Disappearing satellite networkers?

[Alatar1313]

I just had my third krestel set to satellite networking through the explorer command randomly disappear. I don't get a notification or a message about it being attacked or destroyed. Any idea what's going on?

[Zippo342]

Space Madness

[Probe1]

He was hailed by an unknown object and taken to the UFO base perhaps.

[Morkonan]

I just had my third krestel set to satellite networking through the explorer command randomly disappear. I don't get a notification or a message about it being attacked or destroyed. Any idea what's going on?

Likely, it was due to quantum foam. The random materialization of virtual particle pairs can sometimes result in the generation of matter, due to interference by black holes, and this caused the formation of a giant space hamster, which materialized directly in front of the Kestrel, and which was extremely upset by its own spontaneous materialization and chose to chastise the Kestrel by insulting it until it became so depressed that it ceased to believe in itself, resulting in its own disappearance from our Universe and rematerialization into an alternate Universe dominated by a race of beings comprised completely of left-over McDonald's Happy Meals, which were quite intrigued by the sudden appearance of something that was not a McDonald's Happy Meal, so they...

In reality, this is a known problem. Sometimes, ships do not report their own destruction. (I've had it happen a couple of times, myself.) It's rare, though.

It may be possible that he:

1) Was destroyed by a hostile ship.
2) Crashed into another object while it was in-sector with your ship, which would make collision detection was active.
3) Was destroyed by the laser towers of Earth Torus. (Commonly happens to ships automated to deploy a satellite network, once they get to that sector.)
4) Was either unable to find any more satellites or had finished placing all the satellites for the sectors you have discovered and then docked at a station and remained there for a long time, ignored by you, and then was subsequently removed by the god-engine later in the game. Ships building a satellite network, mapping sectors or scanning asteroids will dock with a friendly station and send you a message once they have completed their orders.

[grumman]

When a ship finishes a "Scan Asteroids" command, it docks at the nearest Trading Station. Could the same thing have happened here?

[Alatar1313]

I hadn't considered the quantum foam theory. I'll definitely have to look into that.

I got no messages/notifications about my ship being under attack or being destroyed. I've been over my message log many times looking for such a message. I have had a krestel (in sector; never seen this happen out of sector) collide with a large object and be destroyed but I definitely got a message to that effect immediately upon it occurring.

I'm not even sure what Earth Torus is. I haven't explored any terran systems yet. I started in Argon space all the way over at Argon prime and have been working my way east.

I guess it's possible that the game randomly removed it but (a) there were still many systems that did not have satellites, (b) I never actually saw him on my property list docked at a station (I mean I know he was very briefly to buy more satellites but I would have noticed if he had been there for a long period of time), (c) I have the option to send me a message when it completes its task turned on and never received that message, and (d) it really wasn't that long of a time; I'm still relatively early on in the game and this has happened three times already.

So really I have no idea what keeps happening to them. I try to watch them on the property menu but I have enough ships now that I'd have to constantly scroll up and down to watch where it is.

[devilsad]

I've heard there's an issue where sometimes you're not notified of the loss of your property if it gets killed very quickly (possibly in the first round of shooting). Since a Kestrel is very lightly shielded it could have run into a pirate or other enemy and died before it could send a message out.

[Alatar1313]

That's sort of what I was wondering if it could have happened. I guess I'll just keep buying new ones

[Morkonan]

That's sort of what I was wondering if it could have happened. I guess I'll just keep buying new ones

IMO, its sufficiently rare that you shouldn't have to worry about it too much.

On Earth Torus:

Spoiler

Show

The Earth Torus is in Earth Sector in Terran space and only becomes relatively safe for you to enter once you complete the Terran Story mission. It and its jumpgate are surrounded by laser towers and these towers will obliterate anything that strays from the very narrow approach lane to the docks. For OS ships that are trading or otherwise on auto-pilot and heading directly to the dock, this is not an issue. But, it can be if you are in Earth Sector at the same time, which causes the game to turn on "Collision Detection" which may end up forcing one of the ships to stray from the path. Also, if you try to use Auto-pilot to navigate to the Earth Torus docks yourself, your ship may try to avoid collisions and stray from the narrow path, resulting in the necessity of you having to reload the game.

Since the relative location for satellites is often outside of this narrow approach lane as that location is applied to Earth Sector, just about any Satellite Network laying ship will be turned into spacedust by Earth sector's laser tower bug zapper.. There is also no way to "Blacklist" Earth Sector for your ships operating under the Satellite Network command without using mods.