Bugs and stuff

[MasterMindLess]

"And stuff." Descriptive.

Anyway.

-I took a contract in Riftspace to destroy a capship and 6 escorts. Jump to the target area, a capital and only 2 escorts. I kill the cap and escorts, get no cash. I headed back to the station and began pounding reds. After I destroyed 1 or 2, I got the money for the contract. Reminds me of a certain beta bug....
There was another player (Jet) in the sector, but he was AFK.

-I believe this pic describes this next bug quite well:

That's Jε┼ (or something like that... Can't remember the exact symbols)

Other stuff:
-I was jumping my way to RiftSpace... And ran, out of jump, straight into a capship - twice! (Not the same capship two times, mind, but two different capships, once each.) Seems there were problems with this earlier, and it's really, really annoying.

-Also on the way to RiftSpace, a red shot me as I was coming out of jump. (a) A pilot's reflexes should not be good enough to orient, target, and pull the trigger within the first half of a second after someone emerges from jump. (b) The chances of someone actually being in range of someone else coming out of jump, in the middle of nowhere between systems, are infinitesimally small.

[Vice]

1 - Contract details can be inaccurate, that is part of the risk involved with the contractual system. Your odds are better and the accuracy is generally very high, but conditions can change by the time you get there, especially if you take a long time getting there. You may find the capital ship was even made aware of your acceptance of the contract and it jumps away before you get there. Take the contract as a mostly accurate offer with information accurate at the time you view it. Wait too long and that accuracy decreases. With some of them, you can hunt down other hostiles in the area and complete the objectives, just like you did, sometimes you just have to cancel the contract and move on to the next. You may also be offered 'junk' contracts periodically, where you're only offered the ones other more qualified mercenaries don't want or are over-qualifed for. Those contracts can be less accurate, so observe your reputation with the factions/groups you are reviewing contracts for to determine if you're getting a decent contract and being offered decent pay.

2 - Unicode characters and many specialized characters are not supported by the 3D text system. If you want your name to appear, you'll need to use ASCII characters in the range of 32 to 126.

3 - Can happen, but there are ways to reduce it. Stay out of high traffic areas when you plot your jumps, that will reduce the chance you will arrive point blank against a big ship. Lock the jump point directly to station hangars when docking. Stay to the edges of a sector for less risky jumps. Jump higher or lower on the Y position.

4 - If it's guns, you can do it, so AI ships can also. If it was a missile attack, that would be more unlikely. Either way, some tweaking is being done for empty areas in space to further reduce ship encounters outside of areas near solar systems.

[Edited on 6-16-2008 by Vice]

[MasterMindLess]

1. Awesome! I had no idea the contract system was so complex.

2. No big deal... It just looked funny, so I thought I'd ask.

3. Thanks for the tips.

4. It was guns. Looking forward to the tweaking.

[MasterMindLess]

-This may just be my internet connection, but when I check online news when online news is already being displayed, I lose my connection with the server.

I don't know if the same thing happens when I check online news when regular news is being displayed - I'll look into it.
Update: Yup. It still disconnects.
Remind me to not check online news.

Another edit: It's slow, but still works, during SP.
Also: Eh? Online and regular news is the same?:o

[Edited on 6-17-2008 by MasterMindLess]

[Vice]

The process being slow on your system is probably the key to the cause there. If your connection can't retrieve the online news data fast enough, it could delay response to the server and the server will drop you for failure to respond in the required time period. It should take no more than about 1-3 seconds. Any longer than that and your connection isn't performing fast enough. You need at least a 128K DSL line, not dialup and absolutely not satellite internet, and make sure your connection isn't being shared or used for something else in the background that could hurt performance.

Online news remains actively displayed until you clear it (with the Clear Online News button).

[MasterMindLess]

lol... back to "get a better connection."

"being shared or used for something else" - so, another computer is hooked up to the modem, and I get my connection through a router. Does that mean it's being shared? What if that comp were completely off?

-After I cleared it, it changed (online news had something about Wolf system being discovered, other had something about [BP] and Lost Rucker being discovered), but when I checked it while flying in SP (no connection to interrupt... , it didn't change (offline news about [BP] and Lost Rucker, same exact for online).

[Vice]

If the connection is shared, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll have a performance impact. But if the other computers are downloading or doing other online activities, then it can severely hinder your online connection performance.

[MasterMindLess]

Okay... Good to know.

Many thanks.

(Note to self: Fly when other computer is not in use.)

[MasterMindLess]

Okay, I've got another one, and I'm pretty sure this isn't supposed to happen.

-I'm taking some stuff out of containers, and when my secondary weapon hardpoints are full, and my cargo bays begin to be used, I'm jumped back 20 meters every time I get something from the container. This only happens when cargo bays are being filled.

I've tried it with Exodus missiles and stealths, does it for both.

[Vice]

Are you in a first or third person view?

[MasterMindLess]

third - I was going to mention that, but I kinda spaced it...

[Vice]

Yeah, it was a third person view quirk. Fixed for the next update, thanks.