Shuttles and drones stop doing their jobs :: Surviving Mars General Discussions

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BotchLynn 22 May @ 1:40am

Shuttles and drones stop doing their jobs

Got a colony with over 1000 ppl now. My buildings just keep breaking all the time or my factories run out of supply etc, cause my drones/shuttles keep sitting idle for some reason. So it's not like I don't have enough of them. I'm in an endgame where literally everything is plentiful, but due to this bug(?) it is halting me, and potentially even failing my colony eventually if it gets rly bad long enough...

It used to work, so I know all my stuff is set up correctly... Its just after I went over 1000 colonists, it somehow just broke my save? Or maybe it's something else that triggered it, I don't know.

I have a universal depot set at every drone hub, set to supply them 30 of each, minus fuel/rare metals cause I have separate depots for those. For some reason they stop getting enough metals to keep my factory going, or polymer for maintenance... even though I have thousands upon thousands of each thing at my main automated storage area.

I also have an automated storage with thousands of fuel near my landing pad, but my rockets are just not getting refueled at a decent rate, cause only about 10 drones feel like working. The other 30 drones just sit there idle, doing nothing. This is just hell when I'm trying to send a rocket to an anomaly and it requires over 400 fuel... takes ages.

This also extends to shuttle ports not getting their fuel, even tho I have shuttles sitting idle in the ones that are fueled... I got fuel depots near them set to request 30 or more fuel. I have even resorted to setting 90% of my shuttle bays to only supply resources (not colonists). Didn't help.

etc etc... I'm sure you can imagine the chainreaction of slowness this causes on my map.

Stuff still works, but it is so so so slow cause shuttles and drones keep sitting idle while there is plenty of work to go around... I'm afraid my factories will eventually just not keep up with demand anymore, due to waiting for supply all the time etc...

I already tried building more shuttles and drones. It just causes more idles... logically.

PS: I only have the green planet, space race and laika DLC, and I own the game on epic store, in case you think I might have a buggy pirated version, I do not ;)

Thanks for any insights.

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BotchLynn 22 May @ 1:50am

Update: I've been monitoring my shuttles a bit and it seems that they only deliver 1 fuel per trip for some reason. Even though they are fully upgraded and should be carrying 5 or 6. This is adding to the slowness and everything lacking resources.

It's the same with drones, they just deliver 1 fuel to the polymer factory and then nothing until it runs out again the next minute...

Update2: I've noticed another thing contributing to the problem... often times the universal depot is supplied with the needed resource, but the drones don't do anything with it. they just sit idle. When I try to let them manually gather the material it says "can't find nearby material"... So there is defo another bug going on there...

Update 3: Been monitoring some more... I got a shuttle coming in to a new construction site... brings in 6 metal... drones do nothing cause apparently there is alrdy another shuttle on the way to take it back away from them... all the way back to my main storage that has ZERO request for metal... Explain that one, if not a bug...

UPDATE4: What I feared would happen IS happening now... I have 1 dome not getting any resources for a LONG while and thus colonists are dying because of it. There is no metal coming in to fix the broken moisture vaporator. My save is completely ruined due to this bug

All these things stack up to a very annoying huge problem.

Last edited by BotchLynn; 22 May @ 6:19am

kaki_gamet has Surviving Mars

22 May @ 5:28am

Are you using out of date Paradox mods? Sure drones and shuttles have never been logistic geniuses but to go on "strike" is a bit too much.

BotchLynn 22 May @ 5:55am

no mods

I absolutely hate these type of things happening, cause I love the game, but I always end up ragequitting. 700 hours played, but I still haven't done a proper endgame save due to bugs.
I can probably push my 100% terraform achievement with my current save, but I'd just be hitting fast forward and thus what is the point to stay in this save?

Last edited by BotchLynn; 22 May @ 6:18am

kaki_gamet has Surviving Mars

22 May @ 6:46am

Assuming you have enough shuttles (set to carry any, both resources and colonists) and enough resources, I can suggest two possible approaches :

- no Dust Storms, set any depot to requests nothing and let the game balance everything;
- with Dust Storms, set few strategical depots (usually universal ones) to request 6 or 12 resources, never max. One needs to weather the storm until regular supply is restored.

If you have centralized food production a land supply with Transports should keep everyone alive even during a dust storm, or stock up in advance with standard food depots.

I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting something but these are the most generic suggestions I can come with, without to be in your save nor in your mind ^^'

BotchLynn 22 May @ 7:20am

defo bugged.

I did change all of my depots to zero requests... put it on fast forward and now literally every dome has no life support so... :) Defo did not help :p The universal depots need a minimum request for materials to keep everything running.

As I mentioned in one of my updates, for example the shuttles only bring 1 fuel over from main storage to a polymer factory, instead of 6, as is their max capacity (no idea why they do this). So the building is constantly disabled asking for resources...

The only fix I see to this entire problem is to keep literally everything centralized and overlapped... As in 6 drone hubs in a circle around one and the same main storage area. As in practically no need for shuttles, unless its for a remote geologist dome. This however alrdy gives me a massive headache thinking about the amount of pre-planning needed at the start of a new map.
However this still wouldn't fix the drones sitting idle, even tho there is work to do.

I am 100% convinced my save is completely bugged. After 700 hours I know how the game works etc, this isn't normal. I just don't understand how nobody else is crying their eyeballs out, I can't be the only one this is happening to...

Last edited by BotchLynn; 22 May @ 7:27am

Alex

22 May @ 8:00am

Few people play for so long, and not everyone who does runs into such a bug. I remember having slowdown issues after getting over 6000 or so colonists, but nothing like this.

Hmm, by the way, can you post your specs? Maybe the logs as well?

Last edited by Alex; 22 May @ 8:02am

some moron has Surviving Mars

22 May @ 8:08am

1) I have had my domes opened and the planet mostly terraformed.
2) I only had say 300 people but that doesn't seem to be the problem here.
3) Do you know you can make the trucks do autodelivery? I use that to do most of my transport. It's "simpler" than shuttles. Shuttles can take a long time. Shuttles take a lot of fuel.
4) I only use shuttles for emergencies such as out of food or resources.
5) I often use a drone hub with a small or medium size to speed things up. I put a drone hub to move fuel from factory to rocket and reduce the coverage so it only covers those two. Then I use trucks to reload the fuel storage.
6) In theory you should be able to use lots of shuttles but I've never tried more than 6-8 so I don't know whether there is always a bug with large numbers. Computers tend to bog down from too many calculations, not sure whether that's what's going on here.

BotchLynn 22 May @ 8:28am

I exploit game mechanics with the scrubber strategy, so I can make however much I want of everything. Fuel therefor is not an issue ;) I use shuttles in that manner for easy/fast expansion purposes. I don't like micromanagement. This is why this bug is frustrating me so much. Yes, I could set up some transport routes, but I don't want to... Shuttles and drones should just do their job :D

If anything is bogged down it would be the game engine, cause my pc never dips below fps cap. Its a high budget setup.

I rly do think it could actually be an engine limitation. Cause I have so much production of everything, due to that scrubber exploit. For example I have about 500 fuel production per sol. Still it surprises me that this isn't more of a widespread issue. Google certainly does not deliver me anything on the matter. I guess very few ppl play the way I do or something?

Last edited by BotchLynn; 22 May @ 8:30am

Alex

22 May @ 8:33am

Well, few people play this game in the first place.
https://steamdb.info/app/464920/charts/
Even fewer play for so long, and then, most who actually do will hit the engine limit on the number of colonists instead.

You could upload the logs, or even the save, so we might have a look at it.

Last edited by Alex; 22 May @ 8:34am

BotchLynn 22 May @ 8:35am

Originally posted by Alex:
Well, few people play this game in the first place.
https://steamdb.info/app/464920/charts/
Even fewer play for so long, and then, most who actually do will hit the engine limit on the number of colonists instead.

You could upload the logs, or even the save, so we might have a look at it.

what logs are u speaking of?

Also I think the low numbers on steam is mainly due to the fact that it was on epic first, and then not much later it was free to take... so why would anyone buy it on steam at that point? That is how I got it, free from epic, and then I bought some DLC on epic cause I liked the game so much.

Last edited by BotchLynn; 22 May @ 8:41am

#10

Alex

22 May @ 8:41am

Originally posted by No, I'm not, You are!:
what logs are u speaking of?

The game logs, obviously.

Originally posted by No, I'm not, You are!:
Also I think the low numbers on steam is mainly due to the fact that it was on epic first, and then not much later it was free to take... so why would anyone buy it on steam at that point?

Maybe because many already bought it long ago?

#11

BotchLynn 22 May @ 8:50am

Originally posted by Alex:
Originally posted by No, I'm not, You are!:
what logs are u speaking of?
The game logs, obviously.
Originally posted by No, I'm not, You are!:
Also I think the low numbers on steam is mainly due to the fact that it was on epic first, and then not much later it was free to take... so why would anyone buy it on steam at that point?
Maybe because many already bought it long ago?

If you are talking about C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Roaming\Surviving Mars ... (btw I cant believe you actually made me google where to find these logs)... I don't see how any of these logs could possibly help you. Ive browsed through them and the only things worth mentioning is my pc specs. that im on a 7800x3d & 4070ti (again, not a pc issue). What DLC's I have loaded And almost no ingame information, other than what settings and map I am using... for some reason A LOT of 'verify auth' lines...

Last edited by BotchLynn; 22 May @ 8:54am

#12

Ericus1

22 May @ 8:59am

1000 colonists is nothing, and is not your problem. I've had colonies of 15 thousand that worked fine.

The automated storages are your problem, because they have TERRIBLY gated access times. Those thousand of resources you have sitting in them may as well not exist, because it takes forever to pull the resources back out of them while your logistics system desperately struggles to compensate, which is why you are seeing shuttles delivering one good at a time. Never, EVER use the garbage automated storages. They serve no purpose other than to inflate the numbers on the top bar and be somewhere resources go to die.

Probably before your building outputs were sufficient to cover demand, but as your colony grew you've recent outstripped that and your system needs to dip into your stored resources, which it couldn't do fast enough to keep up, and now you have severe shortage with your logistics system on the verge of collapse.

Last edited by Ericus1; 22 May @ 9:04am

#13

BotchLynn 22 May @ 9:01am

Originally posted by Ericus1:
1000 colonists is nothing, and is not your problem. I've had colonies of 15 thousand that worked fine.

The automated storages are your problem, because they have TERRIBLY gated access times. Those thousand of resources you have sitting in them may as well not exist, because it takes forever to pull the resources back out of them while your logistics system desperately struggles to compensate, which is why you are seeing shuttles delivering one good at a time. Never, EVER use the garbage automated storages.

Whoaw... Going to test this now. Deleting them all and doing default depots instead... Hold for update in 5-10 mins.

edit: ugh it takes so long, cause apparently they need to empty my full automated storages before they can delete them :D

At first sight it seems to clear up my issues tho :o HOW is nobody else having issues with this, since I cant find this on google?

Last edited by BotchLynn; 22 May @ 9:11am

#14

Ericus1

22 May @ 9:06am

There is a mod that greatly attenuates that access time problem you could also try. You'll probably also want to import a bunch of stuff from Earth to get your logistics system healthy as well, and then make sure to fix output imbalances of goods so you aren't running deficits.

Last edited by Ericus1; 22 May @ 9:08am

#15

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Surviving Mars > General Discussions > Topic Details

Date Posted: 22 May @ 1:40am

Posts: 38