Out Of Sector, Sector sleeps after a minute without a player

[zel0t]

Sectors that contain alliance ships but no player will not be kept alive after 5 minutes

edit: I'm not sure if they sleep but after 5 minutes the ships in that sector stop mining/salvage.

[koonschi]

You can try it out if they get unloaded by assigning orders to ships in those sectors. If they're unloaded, you'll get an error stating that the sector isn't in memory.

[zel0t]

You can try it out if they get unloaded by assigning orders to ships in those sectors. If they're unloaded, you'll get an error stating that the sector isn't in memory.

they don't respond to new orders, they will however jump out and/or back into the sector. but not continue mining or start mining again even if i issue new orders. a player has to be present in the sector for them to start, and they will stop 5 min after the player leaves the sector.  I dont see any message in the server window. truthfully i am making the assumption that the sector has gone to sleep. but perhaps the AI has instead?

[koonschi]

If they can jump out and back in then the sector is not unloaded. How do you know they don't accept new orders? Does the icon change?

Would it be possible for you to send us the galaxy, or upload it to a holster so we can take a look?

[zel0t]

The icons do change but no action is taken, i have tried to issue a stop command, then a mine command but they still wont mine. 
when i either jump to sector or switch to it they will work normally. i dont even need to re-issue a command. once i leave, i get income from mining/salvage for 5 minutes then no more.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1EMnxW1WllYOlR8tmfFdfH1urRcWposQ_
is my Galaxy
The ships in question are currently in sector 193:-125 but this happens in all sectors.

Its like they are all on smoke break but start moving and try to look busy when the boss shows up. the worst part is they have the audacity to still want to get paid. 

[koonschi]

Thanks, I'll have a look!

[Neferdias]

koonschi,

I play in the same world as Zel0t and I've noticed something that may help you.

My mining fighters have been mining without issue for the last hour... and I've probably made 200-300 jumps all over the place. They're mining at a normal pace too... sitting here writing this they've racked up +6000 and counting.

It may be an issue with the HarvestAI and single-turreted mining ships not re-orienting themselves OOS and getting stuck trying to mine an asteroid they physically can't.

I will at some point make an effort to fit a ship with 6 mining lasers and testing the OOS AI with that.

[Neferdias]

UPDATE: So yeah, I'm pretty positive that is where the issue is. I created a small mining ship with 4 lasers capable of covering all angles around the ship and it's been mining nonstop without fail since my last post. Haven't had to touch it or move it.

So you're best bet is to look at OOS reorientation of the ship while mining.

[Qui_Sum]

We have looked into out of sector mining and run some extended simulations. Aside from a discrepancy regarding the efficiency of mining fighters, which is now fixed, everything works as intended. We could not reproduce this problem.

To those of you having issues: are you playing single or multiplayer? Especially in multiplayer it's possible that sectors are unloaded for performance reasons. In Singleplayer this limit is practically unreachable.

We will be adding an indicator to sectors that are unloaded and thus not simulated for you to diagnose this.

[Neferdias]

We have looked into out of sector mining and run some extended simulations. Aside from a discrepancy regarding the efficiency of mining fighters, which is now fixed, everything works as intended. We could not reproduce this problem.

To those of you having issues: are you playing single or multiplayer? Especially in multiplayer it's possible that sectors are unloaded for performance reasons. In Singleplayer this limit is practically unreachable.

We will be adding an indicator to sectors that are unloaded and thus not simulated for you to diagnose this.

Qui_Sum, as I stated above, I have already tested and proven the issue is not an unloaded sector. Our multiplayer game used mining ships with ONE mining laser equipped to the "top" side of the ship. So the arc was limited. When we added mining lasers to the left, right, and bottom sides the mining ship would no longer "stop working". As well our mining carriers did not run into the bogging issue, because of the way fighter AI mines.

Which says to me that HarvestAI is not checking its turret firing arcs and repositioning the ship, like it does when you are in the sector, so that the laser can see the asteroid the ship is trying to mine. From a coding perspective, I can see how this would be the issue, as a sector that's loaded with no player is not rendered (or shouldn't be) and is just calculations running in the background so there is no ship model to orient. Yet the calculations are trying to orient the laser towards the asteroid and can't. If this is the case, I suggest that the HarvestAI be adjusted to not include firing arc or turret position... but only to take number of lasers, dps, and efficiency into account when determining mining yields and assume the laser is omnidirectional (even if it means firing through a hull which should then be made to have no collision).

This is obviously only for the OOS HarvestAI script... the IS HarvestAI script works fine and can be left alone.

If this is still unclear, or you are still unable to produce the problem, I can take a video of the issue.

Ps. thanks for the fighter fix, that makes mining fighters even more efficient while still utilizing high speeds.

[PointedObservations]

I seem to be having similar issues. I'm playing in single player and the sectors do not appear to be unloaded (when I first started the game up, I would get errors if I sent commands to ships in unloaded sectors, but after some time OOS ship orders don't raise those errors). However, mining and salvaging soon stop for OOS ships with the recent updates. When I switch to those ships, though, I don't find them active near asteroids or whatever.

[Qui_Sum]

If this is the case, I suggest that the HarvestAI be adjusted to not include firing arc or turret position... but only to take number of lasers, dps, and efficiency into account when determining mining yields and assume the laser is omnidirectional (even if it means firing through a hull which should then be made to have no collision).

This is pretty much how out of sector updates are actually handled, turret positions and rotations are not taken into account. There must be some other problem, we will keep investigating.