NPC ships stuck at orbital starport

[maxso-216]

Observed behaviour

Multiple NPC ships stuck at the orbital starport and create huge lag. Also, it is not possible to land in the spaceport.

The collision effect is also offset-ed, but I believe this is another bug that is fixed in newer version.

Expected behaviour

No NPC ships should be stucked.

Steps to reproduce

As it is happened randomly(?), I do not know exact steps to reproduce.

My pioneer version (and OS):

20240203 (via flatpak), Ubuntu 23.10

My output.txt (required) and game save (optional, but recommended)

output.txt

save file : https://shota.nu/ss/ybf8tjpd.gz

[impaktor]

I believe this was fixed in the 3.14 release, by multiple NPS ship fixes:
https://github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer/releases/tag/20240314

@Gliese852 I assume we can close this?

[Gliese852]

@impaktor I'm not sure, I don't think I've encountered such a problem, need to check.

[impaktor]

@maxso-216 Please use the latest release (3.14), to load your old saves, you might have to hold down Ctrl to force load them, the first time.

[maxso-216]

@impaktor I tried with latest release and recover the save file. Seems like the situation still exists.

Haven't tried going to other systems and see if same thing happen again, maybe report later.

[maxso-216]

@impaktor I build from source code and play for 2 hours, and same thing happen again. Its very lag that I can't fly close to it.

save file:https://shota.nu/r5akwxcl.gz

output.txt

[impaktor]

@maxso-216 Yeah, if this still happens in new systems in 2024.3.14 release or master it makes it very much more interesting.

I assume you've spent a long time in the same system for this problem to emerge, e.g. doing many inter-planetary missions?

[maxso-216]

@impaktor I don't travel the same system for a long time. In fact, I travel different systems and doing missions. The bug happen as I travel to another system and try to dock to an orbital starport to find some missions to do. As the game getting laggy when the ship approaching the starport, I know the bug happens again.

Interestingly, the bug happens quite randomly as I don't encounter same thing when approaching orbital starport in previous system. Maybe long gameplay time cause the bug?

[impaktor]

@maxso-216 If you want to gain further understanding of the bug, pull up the debug window (Ctrl+i) and check the "Trade Ships"-tab, and see if you notice a pattern for when the bug is there vs. when it's not there.

[maxso-216]

@impaktor After some observations, I have come up with a threom.

The bug is caused when an orbital star-port refuses to allow anyone to dock for no reason.

As shown above, my ship's autopilot stuck at this position and refuses to dock. Even entering the station manually doesn't work. Its pretty odd that I have landing permission. So, I stay at far position and observe for hours.

So, few hours pass and a NPC starship come. It stuck at this position. Worth my waiting. I have checked the debug menu but it shows nothing special.

Thus, I wait for another NPC ship to arrive. However this time, they collide and unstuck(?), somehow they manage to dock, so as my ship, which is different from what I except. However, I believe this is the root cause of the bug, as with large number of ship simulating when traveling to different systems, the problematic star-port will cause a jam, resulting this bug. Maybe I was wrong, but this is the best guessing I can come up with.