Ships exploding after being claimed - resolved

[Waiter]

Whenever my opponent bails out of a ship and I stop to claim it, there seems to be a 25-30% chance of the ship exploding within the next minute for no obvious reason whatsoever. No enemies around or stray missiles, no other ships, stations or rocks anywhere near me, the ships just explode as if they self destruct. All kinds and sizes of ships.

I'm running TC at the moment (Steam, no mods other than the Steam DLC that installs automatically) but if I remember it right, I had the same problem with AP. I also had the same problem when playing these games a few years ago on a completely different rig, so it can't be a hardware issue.

I have tried to interrupt this with all kinds of actions like reentering my old ship, entering the claimed ship, starting to repair the claimed ship and so on, but every 3-4 times, they still explode.

Just now I claimed a super freighter from a Duke's Dangerous Materials Transporter. When I entered the ship, there was a beep just like when an enemy fires a missile, but there were no enemies anywhere around me. I set my fighter to protect me and headed for the next station to try to get a save, but after a bit over a minute, the ship exploded with me in it. There was no beeping sound indicating an approaching missile, no enemies or objects around, and all five 25 MJ shields were intact and at almost 50%. BOOOM! For no reason whatsoever.

I can't find any info about this anywhere on the net, which makes me wonder if I'm the only one with this problem. Is this a deliberate program feature that I have missed, or why on earth does this happen??

[Alan Phipps]

It does happen with certain mission-spawned ships that time-out when the mission cleans up after itself no matter who owns them by then.

As these are not mission ships (Duke's freighters probably are not) then there is no obvious reason for that sudden loss unless you are going through an unmarked minefield. However, Duke's ships are enemies to several races and so a Commonwealth warship may have been on its way to attack that ship and will not really care that it has changed hands since. This attack could be by missile at long range but the attacking ship should now appear as red to you as well so that is an unlikely scenario in your case too.

I wonder if you are remembering the mission issue on the old system when you previously played, and thinking that the same as your current non-mission issue? I would certainly consider verifying your game installation or even reinstalling X3TC from scratch.

It is also possible that the problem is now embedded in your saves and will dog you if you play on from them even with a clean install. It is difficult to tell from here what the issue is or might happen when you try various things to solve it.

Good luck.

[Waiter]

Thanks for answering!

This attack could be by missile at long range but the attacking ship should now appear as red to you as well so that is an unlikely scenario in your case too.

Yes, I've been thinking about that as well, especially since there was a warning beep when I entered that last ship. But if it were a missile, I should be hearing the warning beeps getting faster as the missile approaches. As far as I know, there are no missiles fast enough to hit you without warning, and if there is one, it would likely not be big enough to even scratch the paint off 5 half loaded 25MJ shields...

I wonder if you are remembering the mission issue on the old system when you previously played, and thinking that the same as your current non-mission issue?

I'm quite sure I'm not. At least not from the main missions. I always tend to start my games "from scratch", i.e. with a small fighter and no money, and then work my way upwards by fighting and trading. Most of the money has always come from claiming ships from bailed opponents, and this random exploding has always been an issue. The missions I've taken on have always been patrols and defending stations, and if the ships were to explode just because the mission is over, this should be happening every time, not just occasionally.

I would certainly consider verifying your game installation or even reinstalling X3TC from scratch.

I haven't verified the game, might do so, but I don't really see how that could have anything to do with ships exploding. I bought a new rig a month ago and just installed both X3TC and X3AP from scratch a few days ago. The old saves are gone, and I have just started a completely new game, so none of this should really be a problem.


Is this really only happening to me?

[Alan Phipps]

"Is this really only happening to me?" Pretty much yes, outside of known mission issues.

You can perhaps check for external attack by playing from a save just before the incident and going into remote camera view and watching what actually happens to the ship.

[Waiter]

Tried verifying, but all is OK.

I'll do some more testing and see if I can find anything suspicious.

[Alan Phipps]

Please see my edit in my post above. Oh, and what does the Player log say happened to your ship(s)?

[Waiter]

Problem solved. At least for this time.

I repeated capturing that same Duke freighter and after entering it, I happened to turn the ship and actually saw a missile approach and hit it. I then repeated the capture one more time and quickly got back into my fighter and pressed "select next enemy", and after a few seconds, it locked on an incoming firestorm missile.

What really bugs me is why there are no warning beeps in the attacked ship as the missile is approaching. The only hint is that first one beep when I enter the ship and the red exclamation mark in the crosshair.

Anyhoo, thanks for your help! I'll check this the next time a ship explodes in my face. In this particular case, there are Xenon ships far away on the sector map, but this has happened to me in sectors with no (visible) enemies as well. If I don't touch the Duke freighter, and just observe, it's not attacked by anyone unless it gets within firing range of the Xenon ships, but it seems as if they (or someone else) instantly fire that missile as soon as I claim the ship.

[Sirrobert]

I thought that's because the missile was fired before you claimed the ship

[Alan Phipps]

The Player log might say who killed the ship.

[stavros]

I've had this problem before. I noticed that if I claimed some ships and then entered them, depending on the race of the captured ship would determine if anyone was hostile towards me.

When I jumped into certain claimed ships, the whole sector would turn red (enemies).

They would then attack me any my fleet relentlessly.

I managed to sort out the issue by jumping straight out the ship again and back into the ship I was piloting previously.

I was no longer in my claimed ship but I still had it and was able to repair it and either add it to my fleet or send it off to be put to work or sold.