Ship randomly blowing up while using SETA?

[saulscmit]

so, after having multiple crash issues with my other save game & not being able to do anything after 5 minutes of playing it (i've timed it, every time it loads its exactly 5 minutes in & BANG, it crashes & music gets stuck on a loop), I decided to start a bankrupt assassin game. Remembering that there's a mamba floating in Loomankstrats Legacy I fly there, I watch a boron fleet get mashed by the pirate brigantine & orbital weapons platform they have & then go on my way, carefully avoiding any mines, asteroids & ships i see. I fly high above the elliptic of the system & SETA back towards the abandoned Mamba, only to find when i take SETA off my ship randomly blows up.

No enemies, no mines, no missiles, no engagments. My ship just decided "I want to die, im fed up of living" *BANG* GAME OVER.

Considering its early on & starting with no money i cant get salvage insurance (not to mention the boron hate me) so i capped a few ships before going there, the teladi wont attack me but i cant dock with them or argon stations (only split so far it seems) so its a pain to save (i did score a jumpdrive on a dolphin hauler i capped though for a few energy cells which was good). It's just a total pain in the ass.

The first bug I mentioned (with the randomly timed crashes once i have like 50+ stations & 1000 ships, i had just started the hub plot) is the most annoying one, 3 months of gameplay & several billion credits for the game just to bug out on me (my computer is fine at the time too).

The random blowing up though. Is that something to do with SETA? Any added side-effects Egosoft added to SETA?

any feedback would be appreciated.

[hisazul]

Which X is this about?
In previous X games you could end up having a bomb installed on your ship after docking with pirate stations.

Also check integrity of game files first issue sounds more like software/hardware bug rather then save game corruption. Make sure your hdd doesn't have bad sectors or you could simply have a case of "x saves to bad sector and everything goes to hell".

But blowing up after leaving seta could be caused by a lot of things. Weird collision with asteroid. Mines you didn't see. A bomb if older X. Someone shot you

[saulscmit]

This is X3:TC

My PC is fine & I keep it in good working order, same goes for my HDD (I've had a 320GB just die on me before so i never risk HDD problems anymore).

There were no mines otherwise the argon & teladi ships wouldve just gone bang as they went past that area too. I hadnt any enemy ships IS with me after that bron vs pirate skirmish i observed from a safe distance.

I never crash into asteroids any more unless im flying a massive TL, M1, or M2 (or the boron thresher with its wide ass), and thats usually them getting stuck on the game as i jump in. I was just SETA-ering into open space, i stopped as i was approaching the Mamba & boom, my mamba blows up.

No asteroid, no mines, no enemies, and no IEDs in X3:TC. If i saw any mines i'd have shot them from kilometers away with my HEPTs.

[hisazul]

Full cargo and you went over a missile crate?

Also some roids RARELY bug and have a texture that is completely different from the mesh. As in you see a small rock but collision box and the actual size is way different.

Collided with a spacefly? (lol) Would be funny... but it happens a lot and it does no damage

Only other thing I can think of is the pirate protection from... reunion? or tc?... if you didn't pay it you could end up with a bomb in your cargo that goes off randomly. I don't recall if it was inventory item that you couldn't remove, or cargo... It was a long time since I played those and I usually have little interest in docking with pirate stations. Nothing of use there versus yaki. And my pirate rep is usually absolutely down in the gutter.
Just check message log if anyone ever asked for protection money or check cargo/inventory for anything out of place I don't recall how it worked.

Oh yea... IF you have escorts make sure their speed is somewhat similar or slower then your ships. Otherwise they have tendencies to outrun and ram you in the rear. But it sounds like you didn't have any escorts at the time.

[pjknibbs]

Er, why do you say no mines? The Mamba in Loomanckstrat's is surrounded by them, and always has been, so chances are you're just getting too close to one of those and setting off the minefield. Easiest way to tell would be if the Mamba blew up at the same time as your ship did.

Note that the approach you're taking (go in way above or below the ecliptic and approach the Mamba from directly above or below) is the right one, you must just be off line a bit.

[saulscmit]

I get you & know there are often mines early game in that sector lol. And I've been playing this game long enough to know i was piloting the space craft into empty space.

The abandoned Mamba was still alive as I blew up as was a near by Teladi Vulture.

I've flown to the ship before however & had no problems getting the ship & encountered no mines. Which is strange, the only mines i ever saw were the ones i laid in Kha'ak areas during a certain plot.

[Alan Phipps]

At a guess you did pass some mines but your use of SETA is making their trigger and response code inoperable (like the way that turrets stop firing if you SETA at high level). That outstanding code may all get buffered somewhere and when you stop SETA it catches up with you. That would be my guess.

As a trial, drop your SETA level to x6 and try it again.

[Killjaeden]

Mines do 75MJ of damage at point zero. if you have more shield then this you are mine-proof.
Explosion of the mine and the damage are off sync by 1-2 seconds

[zazie]

Are you aware that those mines in Loomanck'Strats are different from the mines in other sectors (south of Savage Spur e.g.) ? Even if you target them you still can't see them in space or on the map. In other words: normally you only know that there are mines around if it's too late

For your Save-game problems:
I once had what seems to be a similar problem in an early X3R-game. At one spot of my game, always at the same time, I crashed, whatever station, whatever ship, whatever action. At that time, Scripting-Guru Lucike looked at my save (and at all running scripts in this Vanilla-game) - he could reproduce the crash on his install, but we never definitely knew what was the cause. I had to start again.

[saulscmit]

@zazie

The save game issue is a pain yeah. I done the thing of saving it manually in one slot then 3 days later switching slot. I go back to the 3 day save, after a couple of days (it varies, sometimes this fixed my problem in the past) & it still crashes. given I have spent a few months on that save game it sucks. Now I have to do every single plot all over again & regain all my 5 star marines & ships & 'plexes *sigh*

I think I may end up having to leave this game for a while & come back to it & start afresh when it regains its wonder.

As for the mines in Loomanck'Strats Legacy. I had SETA on at x1000 while flying in that direction, I was reading something on skype at the time so SETAed miles out of the sector (below it to be precise) & then obviously turned around which turned SETA off. Given I was travelling at 210ms per second & 50km away from any mine fields (hidden or otherwise) I doubt they should follow me.

Btw the Mamba can only hold 2x25MJ shields & has about 3-6k hull (not sure on that one).

[hisazul]

SETA can delay/buffer a lot of weirdness at x10. Just take it with a grain of salt

I had valhalla set by accident to enemy everything and hit seta... when after a min or so I disabled seta to dock with one of my ships the whole sector went kaboom. Few minutes later when I checked ai on valhalla and its kill count I made the connection lol. Mind you it wasn't some god forsake sector too, it was one of cloud bases don't recall which one.