ARK: Survival Evolved

ARK: Survival Evolved

Homing Pigeon
Flyers keep vanishing
This mod has been an absolute godsend for materials collection on our small server, but for some reason our flyers occasionally just vanish without a trace between flags.
First the details as requested for bug reports:

Map: The Center

Mods: Auto Torch, Aviary Structures, Upgrade Station, Stairs Mod with Rounded Walls v.4.2, Egg N Poop Collector N Incubator, Underwater BaseMod, Angled Railing Ver 3, Ark Futurism, Tavan's Trough, Morecrafting ARK, Better Lights, No Collision Structures, Pipes-N-Cables, Crystal Lamps v1.52, Ark Advance 10, Versatile Raft Mod, Aku Shima Electronics, Aku Shima RWT Standalone, Behemoth Wall Mod, GlassMetal, Reusable Plus, Bulk Crafters, Structures Plus, Pillars Plus, Redwoods Anywhere, Platforms Plus, No Collision Check v1.3a, Extra ARK 2.0, Jurassic Ark, Elevator Plus, Automated Ark, Auto Repair Station, Death Helper, Advanced Architecture Mod, Homing Pigeon

Features being used:
Send To Flag
Recall to Flag

Where is the target flag located?
Point A is at the top of a mountain in an open field around 83 Lat, 11 Lon. Point B is the center of a large, walled pen on an island around 90 Lat, 30 Lon.

Where was the flyer located when the mod feature was triggered?
Either of the above points.

Did you interrupt the behaviour before the flyer reached the flag? (ie: whistled, mounted etc..)
Yes, but only after a very long time had passed and we were certain the flyers should have arrived at their destination. We tried recalling them to the destination they were originally sent, and then recalling them back to their original point of departure.

So here's what's been happening: We've been using the two points listed above to transport metal via argentavis from an outpost on top of a mountain to our base camp on a nearby island. We load the birds up to 75% capacity at the top, send to base, someone there unloads them, and they get sent back. 9 times out of 10 it works perfectly, but every once in a while we've noticed that a flyer sent from base to outpost or vice versa just never shows up. They remain listed on the flag, but days go by and they never arrive. We've sent out search parties to scour the area along the path for our lost birds, but we've lost 3 now and none have turned up. We even did a search around 0,0 on a hunch, still nothing.

We've pretty much written them off as a loss, and we really want to continue using this awesome setup but we just don't want to risk continually losing more birds and/or cargo. Any suggestions?
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Showing 1-9 of 9 comments
PommieGamer  [developer] 6 Feb, 2017 @ 1:03pm 
Thank you for the detailed bug report. Even with this amount of detail it is really hard to say what could be the cause.

I would suggest (as I always do) to equip trackers to your flyers so that in the event one goes MIA, you can track him/her down.

Perhaps you can do this and if this issue happens again you'll be able to observe why the flyer didn't make it back and report back to me (my hunch is a collision issue somewhere on route).

Fractal Fischer 6 Feb, 2017 @ 5:43pm 
Thanks for the tip. I'll give those tracking devices a go and let you know if we have any more bermuda triangle incidents.
PommieGamer  [developer] 6 Feb, 2017 @ 8:11pm 
Originally posted by Fractal Fischer:
Thanks for the tip. I'll give those tracking devices a go and let you know if we have any more bermuda triangle incidents.

This may or may not be related, but a recent ARK game patch had some incidents of tamed dinos being deleted due to a caching issue, might explain the issue you've experienced or might be totally coincidental. See Jen's Tweet.

Either way, definitely equip trackers and let me know if you experience any further "bermuda triangle incidents" (lol, I like that description).
Fractal Fischer 9 Feb, 2017 @ 11:28am 
Ok, so we got all our birds back but I unfortunately don't know any more than I did before. There's been a few game updates and server restarts in the mean time, but I randomly decided to try recalling the lost birds once again yesterday and lo and behold they all showed back up. God knows where they'd been this whole time.

They're all equipped with transponders now and there hasn't been another incident since, but I think one thing that's helped substantially is being more careful about encumberance. We had been loading birds to 85% before, but after the dissappearances we set a new rule of thumb to never exceed 75% capacity. Zero encumberance = less time spent out of our sight, and I think that's made a big difference.

There is a new issue we've been seeing the past few days though. Couldn't say exactly when it started, but stationary birds with following disabled are totally ignoring send-to and recall commands from both flag and bird itself. They just sit there grounded and unresponsive until you enable following, at which point they will then take off and follow the homing command given. They will not actually follow the player until they arrive at the flag and the player enables following again.

We've gotten a lot of new players recently though, and we're starting to think a lack of ram could be causing issues. We're adding another 16GB tonight, so maybe that'll do the trick. Figured I'd mention it though in case anyone else is seeing this odd behavior.
PommieGamer  [developer] 9 Feb, 2017 @ 2:27pm 
Originally posted by Fractal Fischer:
God knows where they'd been this whole time.

Vacation? :steamhappy:

Originally posted by Fractal Fischer:
There is a new issue we've been seeing the past few days though. Couldn't say exactly when it started, but stationary birds with following disabled are totally ignoring send-to and recall commands from both flag and bird itself. They just sit there grounded and unresponsive until you enable following, at which point they will then take off and follow the homing command given. They will not actually follow the player until they arrive at the flag and the player enables following again.

Recent ARK patch has broken this functionality. Read this thread for more details.
Fractal Fischer 9 Feb, 2017 @ 3:20pm 
Ah. Figured as much. Well if it helps, setting enable following after a send/recall and then stepping away does still seem to kick them into gear despite the bug, so that might serve as a partial work around for some in the meantime. Just have to have someone on the other end to cooperate if you want two-way traffic since it's send-only.
PommieGamer  [developer] 9 Feb, 2017 @ 4:19pm 
Originally posted by Fractal Fischer:
Ah. Figured as much. Well if it helps, setting enable following after a send/recall and then stepping away does still seem to kick them into gear despite the bug, so that might serve as a partial work around for some in the meantime. Just have to have someone on the other end to cooperate if you want two-way traffic since it's send-only.

Yeah while this does work I wouldn't advise doing this as I wouldn't be able to predict if there would be any side-effects.

I've narrowed down the issue, something has changed with the networking with how the flyer's take off. This is the part of the behaviour tree that is failing. If the flyers are mid-air when a Send To or Recall commands are issued then the features work as expected (I tested by jumping off and enabling fly cheat to access the flyers multi-use menu).
Last edited by PommieGamer; 9 Feb, 2017 @ 4:20pm
sikosis999 21 May, 2017 @ 2:59pm 
any update on this we're having bird go MIA, a few have been found / returned but others still in the great unknown. . . .curious if issue has been identified and is being worked on. . . .thx!
PommieGamer  [developer] 21 May, 2017 @ 3:23pm 
Originally posted by sikosis999:
any update on this we're having bird go MIA, a few have been found / returned but others still in the great unknown. . . .curious if issue has been identified and is being worked on. . . .thx!

Equip your flyers with trackers, that is the most I can suggest at this point in time.
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