In Beta for Anathema (which will probably be done in a week or so), Jalisurr ran into a strange problem. One of the missions wouldn't complete for him, even though the travel objective was complete and he returned to the proper return stellar. When he posted his pilotlog, I saw that the reason it wasn't completing was because the ShipObjective wasn't complete.

Not strange at all, right? Wrong! The ship objective in this mission is "observe ships," and the ship system is "follow player." (The only reason for this objective is to make a text appear when you take off). What's even stranger is that the text on ShipDone actually displays on blast-off, but the pilot log still says that the ship objective is incomplete. He then aborted the mission and tried again, and got the exact same results. Here's the pilotlog of just the mission data:

Active missions:
Pick Up Sympathizers (1080):
travelObjComplete: yes
shipObjComplete: no
missionFailed: no
flags: 0806
flags2: 0000
canAbort: yes
timeLeft: -32000
destStellar: 198
returnStellar: 537
initialShipCount: 2
specialShipCount: 2
specialShipDude: 300
specialShipGoal: 4
specialShipBehavior: 1
specialShipStart: 0
specialShipSyst: -6
specialShipsKilled: 0
specialShipsBoarded: 0
specialShipsDisabled: 0
specialShipsJumpedIn: 0
specialShipsJumpedOut: 0
specialShipNameIndex: -1
specialShipSubtitleIndex: -1
specialShipPreselectType: 2
auxShipCount: -1
auxShipsLeft: -1
auxShipDude: -1
auxShipSyst: -1
cargoType: 6
cargoQty: 10
pickupMode: 1
dropoffMode: 1
cargoLoaded: yes
scanMask: 0000
compGovt: 199
compReward: 100
datePostIncrement: 0
pay: -10128

My reaction (since I didn't run into this problem) was that it's probably just a corrupted pilot file. But, before he spends the hours required to start the entire Anathema storyline over, I wanted to make sure nobody else saw another possibility. Any thoughts?

Before you try anything too drastic, try to copy the mission into its own plug and see if it works standalone. If not, it's a problem with the mission itself. Try taking away the ship requirements and putting them back piece by piece, testing after each change. If it does work by itself, then the problem is with existing resources in your plug. Try to figure out what those are.

If the only purpose is to display a message, surely you don't need two special ships. Try making it just one.

And why not just make the ships in the initial system then, not following the player?

The ships themselves are there for ambiance; you have a few helpers coming with you to help you pick up your cargo.

From how it seems though, since it works for everybody but Jalisurr, it's probably his pilot. Although just to be safe, I could probably re-script the thing a bit to eliminate that aspect of the mission.

UPDATE: Jalisurr is now having trouble with another mission that runs a string on ShipDone, so it may be a problem with his Nova. Does that sound feasible?

This post has been edited by Archon : 04 October 2007 - 10:25 PM

Tell him to reinstall the nova engine and make a new pilot, just to be on the safe side.

Unlikely to be a problem with his Nova. Possibly a problem with the pilot. The log also shows neither of the ships have jumped in or out - did he actually see the ships?

Yeah, I did. They start in your formation when you blast off.

I also have yet to get it to do what's in the OnShipDone field when the ship in question is escorting the player. I wonder if it's a bug in Nova.

Very odd. None of the other testers or I have had any trouble with this. Could it be a version discrepancy?

Hm, who's on windows, who's on mac? I'll assume everyone's running 1.0.10.

This post has been edited by Guy : 06 October 2007 - 04:20 PM

I be running windows. But I be stuck on a couple of missions before that one... meh. Hopefully, the problem has been discovered. I'll also be able to test this... err.. soon. And yeah, I run 1.0.10 as well.

Haha, as soon as I get through the MASSIVE amount of criticism offered by one individual two posts up who shall remain anonymous (;)) I'll get the new version uploaded.

For a guy who's not a beta tester, he sure gave me a hell of a headache!

Oh, and I'm on mac. (how could you think otherwise?) with 1.0.10