Duplicate Nomadic Defender

[MTKnife]

Occasionally I have two "Nomadic Defender" missions showing in orbit. I think there's only supposed to be one in these cases, but in any event, once I complete one, both disappear.

[fallen]

Please provide some more details, like a screenshot of the mission screen and a screenshot of the orbit screen.

Also, as with every bug report we need the basics -- OS, version, game version, etc.

[MTKnife]

It's version 278, on Windows 10. Next time I see it I can screenshot it, but I don't think that's going to give you more info. However, to go into more detail, I've literally got two, identical, "Nomadic Defender" mission buttons in the lower left, positioned as they normally would be for two orbital missions in the same system (the big tell being they have the same expiration date). I click on the top one, get the Mission card after a few runs, and then I get the usual "1 of 2" progress screen. Both buttons are still there in orbit. I click on the top one again, eventually get the Mission card again, and get the normal completion screen...and then back in orbit, not just one but both mission buttons are now gone.

One time it happened, I assumed there were two steps in the same system (as you mentioned earlier, that happens sometimes), but the last time it happened, I'm 80% sure it was just the one step. Even if there had been two steps, they shouldn't both disappear at once.

[fallen]

Let's get the details in a screenshot so we can avoid 80% hunting bugs

Details for bug hunts are a must otherwise hours just go down the drain en masse.

[MTKnife]

I literally have told you everything you would have gotten in a screenshot. There are no more details.

I rarely do that mission, so it's not going to happen often.

[fallen]

Sorry to disagree, but a screenshot contains so many unprovided details. Maybe this bug only happens over Orbitals, who knows! Without details, we're just guessing.

Details are key, otherwise, I'm wasting hours debugging ... I don't really even know.

[MTKnife]

OK, I have a screenshot of the double Nomadic Defender mission. In this case, when I arrived in the system, I had two steps from two separate Nomadic Defender missions. I completed both of them (meaning I pulled the Mission card 4 times). After I completed the second one, the next step in that mission popped up in the same system, and, as you can see, the button is duplicated. After I completed the mission (pulled the Mission card twice), both buttons were gone.

[fallen]

Could you provide details about the exact order of operations? The story style of bug reporting makes it hard to know when you transitioned screens, etc.

Did you stay in Patrol screen the entire time and this screenshot is ... when both missions were finished?

[MTKnife]

I don't know what other "style" I could adopt here: I'm reporting exactly what happened on my screen, in the order it happened. Please keep in mind that I'm not a unit test, and I'm not going to give you all the information you'd get in a unit test, because I'm not constantly logging info, or even paying attention to details before I see something go wrong. I'll give you all the details I can remember, and a screenshot in this case because you asked for one. And please keep in mind that I'm not doing this to torture you, or because I think it's fun--I'm doing this to be helpful, and I'm well aware most people don't go to the trouble.

As I said, when I got to the system, I had two Nomadic Defender buttons, representing steps from two entirely different missions. I finished one (two Mission cards), and that button disappeared. I finished the second (two more Mission cards). In all cases when I drew a Mission card, a 1-of-2 screen or a step completion screen came up. When I clicked out of the last completion screen and got back into orbit, I had the two new buttons you see here.

I'm pretty sure that, at a number of points, I exited the patrol screen, to check Talent cooldowns or expirations on other missions. I think I even left the system and came back once or twice, to fuel, heal, and repair at a nearby system.

After I posted the initial report, the same thing happened a few minutes later in another system: except that time there were no earlier steps, just the duplicated buttons when I arrived (and I believe this was also the situation when I first reported the bug a few days ago). Both buttons disappeared after two Mission cards. Therefore, I doubt this has anything to do with the earlier steps in the same system--that appears to have been just a coincidence.

BTW, is the Mission card percentage supposed to reset to 20% when moving from the first half to the second half of the step? It's not, but I'm not sure if that's intended.

[fallen]

MTKnife, thanks for the details. Took it as a bug report to investigate on the list.

A procedural style would be most helpful.

1. I did this
2. I clicked this
3. I did this
4. I clicked this
5. This happened, I think its a bug

Specifically, the order of clicks and screen transitions is really important.

[MTKnife]

The problem is there's no procedure: in most cases, I navigate to the system, and the orbit screen pops up, and there the duplicated missions are. It doesn't happen every time, or even the majority of times, but it happens fairly frequently. Yes, I understand that different behavior in different cases means the state of the app was different in those different cases--but I have no clue what it is. I'm not logging what happens before that point, because I'm not expecting the bug, and a lot of times I just navigate to the nearest mission marker, not even realizing it's a Nomadic Defender.

I sympathize. I know it's hard to debug when the behavior in question appears inconsistent. I wish I had something more helpful for you, but at least it's a purely cosmetic bug.

[fallen]

We'll keep working on it. I keep asking for more details because I keep trying to reproduce it an come up empty.

I'm sure we'll figure out the case or exact series of clicks that causes it eventually

[MTKnife]

Here's an idea:

I think it's happening when I'm carrying two Nomadic Defender missions at once, though I'm not absolutely sure of this. When entering the orbit screen, is the program is looping through all the missions to see which one(s) should be displayed? If so, maybe the button info is stored in a temporary variable that's not being properly overwritten or garbage-collected, and thus it ends up being displayed when the loop hits the second (or later) Nomadic Defender mission. Maybe it has something to do with multipart mission steps? Those aren't unique to Nomadic Defender, but it's a fairly commonly offered mission, making the chance of having two of them at once fairly high.