More, Less Fatal, Bugs

[MTKnife]

Two new bugs I've spotted:

I keep having contracts expire surprisingly quickly. I had thought it was due to my not keeping track, or to spending more time than I though in port, but no, there's something wrong: I stopped in an Urban Zone, checked the one contract I had at the time, and saw I had 37 weeks left to complete it. I checked rumors at the Palace and Spice Hall, took over, and then flew to another planet 4 or 5 AU's away, and put down in the Urban Zone there. I immediately got the "contract expired" toast.

Later in the game, I flew to a planet after hearing a rumor of an Electronics shortage. I landed, went to the Exchange, and sure enough there were shortage prices on Electronics. However, in the Exchange, the rumor toast (the one that's only supposed to come up in the main Urban Zone screen, and only if you haven't seen the rumor already--it probably was supposed to come up on the main screen, but was slow, as the toasts often are) came up telling me there was an Electronics surplus. Not only that, but every time I came back to the main Urban Zone screen, the toast came up again. I did go back to the Exchange to check to see if the shortage had changed to a surplus, but no, the prices were still high.

[Cory Trese]

I'm confused

Are you reporting that you are advancing turns too quickly? Or that contract expiration dates are changing after assignment?

I think the second issue might be a way of describing the UI effects of two rumors on a planet bug?

[Cory Trese]

I am searching for the cause of the double rumor bug but so far, it still seems to be impossible to reproduce

[MTKnife]

Mar 30, 2011 3:55:53 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

I'm confused

Are you reporting that you are advancing turns too quickly? Or that contract expiration dates are changing after assignment?z

The latter. I'd put it more generally, though: the contract in question expired about 30 weeks before it should have. I don't know if the date got advanced somehow, or if something else triggered the expiration. I'll look for it again to see if I can find a pattern.

[MTKnife]

Mar 30, 2011 4:11:04 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

I am searching for the cause of the double rumor bug but so far, it still seems to be impossible to reproduce

I've only seen it the one time. It's only slightly annoying and doesn't really change the game, and so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

[havocme]

Does listening to rumors advance time? If so, buy slamming the $100 rumor button until it ends, am I spending months in the bars? O.O

[MTKnife]

Mar 30, 2011 6:44:44 GMT -5 havocme said:

Does listening to rumors advance time? If so, buy slamming the $100 rumor button until it ends, am I spending months in the bars? O.O

Cory has said before that it's random--if you keep an eye on the date on in the upper lefthand corner of the screen, you'll see it advance by 1 occasionally when buying rounds of spice; I think it might do so as well for rumors, though that wouldn't have explained 30 weeks of time in the case I described above.

[Cory Trese]

Spike & Liz have both reported the double rumor bug as well, so I think it is out there ... somewhere

[ehkamp]

Double rumors: bug or feature?

Most of the time, I'd say they are a feature. I see no storyline rationale for limiting a planet to one rumor at a time. (Though there may be coding reasons.)

IMHO, it is only a bug when both rumors affect the same thing, but in different directions (as in the OP).

Liz

[MTKnife]

I just hit the contract expiration bug again: I was I'm an Urban Zone, checked on the contract, found I had 23 weeks left (or maybe 26). I immediately leave the Zone and fly three spaces to another planet. I land, do one sell and two buys in the Exchange (which takes no time), checks about five new ship plans, check rumors (about five total in both locations combined), and then boom, I get the expiration toast.

[Cory Trese]

I will go look at the time consumption code some, perhaps I will find something that has changed.

I will say this -- the game is designed to make it an extra challenge if the Captain takes Contracts and starts wandering around checking out ships and doing stuff while on contract.

PS: Trading in the Exchange takes time. Extra time if there are Taxes, or Bans or the Exchange is Crowded with Merchants or Refugees. If you have really good Negotiation or are playing a Merchant making Trade Records, extra weeks can be consumed. Dangerous goods (Artifacts) take a lot of time, as do complex things like Plants and Crystals. Records and Water-Fuel should take vastly reduced (-80%) time.

[oldalchemist]

How exactly does the Merchant Trade Records thing work? My Merchants make records sometimes, but I have no idea what triggers it. Is it based on tactics and negotiation like Smuggler records are? Is it only triggered on taxes and bans?

Also, sometimes those trade records overfill the hold!

[Cory Trese]

I will make sure the information gets into the manual (or Spike/Liz/Stu will probably be the one who does the hard work)

I have put overfull holds on the list of bugs. ooops!

[oldalchemist]

I guess the overfill is a problem if you award records for buying as well as selling. I think that's OK, as long as you can't leave the exchange with them. If they're not on the ship, they're not in EM containment, so they take up negligible space. (That could create issues for Captains skirting an embargo or spy battle if you're forced to sell. Maybe an option to just dump them?)

[Cory Trese]

thou shalt NOT allocate to the database:
- more Crew than the ship can hold
- more Cargo than the captain can transport
- more Torps than the ship can arm
- More boosts than the hull points

Why? because the system makes gross assumptions about these laws and behaves in unpredictable and crazy ways when they are violated. there, my friends, be dragons.