1.77, problem docking, dying, reloading, crashing . . .

[richard.a.p.smith]

Bit weird but I'll try to describe. I can't immediately see anything related in the board so here goes. I launched from one planet, jumped to the next, all okay. Pressed c in the safe zone, all okay. Wanted to check prices so pressed 8 or f8. Fine. Go back to the screen, whoops, station right in front of me. Why am I not turning? Come on computers, do something! "Game over man game over". Okay relaunch from the autosave that then appears. Without doing anything, the speed indicator is zero, I'm flying very quickly from the station in no particular direction that I could determine. Accelerate and the exhaust appears . . . in front view. Much longer than normal. Okay, time to quit, F2. It also did it twice before, I think, earlier on. I was checking prices again during an autopilot dock in at least one of those. In one event Oolite just disappeared without a message, just vanished to the desktop. I'd left the laptop on all day and while it hadn't gone to sleep the virus checker had done a scan and I thought part of the system might have gone to sleep and so influenced the crash so I restarted. I got weird behaviour again. Any ideas? I have a sneaky suspicion I've seen this before with an older release, something doesn't like looking at the price list during docking or something like that. Windoze 7 home 64 bit, oolite 1.77 as downloaded a few days ago, nothing to note in the log. OXPs: BGS-A1.6, BountyStatus 1.00, Cabal_Common_Library1.7, Deep Horizons - Lights Down, display_reputation, halsis, Halsis_BGS1.2, illicit_unlock_FIX1.56, marketAide_1.2_2012-09-01, MilHUD-v4.0, OXPConfig2.3.1, Sensible Sun, total_patrol. I'll avoid looking at prices while docking in future! Rich.

[S-P]

A conflicting OXP? Try removing all OXPs and see if you have problems.

[cim]

Can you remember how many other ships were trying to dock at the same time?

[richard.a.p.smith]

Thanks for looking. It's nothing to do with the f8 screen, that's the thing I remember encountering before. It's the docking computers crashing into the space station. Just happened again. Press f2 to load instead of just starting the autosave and hey presto, flying through space in a random direction very quickly. I'll re-load and crash manually, see if that does it. I'll remove OXPs and crash manually, see if that does it. No doubt the problem'll be in the hard-to-reproduce autopilot crash not what can be checked easily. Not that I'm pessimistic. Oh, to answer the question i don't recall there being any ships there. Perhaps one but I'm not sure. Rich.

[richard.a.p.smith]

Failing to dock manually did not reproduce the problem. There was a copper around at the time. One thing with this (spaceship) crash is that the screen didn't go white. With the other ones I remember it all going white before fading to the game over press space screen. I suppose that means it must be the automatic pilot but I'm afraid I don't have time to check by removing OXPs and seeing if an autopilot fail without OXPs goes wrong. Can you induce an autopilot fail? Actually I'll reload without OXPs and check the market screen just before docking just in case. Rich.

[richard.a.p.smith]

No, hitting f8 didn't cause the autopilot to fail. I recall there used to be a bug somewhere, it didn't like docking while the f8 screen was up but it didn't manifest by crashing the ship. Rich.

[cim]

One thing with this (spaceship) crash is that the screen didn't go white.

That's normal for high-speed collisions.

I've fixed a couple of cases in the code so next version should deal better with death on autopilot.

That just leaves fixing the case where the autopilot crashes you into the station. What's your normal frame rate in game and while docking? (Shift-F to bring it up)

[richard.a.p.smith]

One thing with this (spaceship) crash is that the screen didn't go white.

That's normal for high-speed collisions.

I've fixed a couple of cases in the code so next version should deal better with death on autopilot.

That just leaves fixing the case where the autopilot crashes you into the station. What's your normal frame rate in game and while docking? (Shift-F to bring it up)

Just happened again. How often should the docking computer actually kill you? It's about one in ten or more on current performance - that is NOT an over-estimate. The last one was a bit weird. I was looking at the "football" (tabloids will have us winning the world cup tomorrow) while the autopilot was on, turned to see the cobra heading slowing towards the docking bay but the ship was not rotating at all, nor slowing down, as if the autopilot had fallen asleep; the coriolis was filling the screen, or nearly, at this point. I hit c, turned around, then c again. In the end it was manoeuvring just before the final docking entry and then rotated (or stopped rotating) to cause the crash. White screen again. It wasn't any faster than the manual crash I did earlier. In the following screen after pressing the space bar the HUD was still active, could see the lollipops for the station and so on driving after pressing space to continue and they were moving although I was still docked. I could press f2, so did, then came here to report. In case it's of any relevance the system seems to be the same one all the time - Laenin in G1. I am trading between that system and Xexedi so it's just showing up there, but I don't recall it occurring at Xexedi or at any other station where I tried to dock. Thinking about what I intend to do in the game I can get rid of the OXPs, all I am doing is trading, I'll do that and see if the problem goes away.

I'll have a look at the frame rate now. I don't doubt it but why is the frame-rate important? The programme's response depends on how fast the PC is at showing graphics? I'm not a programmer in any way but I always had the idea that there was an abstracted version of events that the main processor dealt with then the graphics processor just had to be powerful enough to keep up, not that whether the ship turns right or left depends on whether the graphics chip is quick enough. Please excuse my ignorance here!

Rich

[richard.a.p.smith]

FPS hovering around 99 all the time. Flickered about when I pressed c, 90 was the lowest I saw, 103 was the highest, most of the time it was a steady 99, though. Rich.

[cim]

How often should the docking computer actually kill you?

Never! (Well, okay, "failing to fight back when the local police take exception to your cargo", but apart from that)

It's about one in ten or more on current performance - that is NOT an over-estimate.

Okay, perhaps until we find out what's causing it you should use "C" rather than "c" and skip the docking sequence.

as if the autopilot had fallen asleep;

I did see that once, though in my case it fell asleep heading slowly away from the station into deep space. I wonder what's happening there.

I'll have a look at the frame rate now. I don't doubt it but why is the frame-rate important? The programme's response depends on how fast the PC is at showing graphics?

For simplicity the display code and the simulation code both take place in the same thread, so the total time taken for a frame of simulation is "time to simulate changes in that frame" + "time to display that frame". Depending on your system and OXP set, either the simulation or the display may be the bottleneck. Anyway, at low frame rates the simulation isn't precise enough to get docking manoeuvres accurate, so may well crash you into something accidentally. Eric made some improvements to improve on 1.76, but there are still limits.

Do you ever see NPCs crashing while trying to dock, by the way (or mysterious floating cargo pods by the docking bay)?

[richard.a.p.smith]

No, I haven't seen anyone crashing but I haven't been looking at it, my current policy is to trade to get credits to buy all the possible ship upgrades then start shooting everyone. Is that sad? It's not difficult to edit a text file to get credits . . . anyway, this means I haven't been paying any attention to other ships except the two that made the mistake of targetting me. I might be Harmless but months of time spent playing Elite in the 80s and now Oolite do have their uses. Sounding even more sad now.

I CAN say that this is within oolite and nothing to do with OXPs as I just got the behaviour after renaming the AddOns folder. Same stuff, failing to rotate, "white" crash, moving lollipops while docked and so on.

Once again it was Laenin and not Xexedi. The only oddity I spotted is that Xexedi looked circular on exiting witchspace but Laenin looked more like an icosagon or however-many-sided-polygon, you could see the straight bits anyway but Xexedi was definitely round. I have no idea if that is relevant but it's obviously a difference in how the game is handling the two systems.

So the DC is not actually designed with a fatal flaw to keep you on your toes? I thought there was a low chance of it getting things wrong so you had a driver to avoid getting too complacent. Anyway, the crashes are very common, the 1 in 10 is looking more like 1 in 2 for Laenin.

Rich

[richard.a.p.smith]

Do you ever see NPCs crashing while trying to dock, by the way (or mysterious floating cargo pods by the docking bay)?

Not recently. It's probably irrelevant but I did regularly see mysterious floating cargo pods by docking bays and fuel stations in previous periods of playing the game. Mostly fuel stations from memory, next most often the 2001/Torus stations, very occasionally normal stations. But I haven't done much with this current installation. Rich

[cim]

Not recently. It's probably irrelevant but I did regularly see mysterious floating cargo pods by docking bays and fuel stations in previous periods of playing the game. Mostly fuel stations from memory, next most often the 2001/Torus stations, very occasionally normal stations. But I haven't done much with this current installation.

Fuel and torus there were particular bugs which were fixed in 1.77, so this is something else.

[cim]

Hmm... looking at dockingAI.plist most of the states don't have an "UPDATE" or "FRUSTRATED" response, so if something happens to desired_range or destination, the ship would just keep flying in a straight line indefinitely, never re-checking its current coordinates. Not sure if that's likely to occur, or why particular stations might be more prone to it than others. Any ideas?

(Though, looking at the code, I did find a different bug. Did you know the docking computer came with a free laser cooling booster? *sigh*)

[Smivs]

Did you know the docking computer came with a free laser cooling booster? *sigh*)

Smivs hands cim a roll of gaffer tape to seal the can of worms...