After building Starlane Nexus, star LOOSES ALL starlanes

[Lord Hong]

Hi! I'm playing this version:

v0.4.9 weekly-test-builds [build 2020-02-02.db53471] CMake

Had something weird in my running game: after I built a Starlane Nexus, the star LOST all starlanes and is now utterly isolated! See my screenshots:

Before Starlane Nexi were built:

Star loses all starlanes after Nexus built_446.png (804.24 KiB) Viewed 3810 times

At the end of this turn, a Starlane Nexus was build on Myomachia. The next turn, it looked like this:

Star loses all starlanes after Nexus built_447.png (706.7 KiB) Viewed 3810 times

At the end of this turn, another Starlane Nexus was built on Gaea (bad building coordination):

Star loses all starlanes after Nexus built_448.png (723.5 KiB) Viewed 3810 times

=> System LOOSES ALL starlanes! Now it's a naked, unreachable system.

Anyway, more often than not, Starlane Bores & Nexi behave strange: often not linking to the nearest star (as per description), but somewhere else (see here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11615&p=100867&sid= ... 20#p100821).

Greetings.

[Oberlus]

Oh boy, this is a serious bug.

Before Starlane Nexi were built:

Can you go here and open a new issue with turn 446 save game zipped and atached?
And the freeorion.log and freeoriond.log files (also zipped) for the game session that include turn 448 (if you still have then, IIRC, exiting FO and reloading a save game delete previous logs).

Also, zip and save for future reference some other previous turn (it doesn't matter if its 444 or any older one) and turn 448. And if you have none of this turns (maybe because you kept playing and got overwritten by newer turns), just the older one you have.

Thanks!

[Ophiuchus]

Anyway, more often than not, Starlane Bores & Nexi behave strange: often not linking to the nearest star (as per description), but somewhere else

I think for Nexus not connecting to closest stars is not a problem. It is rather for building infrastructure/highways (e.g. connecting your shipyard/powerhouse redundantly/faster connection from your shipyard) than surgical/proximity connections in my opinion.

I think in the best of all worlds we should provide a preview for starlane bore/nexus.

Preview mode for those would show a possible result, switching every 0.5s or so. If you look at it for 5s you should get already an idea of what could happen.

Preview mode could be triggered by (right click and menu choice) OR mouse-over hover OR ???

[Oberlus]

Aside of the problem of starlanes disappearing...

I think in the best of all worlds we should provide a preview for starlane bore/nexus.

Preview mode for those would show a possible result, switching every 0.5s or so. If you look at it for 5s you should get already an idea of what could happen.

Preview mode could be triggered by (right click and menu choice) OR mouse-over hover OR ???

That sounds great.

For Starlane Bore (the one that creates a single starlane) I was thinking of allowing the player to select the target system. I hope it could be done by repurposing the "Rally to" option (available for ships under construction) to something like "Link to" in the starlane bore building under construction, which could be optional or mandatory:

• If optional, the building would get PP regardless of the target system being specified, and if none is specified and the building completes, it would work as currently.
• If mandatory, it would be shown as paused with a red message indicating the player that it won't advance until a target system is linked.

I prefer the mandatory option because it will be clearly less confusing for unexperienced players, and because any player would prefer to know in advance the result of the building.
In both cases, when the player uses the "Link to" option, the system should check if creating a starlane to the targetted system is possible and indicate the player when it is not with a red message "Impossible to create a starlane to the targetted system, select a different one".

For Starlane Nexus (the one that creates many starlanes), queueing the building should show the preview (fixed, not periodically changing with different alternatives), and the same "Link to" mechanic could be used (this time optional for sure) to let the player set one of the starlanes (and only one) which would adjust the preview accordingly.

[Oberlus]

Before Starlane Nexi were built:

I noticed that at turn 447 both Gaea and Saeros created new starlanes (and then at turn 448 Gaea loses its starlanes).
Does that mean you were building Starlane Bore/Nexus at both systems at the same time?

[Lord Hong]

@ Oberlus:

OK. I'll create a Github account and upload the save files for turns 444, 446, 448. Just don't know if I'll be able to manage that today. It's family time As for the log files, they're probably overwritten by now. But your game will create new ones once you run those save files.

This is my son's evil empire. Handle with care!

Also, there was no Starlane Bore or Nexus built in the Saeros system.

@ Ophiuchus: having a preview function like that would be a great idea! I suggest that there should be a way to have that for systems not already owned, too. Why shouldn't I be able to know in advance if having the system will be a strategic asset or not? Someone here once said that the Bores and Nexi needed some overhaul for not always linking to the nearest system, implying that their algorithm is buggy. But with a preview, that bit of randomness and chaos wouldn't be a problem at all - vice versa! Actually, it would give some suspense for early empire planning - assuming that the preview will not be possible until the tech is researched.

In earlier games I also noticed that if you build a nexus (also a bore? I don't remember), new starlanes come, but old starlanes sometimes (rarely) disappear. If that is just a variant of this bug here (= or this isolation bug being an extreme variant of that one), well, repair. Else, a preview should also show you which starlanes will go away.

@ Oberlus (again):

I think it would be better to retain some chaos for starlane construction. Previews would be great, but being able to exactly determine to which system the starlane should link ... I think that would take some fun out of the game. Make it too ... easily plannable.