[DISTANT WORLDS] SRV exploding workaround

[Ziljan]

Tbh, I thought this was an exaggeration until it happened to me tonight. "Dropped" 2m while driving uphill, that's right I was in midair and going up when I exploded. Had 75% thruster juice, and was feathering my landing perfectly, as I always do. Kaboom. Hit nothing. But my SRV went up in smoke anyway. Submitted a ticket.

If I had lost it to stupidity, that would be fine. I would lump it up and be more careful. But if punishment isn't based on a lack of skill or caution, then I don't think I can spend my time waiting for the sword of damocles to drop. I am fine with risk, as long there is a measure of control involved, so that I know that there is no one to blame but myself and the impulse from rapid deceleration.

 

[The Tick]

To add more details to the bug reports: one hypothesis of mine is that this happens when you drive over 'hidden' large rocks.
- the visible large ones you can see and avoid, but if you hit them directly even at medium speeds, they can damage your SRV quite badly
- the visible small ones don't have any effect
- on some occasions, I drive over a seemingly 'small' rocks, but get thrown up into the air, with quite some damage
- on planet surfaces, sometimes the graphics engine has issues placing objects at the right height. Sometimes, rocks float above the surface.

Hypothesis: sometimes, large rocks get placed deep into the ground. You only see the tiny top. But if you drive over these, and are a bit unlucky, you get significant damage.

Can anybody confirm?

 

[Ziljan]

I did some test by ramming into giant rocks at 36 m/s. I only lost 20-30% of my hull. Never came close to losing 97%. So the invisible rock theory probably isn't it. Also, there are videos of people exploding while going <5 m/s.

 

[dognosh]

I did say Zilan, that it had happened to others too as I wouldn't post rumours or hearsay.

Ok, in another thread(sorry, it was 2 or 3 days ago and forgot to link it here) , someone was streaming their SRV driving and this happened to him(driving along and got destroyed woithout hitting anything), whilst those watching his stream said he started tumbling badly and exploded !!!

 

[shadmar]

Maybe the SRV isn't really repaired when you park it, it just comes out again at 100% but is really lower, so after enough "auto park repairs" you are close to 0% and go boom...
I always repair mine before ship-parking it, just in case. I have no proof of this.

 

[Iron Orchid]

Maybe the SRV isn't really repaired when you park it, it just comes out again at 100% but is really lower, so after enough "auto park repairs" you are close to 0% and go boom...
I always repair mine before ship-parking it, just in case. I have no proof of this.

I had wondered this myself, but there is no way to prove.

 

[Mysturji]

Maybe the SRV isn't really repaired when you park it, it just comes out again at 100% but is really lower, so after enough "auto park repairs" you are close to 0% and go boom...
I always repair mine before ship-parking it, just in case. I have no proof of this.

Top tip. This has never happened to me, but next time I land, I'll be doing this.

 

[Ziljan]

I had wondered this myself, but there is no way to prove.

I have ONLY been using mats to repair, and have NOT been relying on my ship at all. Why? Because I feel that the ship repair is a bug and should be fixed. So that's not it either.

 

[Ziljan]

I did say Zilan, that it had happened to others too as I wouldn't post rumours or hearsay.

Ok, in another thread(sorry, it was 2 or 3 days ago and forgot to link it here) , someone was streaming their SRV driving and this happened to him(driving along and got destroyed woithout hitting anything), whilst those watching his stream said he started tumbling badly and exploded !!!

No tumbling in this video. This could happen to anyone... At any time... For seemingly no reason:

[video=youtube_share;_VUp8atr_qY]http://youtu.be/_VUp8atr_qY[/video]

 

[ASC]

No tumbling in this video. This could happen to anyone... At any time... For seemingly no reason:

I see that you have kept your cargo scoop open, the same as in the other videos that I've seen by Allitnil and NeilF. I've no idea if that is related to the spontaneous explosion, but I always close it just in case.

Edit: I'm probably just spreading a superstition. It would be nice if FD would tell us something.

 

[shadmar]

I om on the DW expedition and 13kly out, I only have 1 SRV so I really hope I don't explode.

According to this bug report, there are some common stuff : https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=218132
1. Hull is below 100% when it exploded, .. so I just repair any damage immediately, keeping that SRV always at 100%
2. Scoop is down when it exploded, .. so I don't drive and scoop.

Seems to be working so far.. I'm not going back to pick up SRV's... sigh.. I hope there is a fix for this *soon*

 

[Crank Larson]

I have ONLY been using mats to repair, and have NOT been relying on my ship at all. Why? Because I feel that the ship repair is a bug and should be fixed. So that's not it either.

I don't think the SRV ship repair is a bug. The planetary hangar contains equipment to service the SRV (I'm sure I saw this in some blurb somewhere too, though haven't time to go hunting right now), and it would make perfect sense for it to be repaired in the hangar. In fact, that makes more sense than being able to repair it on the fly while you are out... The ship doesn't refuel the SRV, which just gives me more confidence that this is actually by design. Personally, I'll be disappointed if it isn't, as what's the point in the hangar if it can't service the SRV? The only point that might be reasonable is that the repair at the hangar should probably use some materials if need be.

Incidentally, I've only ever used ship repair to repair the SRV.

 

[Ziljan]

I see that you have kept your cargo scoop open, the same as in the other videos that I've seen by Allitnil and NeilF. I've no idea if that is related to the spontaneous explosion, but I always close it just in case.

Edit: I'm probably just spreading a superstition. It would be nice if FD would tell us something.

That's not a video of me. That's NeilF, from the above mentioned bug report in post #71. When my SRV exploded, I did not have a scoop out. I was conducting a drive test, going 500km to without prospecting to measure the rate of increase of Exploration rank just from driving.

Well that test is done. And so am I, no more DW for me until the SRV issue is sorted out. I don't want to be at the mercy of a support ticket. Going to FD with my hands out every time the game randomly blips me out of existence.

I have always wanted exploration to be more risky. But crashing into invisible land mines?? Not fun.

 

[Senik]

I om on the DW expedition and 13kly out, I only have 1 SRV so I really hope I don't explode.

According to this bug report, there are some common stuff : https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=218132
1. Hull is below 100% when it exploded, .. so I just repair any damage immediately, keeping that SRV always at 100%
2. Scoop is down when it exploded, .. so I don't drive and scoop.

Seems to be working so far.. I'm not going back to pick up SRV's... sigh.. I hope there is a fix for this *soon*

The other thing I've noticed in the videos I've seen is that the SRV is becoming airborne by *some* amount, even though it seems like it should be insignificant. If you watch the video above closely, you'll notice how the SRV's wheels drop down all the way during its brief air time, as if the SRV were up in the air really high even though it looks like it got less than a meter off the ground. To add to that, the person in the video above clearly was not going at a slow pace. If there's some kind of Goat Simulator fail in their physics simulation, adding speed to the mix is just asking for trouble.

Until there's confirmation that this bug has been found and fixed, I'm not doing prospecting or any other SRV activity that involves going more than a few dozen meters from my ship, so I can go super slow and make sure my wheels never leave the ground. Basically just selfies and such. I really do hope they fix this ASAP, because it's killing a lot of the fun for people on Distant Worlds.

 

[Ziljan]

If you watch the video above closely, you'll notice how the SRV's wheels drop down all the way during its brief air time

Watch the video more closely. He was at 0 meters altitude the whole time. His wheels went "up" because of normal terrain lumps. When you are in the air, your tires go DOWN, not up. No air was caught. At all.

And I was in the air when my SRV blew up. So there is not much consistency here to grasp at.


I think people are grasping at straw patterns that don't exist. Probably because they want to feel like if they do the "right" thing it won't happen to them. But there is no control here. You are at the mercy of a randomshow stopping bug with the only commonality being that people were in a moving SRV. So if you do decide to protect yourself from this bug, the ONLY surefire way to do is to not land. Or if you do deploy your SRV, just keep it 100% and don't move in any direction. Just stay put right where your ship left you, and everything will be fine.

 

[Senik]

Watch the video more closely. He was at 0 meters altitude the whole time. His wheels went "up" because of normal terrain lumps. When you are in the air, your tires go DOWN, not up. No air was caught. At all.

I did, I watched it a lot. About one second before it explodes, you see that the SRV is pitched down a few degrees, then abruptly pitches up a few degrees as if it had hit a bump and caught some air (even though it doesn't look like it left the ground more than a few tens of cm, if at all). But right after that, the wheels go all the way down, as if the SRV were fully airborne. And the moment you see the wheels start to move back up, the SRV explodes.

I agree that everything in this thread is speculation, but having worked on physics engines in the past I can tell you one of the most common sources of errors is when it doesn't run the simulation at short enough time intervals. This ends up causing it to miss an important boundary event, or for the input to create beat frequencies with the simulation. This just really feels like the simulation getting confused due to height changes occurring at just the wrong frequency, and after accumulating enough error thinking the SRV has decelerated orders of magnitude more than it really has.

Anyway, I think they could put a pretty simple bandaid on this by limiting the maximum amount of hull you can lose at once to 40% or something (unless there's absolutely no doubt at all that you just base jumped off a cliff). At least until they fix the real problem. Then it just becomes an annoying bug that wastes common materials for repairs, instead of a game-breaking bug for long-range exploration.

 

[Ziljan]

Anyway, I think they could put a pretty simple bandaid on this by limiting the maximum amount of hull you can lose at once to 40% or something (unless there's absolutely no doubt at all that you just base jumped off a cliff). At least until they fix the real problem. Then it just becomes an annoying bug that wastes common materials for repairs, instead of a game-breaking bug for long-range exploration.

Um, no. That would be way too arcade like. They need to address it in a real way that results in realistic damage. Otherwise people will just wait until they are at 40% before even worrying about it, and that would be too simplistic and boring. It has to be "fair", and that means it also needs to have realistic consequences for stupid behavior.

 

[Jack Hound]

While attempting the long drive https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=224599 my SRV just exploded in mid air.

 

[Ziljan]

While attempting the long drive https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=224599 my SRV just exploded in mid air.

Same here, I got about 200 km into my distance drive test on a planet near the bug nebula, and was in mid air as well.

Now that I think of it, this reminds me of the same bug that was causing ships leaving space ports on planetary surfaces to lose 70% hull from hitting "nothing" while boosting upward to escape mass lock. That problem was fixed. So maybe this one will be too?

 

[racer1]

I'd be surprised if there was another patch now before 2.1. I hope we can find a work around.