Abstract
Due to delays between Limpet drone delivery, Elite updating the cargo inventory list and deducing whether the Cargo is full, it is better to buy fewer Limpets than the maximum Cargo by an amount equal to the number of Collectors.Introduction
Especially often after Ascendancy, the Collector limpets are retrieving items but pausing when they reach the moment of delivery and just following the starship around as if the Cargo hatch is closed. This is not a new problem, but it has become much more frequent now, and a little Powerplay salvaging has given me the opportunity to observe it closely and deduce a workaround!More specifically, the first Collector completes the delivery quickly, then subsequent drones can become stuck as long as a minute or so.
Observation
To set the example case, I saw this when salvaging Power wreckages by flying out with a Cargo hold full with Limpets and using targeted Collectors for each item, with all four drones from a 3B Operations Multi-limpet. The first item appeared to deliver, in my case always the more valuable Black Box to get it away from possible harm, then any further drones would take a needlessly long time to complete a delivery. It turns out that the full Cargo is a contributing factor!The first clue appeared after responding to that by changing to use a larger Shield and smaller Cargo, and opting to take only the Black Box. The Collector drone delivered the item as before, but now it revealed a new insight due to being both the first and last Limpet used—a time delay between delivering the item and seeing the Cargo full message. This was missed before due to having used several Limpets, which suppressed the message (logically!) but showed the symptoms of such delays.
A later observation was that delivered items can take much time to appear in the Inventory, sometimes not until entering Supercruise.
Testing
Given the full Cargo clue, my first thought was to buy one fewer Limpet, in my case 63 rather than 64 in a class 6 Cargo rack. The idea was that perhaps that the delay is related to whether the Cargo is full versus non-full, and that way there should never be any question; 63 targeted Collector limpets can not possibly deliver 64 items.This did not work fully, but it provided an even better clue: the first two deliveries now completed quickly. This indicates actually that there is a delay in Elite noticing that those Limpets are no longer in the Cargo; presumably limpets become stuck when checking whether there is room for an item, and has to wait for Elite to update it all.
That being the case, I discarded three more Limpets so that my Cargo total became 60 of 64. That way, even though using four Collectors should leave the Cargo total at 56, they all can still deliver items despite Elite thinking the total still is as much as 60. This worked very well!
In practice it may suffice to fly with 61 of 64 when using four drones, but with 60 of 64 there is surely no question of Cargo space for four items.
Afterword
This is not observable consistently, but given other recent similar problems such as delayed Hyperspace jumps, I am quite sure that the Ascendancy popularity and approximate doubling of active Commanders is exposing problems which always existed conceptually but occurred seldom without that activity demand.Research limpets have been doing the same thing over the past year or so, perhaps applying generally to the concept of a drone leaving the starship and returning with an item, although that case would require a lot more testing to be confident that it has the same workaround and thus probably is the same problem. Having observed Research limpets become stuck in the same manner but only occasionally, it would be unscientific to ignore the successes when deciding whether a change is an improvement!
