Can't tractor in ships.

zeroangel · Post by **zeroangel** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 4:08 am

I originally posted here: (user help forum)

http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... hp?t=11164

I am now beginning to think this is a bug.

I have a Plowshare, I bought a small fighter, I launched it and I can't tractor it back in. In fact, I can't seem to tractor in anything other than cargo.

I have hvy tractors and autotracking.

The ship I am trying to tractor literraly passes through my Plowshare. It doesnt collide at all. I can see the ships on top of one another from the outside cam.

Is this a known bug? I am using a fairly recent version of SVN, about a week old.

Anyone encounter this before? Thank you!

Post by **ace123** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 9:53 am

I believe this is indeed a bug I have heard of before ... not sure what to say--I think it has to do with the distinction between a Unit and a Unit containing cargo, but I'm not sure...

It might have to do with the fact that you could theoretically use the tractor beam on another ship without wanting to suck it into your bay (or you can't because you youreself are a fighter ship)

Tractoring in ships isn't well supported at the moment--sorry.

moondrake · Post by **moondrake** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 9:57 am

it wouldn't be that bad normally, but the problem is that it also makes many "rescue" missions pointless as you cannot tractor in the pods.

Post by **ace123** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 10:19 am

So you can't get pilots, but you can tractor in space junk or cargo?

I wonder if it has to do with cargo being treated as missiles (i.e. expire after a certain amount of time), but pilots being treated as units...

zeroangel · Post by **zeroangel** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 1:56 pm

I can't seem to tractor in pilots from rescue missions either, but normal pilots seem to work.

Anyhow, I will throw in my shot in the dark:

Perhaps it's also something do to with collision detection? As I said, my ship passes right through the ship I am trying to tractor.

Might I humbly suggest that this be given a very high priority? I don't see many other serious bugs other than this. The consequences of this bug are as follows:

1. Rescue missions are pointless and can't be completed.
2. Buying fighters to keep in your larger ship is pointless since you can not recover them.
3. Because selling captured ships is very profitable: it seems to be one of the only ways that combat would be worthwhile after you become sufficiently wealthy. Obviously, this can't be done with this bug.

Edit: Ace, yes, that is right, I can't tractor in ships or pilots (mission related ones), but I can tractor in space salvage, cargo, and pilots (non-mission related). Thank you!

Post by **hellcatv** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:14 pm

We will fix this for the release
the fix is simple
in units.csv
add a new column
Tractorability

then a value in the column
pPiI
means it can be both pushed and Inserted into hold

zeroangel · Post by **zeroangel** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 11:03 pm

Do I add this column and value for just ships? Or cargo as well? Everything?

Thank you!

Post by **loki1950** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 11:36 pm

The column will be added by hellcatv or jackS as well as a few code changes to actually check that value and so determine proper behavior.

Enjoy the Choice

zeroangel · Post by **zeroangel** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 11:49 pm

So then, I just gotta wait until version 0.5 comes out?

Post by **loki1950** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 11:53 pm

That appears to be self evident

Enjoy the Choice

zeroangel · Post by **zeroangel** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 12:13 am

Yah... just had to be sure. Can't wait to get playing again, this is kind of a show stopper.

Oh, are we going to be able to take ships from our "My Fleet" and put them in the cargo hold? Kind of frustrating that you can't deck out your fighters the way you want.

Post by **loki1950** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 12:21 am

That i do not think will be done at least not for the release and most likely low priority after that.

Enjoy the Choice

zeroangel · Post by **zeroangel** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 2:44 pm

I notice in Rev. 12169 there is now a column in unist.csv for "Tractorbility." However, the ships dont have "pPiI" flag. If I add that flag to the ships will it work?

Thanks!

Post by **ace123** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 8:36 pm

Yes, I was going to do that, but I wasn't sure which ships needed it... should it just be on all ships?

Post by **safemode** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 9:33 pm

this sounds like the tractor feature is broken if it needs hacks like this to function.

Any unit should be tractorable. It should be a function of the tractor feature to dictate the effect that tractoring has on different units.

You should not need hacks like this to dictate that function, all the information necessary to the tractor feature is ritht there in the Unit class. It's mass, it's radius, it's speed, and if it has shields active (to block the tractor beam). What happens when you lock on to a bigger object than your ship, an object under it's own thrust, and object smaller or equal to your ship but bigger than your cargo hold can handle etc, should all be handled in the tractor "damage" code.

since that doesn't seem to be the case, the right fix would be to rewrite the tractor code, or fix the bug that is breaking it.

zeroangel · Post by **zeroangel** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 10:05 pm

...HOWEVER, I still see a viable need for this feature. For example: missiles should NOT be tractorable. In fact, thats the only thing I can think of, perhaps a better flag would be what is NOT tractorable.

Ace: All ships should be tractorable, then the other features that safemode mentioned should determine whether or not they can fit in your hold.

Heading home now. Looking forward to testing this out. TTYL.

Edit: OK, I'm home. I added the pPiI flag to every ship (and then some, just copied and pasted down the whole line, even blank entries) and it doesn't seem to work. I tried testing by buying an Ancestor, jettisoning it, and then trying to tractor it back. No good. Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks!

bgaskey · Post by **bgaskey** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 2:25 am

The feature may not have been activated in the code yet. You'll probably have to make clean and recompile at least.

Post by **ace123** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 11:13 am

Okay, I have committed the second set of tractorability changes... I'm pretty sure that you are allowed to make all units tractorable.

It should work, however if the ships you are launching are saved ships (in My Fleet) it may not have the new tractorable field...

If they are just Cargo then it should work fine, however.

zeroangel · Post by **zeroangel** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 1:25 pm

It's not working. I updated my SVN with tortoise and got all the relevant files then exported it to my working directory. I loaded up my game; bought a brand new Hyena for the cargo hold of my Plowshare; launched from the station; launched the Hyena; attempted to tractor in the Hyena and no success!

Same problem as last time, it passes right through me.

What am I doing wrong?

Thank you!

zeroangel · Post by **zeroangel** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 4:09 pm

Forgot to add my system info:

Windows XP
AMD Athlon Dual core 4600+
4 Gigs DDR800 RAM
Nvidia 8800GTS
Foxconn C51XEM2AA nForce 590 SLI Board.

Should I add this to the bug tracker? Anyone else still having this issue?

Thanks!

Post by **jackS** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 4:19 pm

We've isolated what's happening, and it's actually a configurable feature. While you can "launch" any craft that will fit in your hold (i.e. volume of hold > volume of ship-as-cargo), to successfully tractor an object into your hold, you must have a K times (configurable in vegastrike.config) larger unit radius. Thus, you can currently launch a Hyena from a Plowshare, but you'd need an Ox or similarly large craft to tractor it back in.

Post by **safemode** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 4:49 pm

so then the fix would be making it not possible for a person to buy a ship when their ship's radius is less than K times the ship they're buying. No plowshare carrying a hyena.

Post by **ace123** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 7:23 pm

Yes, so the problem actually lies in the data.

However, it is not possible to know the radial size of a unit without loading its mesh entirely, so that means that the Cargo computer will just be able to do a check on the hold volume defined for that unit.

zeroangel · Post by **zeroangel** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 8:57 pm

However, it is not possible to know the radial size of a unit without loading its mesh entirely,

Sounds like another value needs to be added that CAN be read by the cargo computer before the mesh is loaded

.

BTW, this number K, where can I find it in the vegastrike.config?

zeroangel · Post by **zeroangel** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 12:55 am

Can anyone please tell me where this value K is? I loked all over vegastrike.config and I can't seem to find it.

Thank you!

Vega Strike Forums

Can't tractor in ships.

Can't tractor in ships.

Will this be fixed by 0.5?

Add this for every ship?

So... just be patient?

sigh

Rev. 12169

Safemode makes a good point...

Ace: Did it work for you?

Anyone out there?

Anyone still out there?