[TC] Trouble with asteroid survey missions.

Killer Klown · Post by **Killer Klown** » Wed, 6. Jan 10, 18:04

These use to be a great way to prospect and get paid for it. The last 4 times I've tried, the time disappears and I fail the mission when I scan the last asteroid. In a couple of cases, I had over 1/2 hour left.

I am running english version 2.5 (finally, nividium worth collecting).

Thanks.

Ulan Dhor · Post by **Ulan Dhor** » Wed, 6. Jan 10, 18:05

I have the same problem in my game. I was told that this is a common bug. Once it happens the first time, it will always happen and never go away. This means that you won't be able to do scan missions anymore, I'm afraid.

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Wed, 6. Jan 10, 20:30

Yes that's right. Even if all the asteroids are in the same sector as the mission station and you have shedloads of time, it will fail at the last scan once you have had this condition happen before. It has been well known about for ages now but in several patches released since, nothing has been done - probably because no-one knows what starts the failure condition off.

See here for others' comments (and there have been several since): http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=242396
and: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=256859

Frostynso · Post by **Frostynso** » Wed, 6. Jan 10, 20:59

I am pretty sure that if you do not scan the asteroids in the order they are highlighted by your mission computer, you fail.

AgamemnonArgon · Post by **AgamemnonArgon** » Wed, 6. Jan 10, 21:00

Same here. I don't bother with these missions anymore. Vanilla, 2.5.

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Wed, 6. Jan 10, 21:03

@ Frostynso: If you didn't scan them in the order indicated by the mission guidance, you just wouldn't know which asteroids to scan! That is not the factor at play in the mission failures discussed here.

juanitierno · Post by **juanitierno** » Wed, 6. Jan 10, 21:29

As to why it happens, i believe once the last asteroid is scanned your timer is cleared, and a new one, this time to deliver the info is set.

If somehow the second timer was not properly initialized it would auto-fail the mission.

Im not sure, but i believe it always gives you about 19 minutes from the last asteroid scan to deliver the info.

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Thu, 7. Jan 10, 12:26

That could be a possible failure mechanism to explain the symptom (in our case once afflicted the new timer always gives 0 minutes!) but it does not explain why it all suddenly starts going wrong and then stays wrong for some people. It has to be something like the end-timer script using an intended local flag that is meant to be unset by default, is set in-mission under some as yet unknown circumstances that entail a failure, but then is not being reset by the mission script on reinitialisation the next time.

What I don't understand about this or any other mission's timer is why the script ever messes with it in-mission at all. Why have any mission sub-event timer changes at all? If you are given x mins to complete a mission why not just have a single counter that continues throughout until mission success or you fail if you time out at x mins or otherwise fail a condition?

How can you apply skilled judgement to decide whether to take a mission (or allow yourself to be temporarily sidetracked in-mission) if the times keep changing at sub-events at the whims of the RNG? Timed final output contracts just don't work that way!