they dont maneuver well and ran into other bots a lot, and when they explode, they often take several others with them. The Stronghold HiveHunt mission would get down to the levi, capship and maybe a player or two within the first 2 minutes of the battle. It lasts longer now. Suggestions for improvement are welcome; they should go in the suggestions forum tho.

After you "fixed" the missions again, theres a bug.. I took two acquisition missions, the first one ended properly, I got standing with corvus etc.. the second failed to end, but instead just gave me a measly 300creds for 17 crates of xith ore.. the first one just ended and told me to sell my cargo wherever I wanted.. and I got faction.. and ended.

The second is still waiting for me to bring more cargo... and hasnt ended yet.

Which of these is the proper response for these missions?

in convoy missions the convoy is green (making it harder to determine if it is your group or a random NPC) and the pirates are also green on the radar rendering the use X to target nearest hostile useless.

I was handling the pirates but we warped into an ion storm and ack, I lost 90% of my convoy to a field of arklans. Can I get multipule players to take the same mission with me? I will have to see about organizing a group (without really grouping) to see how that functions.

I'm surprised at you SarrahAnne ;) The radar dot thing should be in the FAQ at this point, and yes, other players can take the mission with you- why else would it make you wait?

break18:
The intended behavior of the pirate mission is to tell you that the convoy is no longer available and give you 15 minutes to bring in as much of the target item as you can. At the end of that time it should thank you for the help and give you a little standing bump. I fixed the cargo payment last night- must have been not long after you took it. It should now give you 200 credits per cu for everything (which is lame, I know, but not as lame as 300 per load regardless of size). You can abort the mission (or any deliverator mission) without penalty.

What I'm thinking I'll do in the short term is split the pirate mission into 2: Liberation and Acquisition. Liberation would just be about attacking the convoy; you'd get paid for kills. Acquisition would just be about gathering available cargo irrespective of convoy location/availability, and I'd probably make it NPC only until we get the economics hooks I need to properly compensate. Sound good?