Random Death & missing wingmen

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Random Death & missing wingmen

Post by VGSailor »

Okay, I finally got my Logitech Attack 3 joystick (which I LOVE :) ) and have begun attempting to fly combat-oriented missions (clean sweeps, bounties, rescues, etc.). Today, I was five points into a 7-point Clean Sweep, with my Auto-Pilot active to fly to the next point, when suddenly I died for no reason. I got the 3rd-person ship exploding graphic, and then the flaming woman standing on the pile of skulls, when there was absolutely nothing wrong with my ship. Well, there was some MINOR armor damage, but I would say I had at least 80% armor strength on every face. I didn't have my Damage Report up at the time, but the graphical readout showed almost unnoticeable damage to the armor. At the time I was in SPEC Drive with Auto-Pilot in the middle of empty space with no other ships around. (Not even my wingman which I'll get to in a second.) Why would my ship explode randomly under these circumstances? Is it a bug, or did my Auto-Pilot crash me into something? I've had similar things happen before, but it was a while ago when I first starting playing the game, so I don't remember the exact circumstances. This time, though, I know there is NO REASON AT ALL that I should have died. And it pisses me off because I was only two points away from completing a 7-point Clean Sweep, and I had already destroyed the Luddite flightgroup that I had been required to destroy. Any thoughts?

Second question: Why am I always losing my wingman/men? Sometimes, they don't all ever even show up in the first place, and then, inevitably, about two or three nav points into a Clean Sweep, they are simply gone. I'm pretty sure they're not all getting destroyed. Is there something I need to do to summon them back? I've gotten into the habit of giving them the Shift-F command before I go into Auto-Pilot to travel to the next nav point, but still it seems they are getting lost somewhere.

Thank you, in advance, for your help. :)
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Re: Random Death & missing wingmen

Post by TBeholder »

Well, choppy (FPS) physics + SPEC = inevitable unpredicted collisions.
My autopilot patch somewhat lessens the probability, but it cannot be eliminated completely until either warp interdiction will be reworked, or collision model reworked to interact with SPEC (i.e. drop warp rate before actually colliding).

As to the wingmen, CommFormUp should help, but again, SPEC overshooting and limited radar range means you need them to form up before flying away. Also, they stay only until next docking.
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Re: Random Death & missing wingmen

Post by VGSailor »

TBeholder wrote:Well, choppy (FPS) physics + SPEC = inevitable unpredicted collisions.
My autopilot patch somewhat lessens the probability, but it cannot be eliminated completely until either warp interdiction will be reworked, or collision model reworked to interact with SPEC (i.e. drop warp rate before actually colliding).
So, my Auto-Pilot did crash me into something. That makes sense based on what I remember from the previous times it's happened. I don't remember the specifics, but I do remember that it was always shortly after I pressed 'A' to activate Auto-Pilot.
TBeholder wrote:As to the wingmen, CommFormUp should help, but again, SPEC overshooting and limited radar range means you need them to form up before flying away. Also, they stay only until next docking.
What, exactly, does CommFormUp do? Earlier today I flew to the jump gate where my wingmen were, I targeted one of them and pressed Shift-F, and then watched as it sped up and disappeared. I guess it went to the next nav point on my mission list, but I can't be sure because I never saw that or any of the other wingmen I had hired for that mission on my target screen again.

Related question: Is there any way to target your wingmen, specifically? It feels like I have to U or Shift-U through every ship in the system before I find my flightgroup.
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Re: Random Death & missing wingmen

Post by TBeholder »

VGSailor wrote:What, exactly, does CommFormUp do?
CommFormUp? If the leader exists and is in the same system, the rest of FG tries to assume certain positions relative to the leader (dependent on their number, with odd and even on different flanks, at some distance proportional to AI/Targetting/EscortDistance, using SPEC depending on AI/warp_to_wingmen) and turn (toward some point ahead depending on AI/Targetting/TurnLeaderDist). It all happens on navigation orders level, that is. And they will try to do it constantly, no matter what, until there's some other order, enemy in range, or they're detached (you docked).
It supposed to be proportional to ship size, so if my ship is Taizong, a pair of Zhuanzong forms a little over 5km to the left and to the right.
But they overshoot-decelerate-and-retry when using SPEC, just like any other NPC.
VGSailor wrote: Earlier today I flew to the jump gate where my wingmen were, I targeted one of them and pressed Shift-F, and then watched as it sped up and disappeared. I guess it went to the next nav point on my mission list, but I can't be sure because I never saw that or any of the other wingmen I had hired for that mission on my target screen again.
If your order is on message log, they heard it (if not, check key binding). If each wingman's responce is on message log, they are present and got the order.
My guess is, the wingman ran toward you, then used SPEC and overshot by a light minute or so (in part due to its autopilot being even more primitive than your, in part due to rampdown bug already fixed in SVN). Or there was an enemy within their radar range, that is.
VGSailor wrote:Related question: Is there any way to target your wingmen, specifically? It feels like I have to U or Shift-U through every ship in the system before I find my flightgroup.
Currently there's no way to specifically target wingmen. If there's not much traffic where you meet them, tell them "form up" immediately, use "k" (nearest friendly), because they are supposed to hang around. Or approach some jump point with low traffic and press "k" when they approach. On the bright side, they will be sequential in the generic target lists, so if there's more than one, you only want to store the first ("shift-T" goes through them backward).
Yes, it is a good idea to make a "temmate" targetlist. I guess we'll have to do it, at very latest upon adding more discerning "target's status" screen (WC style).
But you don't need this for orders, except when you want to mark one of them as the target to defend. Flightgroup orders are always working directly through flightgroup support, so you can give any order at any time - unless it uses a target (like defend/attack - see in commands), then you got to target something appliable.
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Re: Random Death & missing wingmen

Post by VGSailor »

TBeholder wrote:If your order is on message log, they heard it (if not, check key binding).
Ah HAH. I think we're onto something here. I've never, ever, in all the missions I've tried to fly with wingmen, seen any kind of output on my message log related to my supposed issuance of the "Form Up" command. In fact, the only communication I've ever seen between my wingmen and myself was once when I had bound one of my joystick buttons to "CommHelpMeOut". That worked. I saw the sent message and I saw the response. But I have never seen either a sent or received message relating to CommFormUp.

Looking at my vegastrike.config, I see:

Code: Select all

    <bind key="F" modifier="alt" command="CommFormUp" />
    <bind key="B" modifier="alt" command="CommBreakForm" />
    <bind key="H" modifier="alt" command="CommHelpMeOut" />
    <bind key="D" modifier="alt" command="CommAttackTarget" />
I'm a little worried about that "alt" modifier. All the other modifiers say, "none." Should I change this, or do I have to type something else other than just Shift-whatever to execute these commands?
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Worthless Wingmen

Post by VGSailor »

Okay, I figured out that pressing Alt+Shift+F sends the "Form on my wing" command. And it is usually responded to with a "Roger that, Boss" from each of the wingmen, at least initially.

When I visit the jump point where my wingmen are waiting and send the FormUp command, I am then able to find them on my target screen and see them get within a certain distance of me and hold. As soon as I move away from that jump point, however, they are effectively gone.

Whether I press 'A' to Auto-Pilot to another location, or even if I jump through the same jump gate where I met them, I never see my wingmen again. From that point on, every command I send to them is met with either dead silence (about 75% of the time) or a "No can do, Boss" response (about 25% of the time). In any case, I'm flying solo.

I've flown probably a dozen missions with wingmen since I figured out how to properly send the "Form on my wing" command - most of them Clean Sweeps, where you fight multiple enemies each mission - and in the literally hundreds of enemy engagements I've had during that time, there have been only four times when a wingman of mine had anything at all to do with the destruction of an enemy craft. I get more help from the random other ships that are hovering around the system.

Am I doing still doing something wrong? How long should it take for them to arrive at the next nav point once I drop out of of SPEC? I've waited literally ten minutes, pressing Alt+Shift+F at regular intervals, without ever seeing my wingmen again. I've even flown back to the original jump point where I met them, and still seen neither hide nor hair of them.

On the four occasions when I have had a wingman do something cool, it felt great, but when 99% of the time they either defy or ignore my orders, I really have to start to wonder why I'm wasting my credits.
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Re: Worthless Wingmen

Post by Deus Siddis »

VGSailor wrote: When I visit the jump point where my wingmen are waiting and send the FormUp command, I am then able to find them on my target screen and see them get within a certain distance of me and hold. As soon as I move away from that jump point, however, they are effectively gone.

Whether I press 'A' to Auto-Pilot to another location, or even if I jump through the same jump gate where I met them, I never see my wingmen again.
So you lose your escorts only when you use SPEC or Jump travel or do they stop following you after a certain distance even during normal flight?
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Re: Worthless Wingmen

Post by VGSailor »

Deus Siddis wrote: So you lose your escorts only when you use SPEC or Jump travel or do they stop following you after a certain distance even during normal flight?
Both. Actually, jumping into another system seems to work okay. They seem to be able to find me again at some point, in the new system. But even then, they're AWOL 90% of the time.

One time I specifically "hopped" from one nav point to another with one of my wingmen on my target screen. I would press 'A' and travel a little bit of distance, carefully watching my range to my wingman, and then press 'A' again to drop out of SPEC and give him a chance to catch up before I SPECed again. After only a few such hops, he disappeared, literally. He vanished off of my target screen and I could not locate him again, even though he was one of my saved targets.

If you're asking, do I lose them during a combat scenario when they are already present at that nav point with me, the answer's No. They don't actually fly away from me now that I've figured out how to send the FormUp command, but most missions involve travel to multiple jump points, and so having them follow me from one point to another in something less than an hour would be beneficial.
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Re: Random Death & missing wingmen

Post by TBeholder »

I still think it's SPEC/ramp problem. Do you use SVN or the release?
If autopilot tries to avoid a massive body first, and wingmen try to follow and overshoot, they indeed may easily run out of your radar range in an unpredictable direction.
Are they lost if you fly out of interdicted zone (far enough that autopilot runs straight to the target) with wingmen in position, than autopilot toward widely interdicting destination (i.e. between jump points, not capships or smaller stations)?
In my case, this causes them to follow properly - sometimes overshoot right to the intended destination, but if its interdiction sphere is large enough, it will fly-paper them anyway. :)
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Re: Random Death & missing wingmen

Post by VGSailor »

TBeholder wrote:I still think it's SPEC/ramp problem. Do you use SVN or the release?
I'm using the release 0.5.1.r1, compiled from source.
TBeholder wrote: If autopilot tries to avoid a massive body first, and wingmen try to follow and overshoot, they indeed may easily run out of your radar range in an unpredictable direction.
Are they lost if you fly out of interdicted zone (far enough that autopilot runs straight to the target) with wingmen in position, than autopilot toward widely interdicting destination (i.e. between jump points, not capships or smaller stations)?
In my case, this causes them to follow properly - sometimes overshoot right to the intended destination, but if its interdiction sphere is large enough, it will fly-paper them anyway. :)
I've never tried that, actually. What are the interdiction distances for various objects? I realize that they are smaller for jump points than for planets, and even smaller for bases and capships, but what are the actual distances? 20 km? 200 km? 10? In any case, I'll start experimenting with that and see if I get better results.

Thanks!
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Re: Random Death & missing wingmen

Post by VGSailor »

TBeholder wrote: Are they lost if you fly out of interdicted zone (far enough that autopilot runs straight to the target) with wingmen in position, than autopilot toward widely interdicting destination (i.e. between jump points, not capships or smaller stations)?
Okay, I've been trying this, and it seems to work better. The problem now is that they eventually stop following me.

I flew a mission where I was able to jump to a couple of nav points with my wingmen in tow. They were always close-by or at least within radar range because I could bring them up as saved targets.

During combat around one of the planets I had to scan, however, they totally stopped paying attention to me. I had two wingmen. Each one parked itself somewhere and would not move at all anymore. I even flew right next to one of them and sent the "Form on my wing" command, but still it wouldn't budge. I flew out of the interdiction zone of the planet, sent CommFormUp again, and still they stayed right where they were.

After setting up a straight line of flight to my next nav point, I SPECed over to it and waited for them to show up. They never did. I sent several different commands, and they seemed to acknowledge all of them (of course, "Help me out" and "Attack my target" were met with "No can do, boss."), but I never saw them again. What happened?
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Re: Random Death & missing wingmen

Post by VGSailor »

Okay, the same thing happened again with my wingmen getting stuck at a planet.

After engaging some enemies at the planet, I flew to the next nav point on my Clean Sweep, which happened to be another planet that was ridiculously close to the one where we just were. (Have the programmers never heard of Roche's Limit?) I scanned that planet and then spent some time fighting with enemies, and my wingmen never showed up. So, I went back to the original planet and found my wingmen exactly where they were when they stopped moving after we first arrived at that world.

This time, however, I managed to corral them and get them to follow me again. What I did was fly to within about 200 km of one of them and send it one of the Function key communication messages. Then, after it responded with whatever chatty message, I sent the CommFormUp command. Then, finally, it started to move and began following me again.

Now reunited with the first wingman. I flew over to the other side of the world and did the same thing with the second one. Again, it worked, but the first one had lagged behind and was still on the other side of the world, so it was another several minutes of flying away from the world to escape it's interdiction and be able to activate SPEC before all three of us were finally reunited.

So, the moral of the story is, I now know how to keep my wingmen with me throughout all of the points on a Clean Sweep mission. Now, the question becomes, why do wingmen freeze at planets? A lot of combat happens close to planets. It would be nice to have functional wingmen under those circumstances.
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Re: Random Death & missing wingmen

Post by TBeholder »

Weird. As to lagging behind, it's probably because NPC autopilot doesn't circumvent obstacles.
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Re: Random Death & missing wingmen

Post by loki1950 »

We should have a look at the wingman AI then and try to rationalize there behavior it will not a trivial task though :?

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Re: Random Death & missing wingmen

Post by VGSailor »

Okay, so today I encountered something else that I found odd. When I approached the system where my wingmen were waiting and I saw the "I await your instructions" message on my message log, I sent the CommFormUp command. And then I got three "Roger that, boss" responses, but the names for the ships sending them were in red, even though they were in my flightgroup. And then, throughout the mission, I kept getting hostile messages appearing to come from my flightgroup.

Also, when I used 'h' and Shift-H to cycle through hostile targets, my wingmen's ships were in the rotation.

Why would my own wingmen have been showing up as hostile ships? I couldn't have accidentally shot at them, because they were already that way from the first moment I met them.
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Answer one question, ask another...

Post by VGSailor »

After my last post, I noticed that my reputation for the privateer faction was negative 100. I have no idea how it could have gotten to that, but whatever. I hacked the game save file and changed it to a positive value. When I loaded the game it showed my reputation for privateer as positive 100, and in the next mission I flew with wingmen, everything was hunky-dory.

But now, after flying that mission, it shows me at 80 for privateer faction with one kill. I did not kill my wingman. I did lose one in the mission, but I didn't kill him. Does it credit you with a kill if your wingman dies in combat?
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Re: Answer one question, ask another...

Post by Deus Siddis »

VGSailor wrote: I did lose one in the mission, but I didn't kill him.
The existing weapon balance has a very liberal policy on missile area of affect. If you hit an enemy with a missile type weapon at some point during the fight, it also could have destroyed a wingman a few kilometers away without you even noticing. The game counts this as you having killed him.
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Re: Random Death & missing wingmen

Post by VGSailor »

I wasn't even using missile weapons in the fight where he died, unless you count the little Hail rockets. He died on like the second jump point, and I wanted to save my Image Recognitions for later.

The weirdest thing is that I never really saw him die. When I noticed he was gone, I looked a little ways back on my message log, and I never saw a message indicating he had gotten destroyed. He just disappeared.

Whatever. Is there any way to improve your reputation with your own flightgroup, without having to hack the game save file?
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Re: Random Death & missing wingmen

Post by TBeholder »

Hail are bolts - no splash damage.
My guess is, either a collision when you had shields up and it warped in, or that splash damage from exploding targets is attributed to the killer... need to check this one.
Or just a savegame bug.
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Re: Worthless Wingmen

Post by klauss »

VGSailor wrote: One time I specifically "hopped" from one nav point to another with one of my wingmen on my target screen. I would press 'A' and travel a little bit of distance, carefully watching my range to my wingman, and then press 'A' again to drop out of SPEC and give him a chance to catch up before I SPECed again. After only a few such hops, he disappeared, literally. He vanished off of my target screen and I could not locate him again, even though he was one of my saved targets.
If you ask me, that looks lots like a scripting bug.

Wingmen are scripted by a special kind of mission, that adds ships to your faction temporarily, and has negative reward IIRC. There must be a bug on the script that makes it either remove the units or their allegiance too soon.

Or that's what it sounds like to me. I'm no expert there, I've never dealt with that code.
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Re: Worthless Wingmen

Post by Deus Siddis »

klauss wrote: Wingmen are scripted by a special kind of mission, that adds ships to your faction temporarily, and has negative reward IIRC. There must be a bug on the script that makes it either remove the units or their allegiance too soon.
Then I recommend we entirely comment out the part of the script that removes them.
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Re: Worthless Wingmen

Post by klauss »

Deus Siddis wrote:
klauss wrote: Wingmen are scripted by a special kind of mission, that adds ships to your faction temporarily, and has negative reward IIRC. There must be a bug on the script that makes it either remove the units or their allegiance too soon.
Then I recommend we entirely comment out the part of the script that removes them.
If that's viable, by all means. I'm not sure it is, though. It may be functionally essential. Ie: otherwise you'd probably (not sure, but probably) have wingmen for life, by paying a small one-time fee. Not nice.
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Re: Worthless Wingmen

Post by Deus Siddis »

I am thinking the wingmen will not be around for life, that the AI is so buggy and broken that they will become lost, left behind or destroyed within an hour or so. And their contribution to a fight will be minimal.

Escorts are a very desirable and promising feature; everyone at some point wants to fly into a larger battle with their own flight group. Yet no one ever uses escorts because of a combination of crippling bugs and unwelcoming prices and conditions. So I want to try to balance escorts so that they are a really good deal, even too good of a deal if possible, so that players start using them and testing them and reporting bugs.
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Re: Random Death & missing wingmen

Post by klauss »

Perhaps it should be different then. Wingmen should get a share of the profit. That'd be fairer and more affordable as well (no profit no pay).

That would mean making the wingmen script somehow talk to the other scripts. Doable. Python's pure magic after all. But it may need some creativity. Still, I think it's the best solution to the problem you mention.

As for wingmen disappearing, you're proposing hiding a bug under the rug, and then arguing it's in order to get more bug reports. See the contradiction in that? I say we fix it properly instead.
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Re: Random Death & missing wingmen

Post by Deus Siddis »

I think profit sharing doesn't really address the issue. If you put together a team of escorts for a big bounty mission, but they fail to contribute to the battle and then show up to collect their cut of the bounty, that will be equally demoralizing. Players still will not use escorts.

The way the game is currently balanced, combined with the way the escort AI is so terrible at everything, you could make escorts cost nothing and persist indefinitely and players would not bother with them. Just the time spent traveling to the escort rendezvous point is not worth it when they contribute 1% as much to a fight as ambient factional NPCs, let alone the time spent cat-herding the escorts to the actual battle space.

I believe getting players to use escorts at all requires that:
  • Escorts cost almost nothing.
  • Escorts appear in vicinity of player where they were hired, not at a distant rendezvous.
  • Universe spawns far more of hostile NPCs and far fewer of helpful ones.
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