Satellite issue

[Bill Huntington]

I've had a minor issue with TC and AP for some time. I'll order a ship to place a satellite at altitude near a Trading Station. Then I get a report that the ship had docked in the trading station. I could check every time I do this but it's not easy. 'Moving to Position' doesn't tell you the position it's moving to, unless it's to a station. It's happened tens or hundreds of time so it's not a simple mistake. I'd estimate it happens one out of fifteen times to me.

Questions:

Can other pilots verify it's happening?

Anyone figure out why?

Any simple or not-simple fix?

Thanks.

[Timsup2nothin]

You mean after it places the satellite it goes on and docks at the trading station?

There are some other scripts that have a "then go dock" at the end, so maybe that one does too?

[Alan Phipps]

@ Bill: This post may help.

[Nanook]

That's normal behaviour for that command. The landing part is to keep it out of harm's way after it completes its task. Optionally, you can tell it to lay a network of satellites, and it will continue to do so until it runs out of satellites. It will then try to find some more in a limited range of sectors, and if it doesn't, it will then land.

[jlehtone]

There is a separate command for that?


My MORT Caimans are loyal. AGI developer or not, I prefer their management options.

[Nanook]

There is a separate command for that? ..

Not in vanilla Reunion, only in TC and AP. However, the precursor to the TC and AP commands, using the explorer software, is a player-made script for Reunion:

[Script] SatelliteDeploy v1.12 (18/01/2006)

[Bill Huntington]

The Advanced Sat is not deployed. I don't use the automated deploy command. I do it manually. I don't use any script. But now I'm seeing that the problem might be connect with the automated deploy command somehow. It acts like the sat is deployed then docks. But the Sat wasn't.

[Jimmy C]

That sounds like the "Deploy Satellite Network" command, was that what you used?
Could not figure out how to use it properly myself and just manually ejected the sats after directing the ship to the location.

[Bill Huntington]

I get the Sat exactly where I want by doing it manually. But this problem comes up often. I use Move to Position to send the ship to a point about 10 km altitude. Many times it ends it in the Trading Station without deploying the Sat. Then I have to do it again.

[Timsup2nothin]

So, now I think I understand what you are doing. Let me make sure i have it straight.

You are using a basic navigation command "move to position" to put the ship where you want the satellite. You go do whatever expecting to come back and have it eject the sat, but you find it docked at the trading station instead of where you sent it.

Assuming that is right there are a couple of detail questions.

Are you in the sector where this is going on, or are you doing this from OOS?

Do you set the ship to inform you when the command is complete, or are you just letting it sit until you get back to it?

My current theories are based on the idea that you aren't setting the alert, so the ship is left sitting for however long before you get around to kicking out the sat.

One) Hostiles. A ship just sitting with no orders will react to hostile ships. That reaction may include hustling off to the trading station. High above the regular traffic is wandering Kha'ak territory.

Two) Collision, if you are in the sector. Ships close enough together trigger collision avoidance. I'm not sure whether somewhere in the collision avoidance script there might be a dock at the nearby station option. If so maybe it is close enough.

Three) No offense, but operator error. You said you are sending this post up ship to a spot straight above the Trading station? I'm guessing you put the cursor on the trading station, shift axis and move it up ten clicks or whatever. Might you sometimes get distracted and not do the flip and adjust? If you give a "move to position" and put the cursor right on a station the ship will definitely dock.

[Bill Huntington]

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Tim. I do have the ship set to notify me when it gets to its assigned position. It always happens OOS. 'Hostiles' is a possibility though I've never noticed any nearby. I've never noticed the ship at a middle altitude. It's either in its assigned position or in the Trading Station. It never happens with a different station, just the Trading Station.

My first thought was 'operator error'. Thanks for making that the third choice. It's happened too often for that, perhaps one out of fifteen tries. I can't rule it out completely but I'm very careful when the position is near a Trading Station. I haven't heard anyone else say they have the problem. Maybe I'm one of the few who do Sats manually.

A thought. Sometimes a command doesn't 'take'; then you repeat it if you notice. If the Change Altitude command didn't 'take', the assigned altitude would be zero, near the Trading Station. Sometimes a ship will dock when it is near a station. No way to know, but I wonder.

Thanks.

[jlehtone]

That is close to my AP routine:

1. Tell a ship (that has AdvSats) to 'Move to Position' OOS. I put Sats to (0,-25km,0), i.e. below the eplictic plane.
2. When it reports ready, Eject 1 AdvSat from cargobay, OOS.
3. Tell the ship to continue to next destination (i.e. where ever the MORT is required next). OOS

Haven't noticed unauthorized docking, but I'm not terribly active with MORT(s).
I'm not so keen on precision; never used that "type xyz" move command in AP.

[Nanook]

The normal behaviour for a ship when attacked is to fight back. And if you're using a Caiman, it probably wouldn't win the battle. However, if you've used this ship as a CAG or CLS in the past, it probably has a pilot. Ships with pilots can sometimes be a bit more intelligent and run away when attacked. And if you order it to a location where the Trading Station is the nearest station, that's where it will go.

Other than that, such behaviour can only be described as bizarre. I've never observed this with a stock ship.

[Timsup2nothin]

The normal behaviour for a ship when attacked is to fight back. And if you're using a Caiman, it probably wouldn't win the battle. However, if you've used this ship as a CAG or CLS in the past, it probably has a pilot. Ships with pilots can sometimes be a bit more intelligent and run away when attacked. And if you order it to a location where the Trading Station is the nearest station, that's where it will go.

Other than that, such behaviour can only be described as bizarre. I've never observed this with a stock ship.

I've accidentally "attacked" ships idling without orders and had them run away. If they have no weapons I think their response is to run.

My experience is with ship retrieve missions where I forgot to claim before shooting them with a repair laser.

[zazie]

Bill,
I have manually put thousands of Satellites (NavSat and AdvSat) in my games, mostly Vanilla. Check my stats, i am a notorious sat-deployer

I always use Hermes, equipped with Navigation Software MK1 and Explorer Software (if available), send them OOS with the command "fly to position" to xyz, in combination with the option to report after ending the command. If the ship is at or close to the place where i want to put the satellite, I eject one out of the cargo bay and continue. In unknown space I have to use the command 'fly to position' to "see" the next gate on the map before ordering my ship to "fly through gate" and go back into "NavSat-mode". Sometimes, i use "follow ..." to let pull my Hermes into a new sector if the gates are 'hidden' or out of ecliptic.

But in all those years I have never experienced what you are telling in the OP. My ships have never landed in Trading Stations after manual commands of flying to position.

But what your ship is doing would be typical for another command: If you order a ship to 'explore' a sector, it will land at the next Trading Station after completing your command. If there is no station in the same sector, it will fly to a randomly chosen TS in a neighbour-sector or to an ordinary Station, if there is no TS in range.

So, sorry to say, but from my experience, you use the wrong command from time to time, or something must be broken in your game what seems to ask for a fresh install.

[Bill Huntington]

Thanks all, for your replies. Since no one else has the problem, it seems that something is up on my end. Now I know.

Thanks again.

[Nanook]

....
I've accidentally "attacked" ships idling without orders and had them run away. If they have no weapons I think their response is to run.

My experience is with ship retrieve missions where I forgot to claim before shooting them with a repair laser.

I've seen that, too, but I think it's a special case. Also, they just seem to fly off a little ways and then stop again. I've never seen them head for a trading station or any other station.

[Timsup2nothin]

....
I've accidentally "attacked" ships idling without orders and had them run away. If they have no weapons I think their response is to run.

My experience is with ship retrieve missions where I forgot to claim before shooting them with a repair laser.

I've seen that, too, but I think it's a special case. Also, they just seem to fly off a little ways and then stop again. I've never seen them head for a trading station or any other station.

This triggered a dim memory...

At some point I was floundering around trying to figure out how to claim a ship that was docked at a station. Someone here told me how it was done. Now, the question is...how did that unclaimed ship come to be docked at that station? I know it happened. I can even say it was a station in the Boron sector connected to Montalaar, and that I had to snuff a serious pirate threat before trying to sort out the claim business. But for the life of me I have no idea how that ship came to be docked there.

[Alan Phipps]

@ Tim: That last bit used to happen a lot in a major mod (either X-TC or XRM I think). Probably due to its different abandoned ship scripting. Just mentioning it in case it may have applied back then.