[#2234]Issue with protect position command

[pref]

Noticed this on several occasions with defend position default behaviour and with the join position defense command for fleet groups.

The ships sometimes have an auto attack order without a target - at least the target field in the order list is empty. These ships are stuck in this state, not switching targets any longer and i think they don't use their turrets either as enemies that cause no problems normally can kill them in this state. Often this affects all ships that work in the same area and are not linked via chain of command.

Removing the attack order manually resolves the issue. Saw this happen with L/XL ships, but might affect smaller ones as well as i had some mysterious fleet disappearances - I'm just less keen on checking small ships.

edit: corrected thread title - j.h

[CBJ]

Please provide the information requested at the top of the forum, including a savegame demonstrating the situation described. We cannot investigate without this.

[pref]

Did not know if it's a known bug or you're interested at all.
Details below:

Version 6.20
No mods
Custom budgeted start

Description:
Ships have attack orders without target, they also seem unresponsive - this save is made at least half an hour before i noticed the issue and by then a handful of KHK almost killed an Osaka.
Name is "MineDef Osaka" in Family Nhuut, ids are:
FFN-547
NSO-812
ODX-633
QSP-144
SRY-829
VDX-675

Also a Syn, called "MineDef Syn", same location:
JBI-627

Vulkaninfo threw an error about some missing json file, but it gave some output anyway:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ieg5z11g ... 7civz&dl=0

DxDiag:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/tise9hzi ... 8xn7y&dl=0

Save:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ai42l7jz ... ax7qj&dl=0

[pref]

Was watching those ships now, and noticed that an Asgard on pos def targeted a khaak ship, that got killed by my miner it was attacking.
In the Asgard's behaviour tab the text field 'Command' immediately changed, displaying another khaak that was on my miner within range, but in the order queue the attack order hasn't changed and still contained the now dead ship as target. And the Asgard was not moving nor rotating at all to attack the next ship.
I assume had i waited longer, until the khaak wreck had despawned, the attack order's target field would have become empty resulting in the situation in the save.


Bet you have better things to do, but if not take a look at the Boron Fossil station in case you have to open the save within the game - think i got that one right.
Anyway, i guess what i really want to say is how much i appreciate the axis locked displacement and rotation feature in the station designer. Starting to suffer from sleep deprivation by now..
Hope you'll keep improving the designer, it's such a great toy!

[j.harshaw]

The ships sometimes have an auto attack order without a target - at least the target field in the order list is empty.

This can happen if, for example, their initial target has been destroyed but they keep looking for and engaging targets in that area. This can also happen if there are several potential targets in an area and the attacker doesn't prefer any of them prior to target acquisition.

These ships are stuck in this state, not switching targets any longer and i think they don't use their turrets either as enemies that cause no problems normally can kill them in this state.

This is more interesting. Haven't checked all of the ships that you've listed yet, but can confirm that at load, FFN-547 is attacking a Kha'ak Hive Guard. Assuming it survives, I expect it'll engage the other two Kha'ak ships in the vicinity after it's done.

Also confirm turrets are functioning as normal.

[j.harshaw]

Went through all the rest of them. All the same case as described above.

[pref]

Thanks for looking into it.
The weird thing is that as soon as i remove the targetless order the ships will start to attack something immediately, while without that they just keep on chilling.
Reload might trigger this as well, haven't followed the events after loading the game i posted.

Also every time i get a message from a pos defense capship about heavy incoming fire with it's shield down, i see the same scenario exclusively: all nearby ships idle on auto attack without target.
If i ever manage to make a save before the event occurs so it does not need a reload afterwards i'll post it here.

[pref]

Same thing happened a couple times again, on the last occasion the Khaak brought an osaka down to 20% hull which probably took quite some time with that dps, so this unresponsive state must have lasted for a very long time. Nearby ships also had targetless attack orders.

Removing the invalid order caused the osaka to flee immediately, shield regen kicked in and it got no more hull damage even though the same amount of khaak were attacking it. Definitely there is an issue there, they don't switch target without manual intervention (remove order or reload) for a long period.

What's really strange is that the shield started to come back after removing the auto attack. It must have been down for quite some time for the khaak to be able to damage the hull that much but once i removed the order they had no chance to beat the shield regen any longer.

At any rate the behaviour is consistent, every time a posdef capship sends out a message about getting serious damage against trivial opponents i just remove the empty attack orders (which are present every time) and the situation gets resolved - next time i check on the ships enemies are cleared. Without that they just slowly get eaten up.

Maybe one day i get lucky with a save.