How to manage Failed Orders?

[Scoob]

Hey all,

So, knowing a ship's order failed can potentially be useful, though, generally, I don't notice until ages after the fail. Additionally, some "failed orders" are nothing of the sort! I.e. groups of ships go to attack a target, the first there destroy it, the ones that didn't make it on time get "failed" move or attack orders. Wrong. They didn't "fail", rather the requirement for them to fly to and attack that object was no longer there. Not a fail. My patrols are CONSTANTLY showing failed orders, due to another group / ship beating them to a target.

With Auto-traders it can potentially be more useful, but as they generally sort themselves out there's nothing to do really. I see occasional "failed" orders from them when they attempt to trade with another Faction's Auxiliary Support ships - those trades always fail, reported that ages ago. I also see failed orders to build storage, where the build site has since been destroyed. Still, it's an auto-trader, the clue is in the name, why do I need to know this if the trader happily goes and finds another buyer without my intervention? If it got STUCK, and was unable to proceed at all sure, tell me, otherwise I don't care.

I also get near constant "failed" orders on various station-assigned ships selling my Wares. Now, sure, for a few minutes there wasn't a valid trade - I've likely saturated the market a bit - but to say the orders have "failed" is a bit of a reach. It's not "failed" as in a previously valid trade could not be completed. Rather, there simply is no valid trade at this time. A Station level message to say available market is saturated might be useful, but for every single trade ship to report "failed" orders isn't useful.

So, glancing at the MANY ships I have buzzing around, some assigned to Stations, some a part of a larger fleet and many just doing their own thing. I see the amber icon but don't know which, if any, actually have any significance or are even a valid "failed order".

Basically, when loads of ships are reporting "Failed" orders, identifying cases that are genuine and require player input is near impossible. So, I generally ignore them, making this feature essentially useless.

How do people handle this? Do you find it useful at all?

[Steel]

Yeah it would be nice to have

Pondering Orders (I like that, Pilot sat with feet on the console having a "ponder"), where it's thinking about what to do and will usually fix itself.
Failed Orders where (prolly after a set time), pondering hasn't worked out for it.

It would be nice to differentiate between the two.

I generally click on them as I pass on the map to have a look and can mentally put them into "Pondering" or "Failed", but it would be nice if the game did this, I agree.

[Scoob]

I do review ships with Failed orders if I have a bit of down-time in the game. Things have been pretty hectic the first four game days or so. However, now the Xenon are less of a problem, I can get on with other things.

As I reviewed them, a grand total of ZERO actually warranted any attention from me. They were all like "I haven't found a viable trade in MINUTES, gasp! But that was AGES ago (5 minutes) and I'm on my way selling a load as you read this." or, "that pesky fast FIGHTER group, beat me a slow-assed Destroyer, to kill that single SCA Scout!" and "I had some stuff and I couldn't sell it where I wanted, but I've since sold it somewhere else without issue. Thought you should know..."

I think the "failed order" should be REMOVED if the situations was resolved. I.e. "I couldn't find a trade (buyer for the ware I'm hauling) BUT I have now, failed order cleared" sort of thing. Same for military orders, i.e. "I failed to get to my assigned target, BUT it was destroyed anyway." sort of thing.

I guess the only marginally useful one was a Station-assigned Miner saying they couldn't find any valid trades. Aka, their station is actually full of that ware, perhaps I don't need quite so many Miners.

It's be good to see things logged such as:

Ships not finding many buyers for trade good Medical Supplies selling from station Food and Meds Production. Analysis: there are buyers, but not in the current trade range (Manger and Pilot level) or Analysis: there are buyers, but your price is too high. sort of thing.

A ship's home station not having a buy offer for the ware they're hauling. Analysis: Why'd you buy so much of that sh*t? Lol. Or, with Miners far more likely to be the ship here, "You have excess miners working for this station. Consider expanding production to make use of this plentiful resource, or re-task those miners elsewhere".

Ships unable to find source of Energy Cells for your station "Food and Meds Production". Analysis: Your BUY price it too low / no suppliers in trade range at this price etc.

Basically, for anything Station-related, a log entry might be more useful. Should stations alert us if they have such an entry? Perhaps. Station-level alerts are better than those from multiple ships at the station. With the "Analysis" thing, explaining in readily understandable language what's happening, it might be a real boon to newer players. Additionally, there might be more complex station configuration issues where this might help. I.e. "Analysis: Cannot find any source of ware Energy Cells. You've restricted suppliers to only Faction 'Scoob' ".

I think the whole "Failed Orders" thing needs to be revised, so the player isn't bombarded with useless information. Expanding it to Log some stuff at a station level might be useful.

[baerdesklopapies]

o/

i´m with scoop.
I only check the failed Orders when i setup a new Station but soon i know it is working i ignore them.Mostly they are "can't find something to Trade" and if i am correct they go away when they find some (not shure about Autotraders).
Is it useless? No, it means i need to update Station information...maybe the Manager needs more Skill...but i always have other things to do and i ignore them again .

I ignore Fighters too i have 10 and 7 are sitting Ducks at PHQ, one is exploring Sectors and one is protecting a Manticore. The explorer has no issues, the protection sometimes has one failed order on it but i never checked it.
I dont know when it comes to Carriers. Maybe they report in "docking failed" and this indicator and the Order log message would be useful. On the other hand i would not notice them because they have reported in masses "can't Attack target anymore" beforehand.

I dont want to miss this feature, but it may need some optimization that i don't know how to optimize it.
Maybe we need a better "Captain's log" that is only accessible for the specific Ships to hunt down whats going on, on the long term (like the Trade log). But this do not resolve the issue with ignoring it until it is too late .

o7

[Nanook]

... if i am correct they go away when they find some...

You're not, and they don't. I once had a Manticore with a stack of 3 failed orders, yet it had recently just completed a successful delivery. I've had many miners with up to 2 failed orders and yet were successfully delivering their loads to the station. As Scoob said, they should clear those 'failed orders' once they successfully complete their task. Why they don't do so seems to be a design flaw.

[Scoob]

You're not, and they don't. I once had a Manticore with a stack of 3 failed orders, yet it had recently just completed a successful delivery. I've had many miners with up to 2 failed orders and yet were successfully delivering their loads to the station. As Scoob said, they should clear those 'failed orders' once they successfully complete their task. Why they don't do so seems to be a design flaw.

That's the key. To highlight a ship with the Amber icon while they're having a problem is one thing, when they auto-resolve it - as they often do - clear it again. As mentioned, going through my dozens of ship clearing the "failed" orders, none of them needed me and all self-resolved. It's why I generally ignore them.

I of course DO monitor things like station stock levels and supply anyway, observing trends (stock increasing / falling) and react accordingly. I think, for station monitoring, more robust alerts for when a station is low on resource / near full on production capacity would be more useful.

[billsherwin]

Failed orders are a pain with Fleet repair activity too. Large fleet, 100's of fighters and an Aux ship for repairing after after a battle. When the action is over the fightes all queue with Aux to get repaired (P.S. They only use one Aux even if there are several attached to Supply Fleet - also a pain). If they don't get docked for a while, (big queue), they go to orange arrows, and those never go away, even if later they get to dock and get repaired. You either put up with orange arrows for hours after the battle or spend ages go through each fighter and deleting the Failed to dock alert. With 100s of fighters that's a lot of wasted time. Why can' Egosoft add some small code to remove the Failed to Dock alert once the ship has docked and repaired - can't be that difficult surely??

[donzi]

... if i am correct they go away when they find some...

You're not, and they don't. <snip>

..both correct actually (in beta 7.00 anyhow).

The failed orders do clear for my single autotraders when ware stock/price levels offer a new trade for them to make.

The commander assigned autotraders (eg: station) are the ones where fail orders accumulate.

..and last I paid attention, autominers just play dumb and never complain about anything. lol .. would like to see them raise the failed trade flag.

[Nanook]

... if i am correct they go away when they find some...

You're not, and they don't. <snip>

..both correct actually (in beta 7.00 anyhow)....

This thread is nearly a year old, and for version 6.+. Since you're referring to the beta, you should post bug reports in the appropriate feedback forum. To avoid further confusion for others, this thread will now descend into history.