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Capital ships sometimes fail to follow the owner after jumping into a new sector
Steps to Reproduce:
1) Leave your capital ship in a sector.
2) Let it be "turboing" away. I am not 100% sure that this point is mandatory.
3) Jump to another sector.
4) Issue the `follow` command.
4) Wait for your capital ship.
Expected Result:
The capital ship jumps in, respecting the latest command rotates to face the pilot, and follows the pilot choosing the shortest trajectory.
Actual Result:
As soon as the capital ship jumps in, it starts turboing away while keeping the original "jump-in" direction. That is, in most cases, away from the ship owner. This behaviour is undesirable because the ship should honor the most recent order, which is the `follow` command.
Hotfix:
If the ship is not following you after jumping in, just issue the `follow` command once more.
The freshly issued `follow` command will finally make the capital ship turn to its owner, as desired, and follow them reliably.
I have done many tests to isolate the problem and was partially successful. While many attempts failed and the ship followed me without any issues, I had the most visible success rate of triggering the bug consequently with this particular scenario.
Scenario:
1) Fly to the jump point in Dau L-10 on a small ship.
2) Let your capital ship follow you (`follow`).
3) Once both the ships are in a position allowing them to jump, issue `park`, then `turbo`.
4) Jump to Dau K-5 and head to the centre of the sector (probably optional).
5) Issue the `follow` command while the capship is still executing previous `turbo` command in L-10.
6) The capital ship jumps in about 5 seconds later and immediately starts to turbo away.
I managed to trigger the bug several times in a row following these exact steps. If you want to check logs, I tested the issue today between 10:15 and 11:30 UTC with my Trident.
At 11:00 UTC "Chon-Bo Zelina" using a Goliath confirmed this behaviour on the first try after following my scenario. (Thank you!)
It looks like some kind of command chaining, but I thought that it must be ordered explicitly with the `add` keyword. (Btw, I have never managed to get it working.)
I also tried to cancel the `turbo` command between points 4 and 5 (before calling the capital ship to jump). Already in K-5, I issued `park`, waited 5 seconds, then commanded `follow`. That worked, and the ship was following me. When I tried the same but without the 5-second delay, issuing both commands in a sub-second manner, the ship started to turbo instead of following after the jump. So, I tried that three times more with 1, 3, and 5-second delays -- always triggering the bug. Therefore, this could be entirely irrelevant to the bug.
1) Leave your capital ship in a sector.
2) Let it be "turboing" away. I am not 100% sure that this point is mandatory.
3) Jump to another sector.
4) Issue the `follow` command.
4) Wait for your capital ship.
Expected Result:
The capital ship jumps in, respecting the latest command rotates to face the pilot, and follows the pilot choosing the shortest trajectory.
Actual Result:
As soon as the capital ship jumps in, it starts turboing away while keeping the original "jump-in" direction. That is, in most cases, away from the ship owner. This behaviour is undesirable because the ship should honor the most recent order, which is the `follow` command.
Hotfix:
If the ship is not following you after jumping in, just issue the `follow` command once more.
The freshly issued `follow` command will finally make the capital ship turn to its owner, as desired, and follow them reliably.
I have done many tests to isolate the problem and was partially successful. While many attempts failed and the ship followed me without any issues, I had the most visible success rate of triggering the bug consequently with this particular scenario.
Scenario:
1) Fly to the jump point in Dau L-10 on a small ship.
2) Let your capital ship follow you (`follow`).
3) Once both the ships are in a position allowing them to jump, issue `park`, then `turbo`.
4) Jump to Dau K-5 and head to the centre of the sector (probably optional).
5) Issue the `follow` command while the capship is still executing previous `turbo` command in L-10.
6) The capital ship jumps in about 5 seconds later and immediately starts to turbo away.
I managed to trigger the bug several times in a row following these exact steps. If you want to check logs, I tested the issue today between 10:15 and 11:30 UTC with my Trident.
At 11:00 UTC "Chon-Bo Zelina" using a Goliath confirmed this behaviour on the first try after following my scenario. (Thank you!)
It looks like some kind of command chaining, but I thought that it must be ordered explicitly with the `add` keyword. (Btw, I have never managed to get it working.)
I also tried to cancel the `turbo` command between points 4 and 5 (before calling the capital ship to jump). Already in K-5, I issued `park`, waited 5 seconds, then commanded `follow`. That worked, and the ship was following me. When I tried the same but without the 5-second delay, issuing both commands in a sub-second manner, the ship started to turbo instead of following after the jump. So, I tried that three times more with 1, 3, and 5-second delays -- always triggering the bug. Therefore, this could be entirely irrelevant to the bug.
That's odd. We'll take a look. Thanks for the detailed testing and report.
This should now be fixed in production. Let us know if you see anything awry.
Thank you very much for looking into this. I already noticed, even without reading your reply. I will test it thoroughly during the weekend anyway.
Unfortunately, there must be more similar problems. I have been watching similar remote command-related imperfections for weeks or months, and I am constantly trying to isolate them. For example, ironically enough, one of the problems is the exact opposite of the one I initially reported.
Capital ships follow its owner even when they should not do so. It is not something new. I often noticed that my capship followed me even if not ordered to. Today, I managed to replicate one scenario.
I left both my capital ships mining in a station sector. We were grouped, if that counts. Then, I left the sector, jumping to another (station) one. While the Trident stayed in place and continued mining, the Goliath started to follow me as soon as I jumped out, but not earlier. (My friend remained in the sector, watching the scene closely.)
Maybe I am entirely wrong, but it looks to me that there is command chaining in place even without activating it using the `add` command. Both ships were initially called to the mining sector using the `follow` command. I think I ordered the trident `park`, then `mine`, while the Goliath, coming in later, was directly (only) ordered to `mine`. So the Goliath remembered something like `follow and mine`, but the Trident did "reset" the command chain once it received `park` between `follow` and `mine`.
I have been trying to define a very similar problem for weeks. It just did not comprise mining. I think the mining part is not crucial to trigger this bug.
Unfortunately, there must be more similar problems. I have been watching similar remote command-related imperfections for weeks or months, and I am constantly trying to isolate them. For example, ironically enough, one of the problems is the exact opposite of the one I initially reported.
Capital ships follow its owner even when they should not do so. It is not something new. I often noticed that my capship followed me even if not ordered to. Today, I managed to replicate one scenario.
I left both my capital ships mining in a station sector. We were grouped, if that counts. Then, I left the sector, jumping to another (station) one. While the Trident stayed in place and continued mining, the Goliath started to follow me as soon as I jumped out, but not earlier. (My friend remained in the sector, watching the scene closely.)
Maybe I am entirely wrong, but it looks to me that there is command chaining in place even without activating it using the `add` command. Both ships were initially called to the mining sector using the `follow` command. I think I ordered the trident `park`, then `mine`, while the Goliath, coming in later, was directly (only) ordered to `mine`. So the Goliath remembered something like `follow and mine`, but the Trident did "reset" the command chain once it received `park` between `follow` and `mine`.
I have been trying to define a very similar problem for weeks. It just did not comprise mining. I think the mining part is not crucial to trigger this bug.
I can confirm the above case. If you tell your capship to follow, and then give it any command (except park) while in sector, then leave. It'll follow you as soon as you leave the sector. I found this with the turbo and attack commands.
Hmm, okay; we'll take a look.
So, this should have been fixed as of last-week's server restart. Please let us know if you continue to see any issues.