Run away if out of ammo bug...

I've noticed that it will take time for your fighters to re-arm, and re-fuel. The more you have to replenish, the longer it takes. This is all well and good, but there doesn't seem to be any way to easily tell if a given fighter is ready without sending him into combat and seeing how he acts.

Perhaps someone can tell me if I'm missing something?

Anyway, if you happen to re-launch a fighter to quickly and it hasn't had a chance to replenish its stores, it seems that the run away if out if ammo flag doesn't trigger properly.

Let's say a particular fighter has a gun with unlimited ammo, and 4 missiles.
Normally, after all 4 missiles are fired, it will dock with your ship automaticaly.

But if it was launched before it had a chance to re-arm, it won't run away. Presumably, it is waiting for all 4 missiles to be fired, not realizing that it doesn't have any.
(I haven't tested this extensively, but there might even be conditions that leave a fighter only partially re-armed and/or refueled)

Is this a genuine bug? Or am I seeing something else here?

This post has been edited by Desprez : 02 April 2006 - 10:14 PM

I am quite sure that every fighter you can actually launch is fully restocked too.

@clueless, on Apr 3 2006, 12:25 PM, said in Run away if out of ammo bug...:

I am quite sure that every fighter you can actually launch is fully restocked too.

Really? Hmm, I wonder if it matters that I have a fighter bay for every fighter?
I guess I'll have to conduct some tests.

It should regenerate instantly.

When you send out the last of a specific type of fighter, the fighter bay doesn't run its reload timer (The delay between launching one fighter and the next). It only runs that timer when a fighter returns. This is what you're observing.

@eugene-chin, on Apr 4 2006, 12:41 AM, said in Run away if out of ammo bug...:

When you send out the last of a specific type of fighter, the fighter bay doesn't run its reload timer (The delay between launching one fighter and the next). It only runs that timer when a fighter returns. This is what you're observing.

Oh, no I've observed that too. I'm not refering to a delay in being able to launch a particular fighter, but rather a fighter getting launched that doesn't have its full ammo compliment.

Again, I'll run some further tests and see if I can figure out what's happening.

I'm fairly sure that the actual act of launching the fighter creates a fully stocked ship.

Well, I haven't yet been able to recreate the behavior with missiles (figures :rolleyes:)

But I also recall (and just re-tested) some related behavior with regards to fighter fuel.

I had a PD turret that used fuel to fire.
The turret was placed on a fighter launched by my ship.

I could launch the fighter, and it would shoot down incoming missiles until it ran out of fuel, then it would stop shooting.

If I docked the fighter and then immediately re-launched it, it would still not shoot. (as if it was still out of fuel)

If I took away the fuel requirement of the weapon, my fighter would shoot at missiles without fail.

This being the case, I'd say that fighter fuel does NOT get replenished with each launch.

So it tracks the fuel of each ship independantly? Hmm... I find that kind of odd. Is it a stack or a queue? (ie you dock one ship with no fuel then one with, then you launch one ship. Would it have fuel?)

I highly doubt the engine tracks fuel for docked fighters. More likely a bug in PD behavior, or the missiles not actually targeting the fighter.

That seems very unlikely, Desperez.

Can anyone else repeat these results? Can you?

@nebuchadnezzar, on Apr 5 2006, 06:43 PM, said in Run away if out of ammo bug...:

...or the missiles not actually targeting the fighter.

Missiles don't have to target the fighter for it to fire PD.

Basicaly, fighters will shoot at missiles targeting the carrier, but the carrier's PD won't protect missiles targeting the fighters. This works not only for the player, but for the AI as well.

I have to assume that Nova tracks fuel for fighters in flight. Otherwise I'm not sure how afterburners and the "run away if out of ammo" flag would work (when using a weapon that uses fuel). I had confirmed that the run away behavior works with regards to fuel in the past.

At the moment I'm trying to pin down exactly what is happening with regards to fuel and ammo when fighters are launched, docked, etc.
It certianly looked like fuel was being tracked, and not replenished when docked, but it's possible that there is some other explanation.

However, at the moment I'm haveing trouble getting the fighter's PD to fire at all when the weapon has a fuel requirement. It works when I turn off the flue drain, but not with it on. I know this has worked in the past, so I must have mucked something up somewhere.

Working on it...

Edit: Ok, I got them to fire by lowering the fuel requirement. I was hoping to only give them 10 or as much as 50 shots before their fuel ran out. Unfortunately I got it working with about 500 shots before their fuel runs out, but that makes testing somewhat tedious... I'll have to find out how few shots they can have and still fire.

Strangely, sometimes they fire initialy, sometimes they don't. I haven't yet been able to determine what the cause of this is. They do stop firing when they run out of fuel, but it's possible that what looks like them tracking empty fuel when docked, is really another symptom for whatever causes them not to fire in the first place.

This post has been edited by Desprez : 06 April 2006 - 11:25 PM