Problem with the distress beacon

[JazHaz]

Please don't post such big images. Use scaled images or use Flickr which gives you scaled images automatically with a link to the full image.

[UK_Eliter]

Right you are. It was a bit big.

[Thargoid]

Just had a thought or two as to what may come into it.

Can you tell me where you hired the escort ships (which system, galaxy and tech level)? I need to test it later, but there are three different ranks of escort you can get (depending on tech level and a few other things) so I wonder if you're getting different ships to me.

I'll try and test them all this evening and see if one has a problem, as I think the ship in your screenshot is a viper whereas in mine it's a viper interceptor.

Alternatively try going to a different system and hire escorts there (one with different tech level and government but still which meets the needs to offer escorts) and see if those also have the same problem.

Editted to add - nope, just tested it quickly and I still can't reproduce your ship with any of the escort types.

Can you post your save-game somewhere I can download it or email it to me so I can check it on my system (a save just before you're ready to launch, either having bought the escorts or when they are available to do so).

[JazHaz]

Re: the new version of Hired Guns. Do the yellow escorts still not masslock you?

[UK_Eliter]

JazHaz: they do masslock me. Also, one of them appears on the scanner as in flashing grey/cyon (though the other one was yellow)! At present, ships seem randomly to appear in that dual colour on the scanner.

Thargoid: well, the above information comes from Zarevees, a galaxy 3 world with tech. level 14. .

[Thargoid]

The correctly operating ones don't. They're still actually scanClass rock, but when they get spawned their white sticks are changed into yellow ones.

In UK_Eliter's case the ships for some reason aren't the ones they should be (they're "true" vipers rather than my escort ships) hence his will mass-lock like any other ship.

And the flashing cyan/grey is probably due to you having my updated target autolock too (glutton for punishment aren't ya ). The new feature in that is your current selected target appears on the scanner as the grey/cyan rather than its normal stick (so you can find it more easily).

Basically it's not random, that ship is your currently selected target.

[Thargoid]

To ask a wider question, has anyone else who is running trunk and the new (1.20 beta) version of Hired Guns seen this effect?

At the moment as I only have two pieces of evidence (UK's and mine) it's difficult to say which system is misbehaving, his or mine.

[Thargoid]

OK with the help of another_commander we've found what the problem is, and there's a nice easy work-around (I love it when that happens!).

So UK_Eliter, please download the new version I've just put up and give it a try. Meanwhile A_C is going to see what can be done behind the scenes to sort it out ('cos I don't unearth bugs in the game, honest ).

[Kaks]

That same like_ship bug err non-bug could have affected escort role, escort ship, is carrier, and has shipyard overrides too. I've just added a fix for those other keys to trunk, hopefully we won't hear from this type of bug any more...

[UK_Eliter]

So thanks to all who worked on it.