1.7.0.7 Patrol/Automation bug

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currierm
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu Sep 09, 2010 4:07 am

1.7.0.7 Patrol/Automation bug

Post by currierm »

I'm having problems in 1.7.0.7 keeping my automated escorts and frigates doing anything useful.

What happens is that I see an ever increasing supply of escorts/frigates on patrol missions around a few select research bases and mining stations. I think they are bases built early on in the game (maybe because those are the first ones the AI checks?). Once they get stuck in this pattern- it doesn't appear to stop. The best approach I've found to correcting matters is to give them something else to do (retrofit or refuel) or to de-automate a few ships, wait a couple seconds and then automate. Usually they'll switch to an escort job. Then wait a few more seconds and do a few more ships.

At a guess- the bug is not checking for new tasks periodically while patroling.
Yarasala
Posts: 185
Joined: Mon May 10, 2010 4:35 pm

RE: 1.7.0.7 Patrol/Automation bug

Post by Yarasala »

I noticed that also. My guess is that the auto algorithm to determine what places to patrol always comes up with the same results without taking into account that there are already patrols assigned to those locations.
currierm
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu Sep 09, 2010 4:07 am

RE: 1.7.0.7 Patrol/Automation bug

Post by currierm »

ORIGINAL: Yarasala

I noticed that also. My guess is that the auto algorithm to determine what places to patrol always comes up with the same results without taking into account that there are already patrols assigned to those locations.

That's certainly a possibility. One thing I noticed- I just had an event where a scientist had a breakthrough which gives me the free 3X research progress. Now they seem to be prioritizing that station for protection. Wonder if this is related somehow.
sbach2o
Posts: 378
Joined: Fri Mar 26, 2010 8:15 am

RE: 1.7.0.7 Patrol/Automation bug

Post by sbach2o »

In previous versions (RotS and the original DW), similar behavior could be seen in the private sector: Passenger ships going in their majority to a single planet to pick up migrants or tourists, or huge swarms of freighters queueing up for a needed resource at a single planet when there were multiple sources available.

This could take on grotuesque forms, like the passenger ships ferrying off a significant portion of a ~10 billion population, or hundreds of freighters going after a planet with just a tiny stock of Yarras Marble - all of it would've fit into the hold of one small freighter, and only the first few could conceivably have loaded their alloted amount, most latecomers were left scraps or nothing. The same could happen with tourist traffic where typically the passenger ships were all going to a single resort base (this got much better in later patches of RotS).

You could probably make up interesting back stories like 'there was probably some bad government on that planet to cause an emigration rush', but in truth there was neither sense nor reason for that behavior. Just a blatant failure of the AI to distribute load.

I called it the locust swarm effect. There may be relation to the patrol behavior of military ships, at least the pattern looks familiar. I've seen this too, btw.
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elliotg
Posts: 3848
Joined: Mon Sep 10, 2007 9:32 am

RE: 1.7.0.7 Patrol/Automation bug

Post by elliotg »

Thanks for this report. This patrolling issue is fixed in the 1.7.0.8 update
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