AI problem exiting space stations

[Trexate]

I've noticed that ships often get stuck when they exit space stations orbiting the planets in 1.70.

They drive out of the station, go straight, then stop when they reach the navigation buoy. They just sit there, and they stack up in a little line or little pile of space ships.

Sometimes they bump into each other and cause collisions with the buoy. This sometimes results in them blowing up.

[Exeter]

Funny, I noticed the same thing just yesterday but it never even occurred to me it was a bug.

With the length of time docking computers take to successfully land my ship, I figured they were just caught in a queue. There's probably even a 'Traffic Cones' OXP somewhere.

[Eric Walch]

They drive out of the station, go straight, then stop when they reach the navigation buoy. They just sit there, and they stack up in a little line or little pile of space ships.

Sometimes they bump into each other and cause collisions with the buoy. This sometimes results in them blowing up.

I have not seen it happening, but I already suspected that it should be happening in version 1.69. because of regularly missing of the buoy in a system. The cause of the bug are (I think) escorts not always working properly (see other bug report). So I think what you see piling up are escorts. The are programmed to fly straight on for 8000 meters. (distance station-bouy is about 9000). During this trip they should detect their mother and follow here. If the detection fails they all end nearby the buoy.

On my computer I changed the escortAI a little so this bug is not happening with me:

Code: Select all

    "CLEAR_STATION" = {
		ENTER = (getWitchspaceEntryCoordinates, setDestinationFromCoordinates, "setDesiredRangeTo: 2000.0", "setSpeedFactorTo: 0.50", performFlyToRangeFromDestination);

This make the escorts go for a radial direction just after launch. And as the station turns, they all end up in a different spot at 8000 meters from the station when finding their mother is not working.

But to be clear: the escortAi code is good as it is now, but this change only makes sure the bug in the escorts not finding the mother does not lead to hitting the buoy.