Known Issue Offline fuel burn/production

Discussion in 'Known Issues' started by Nasar, Jun 21, 2021.

  1. Nasar

    Nasar Ensign

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    Empyrion 1.5.1 3384
    Server: socogame
    Seed - Not privy to this

    Unmodded

    Reproducible: Yes
    Severity: Massive if you want to actually have the game continue offline.
    Type: Gameplay

    Summary: Construction jobs will pause while not online but burn fuel at the rate as if they were for the entire duration anyone is logged out/zone not loaded.

    Steps:
    1) Put in jobs
    2) Log out for a few hours (likely minutes)
    3) Return to see jobs where you left them yet fuel consumed. If you're gone long enough all fuel will be consumed which is even more fun because then your food is spoiled too as if it was offline for the duration that fuel would have been used up at max burn.

    ------------

    This was a problem back with I actively played last time and apparently never got fixed? Or did this resurface somehow?

    That's pretty bad if that's the case because the last time I actively played was back in 2018-ish and I know this was a reported bug then and was one of the main reasons me and my buddies gave it up last time too. How many times we'd return effectively stranded and without food because a small job used up all the fuel without even completing got to be a little much.
     
    #1
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2021
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  2. Garaman

    Garaman Captain

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    We haven't tested this thoroughly, but the belief is that any multi-stage recipes will not complete when you are offline. So for example if you have a container full of iron ore and you queue up ingots, the production run will complete when you log in and you will have your correct fuel usage, but if you queue up steel plates instead it doesn't do ore->ingots->plates correctly so you get no progress and it calculates the fuel usage as if the constructor was active the entire time.

    We see it frequently if you just add promethium ore, iron ingots, and water containers into a container and try to queue up the big fuel cells. Seems that the step to make the hydrogen bottles and promethium pellets screws it up if you're offline.
     
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  3. Nasar

    Nasar Ensign

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    I mean, the most recent one we had the furnace on to only burn through about 1k Estrum and a single constructor on set to first produce hydrogen bottles followed by 200 fusion cells. So while a multi-stage was technically included it wasn't the only job to run, and it should have never had to actually make it's own hydrogen bottles (we already know that the delay caused by just telling it to build fusion cells takes longer than if you make the bottles as a separate job, then the cells themselves). So not even the single step processes finished is what I'm saying.

    I was the first to log back in 9 hours later and nothing had been completed at all and that base's fuel tanks were empty when they had been filled (86 hours idle) the night before.


    Without seeing the code itself I have a feeling something like this is happening:
    -Device states are saved with time stamp at time when location is last loaded.
    -Upon next load calculation is made to determine how much time has passed.
    -This is now used to calculate fuel burn using ONLY the burn rate indicated by device states at last load and fuel removed from tanks.
    -If this empties the tanks the devices are set to offline and second calculation is made to determine how long the devices have been in an offline state.
    -This is used to determine food spoilage.
    -Production jobs are all treated as if the CURRENT state of the base has been the state the entire time and never calculates job progress/Plant growth.
    -If there's fuel remaining, then it calculates job progress/plant growth.


    I make this assumption all this because it is the least calculation heavy, and simplest way to create a feature to mimic a base being active while offline while covering possible exploits like purposely draining all but a tiny amount of fuel and starting long jobs before logging out for the day. Just it was never revisited after the fact because of more pressing issues and features being worked on to give it more accurate results. I realize I'm likely completely off, but given what is seen it's the simplest possible cause I can figure. Also while it's obviously not just mutli-step processes (since crops don't grow and things such as hydrogen bottles and furnaces also don't complete their tasks either) it could always possibly deal with container states somehow if multiple devices are using the same container while offline.
     
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    Last edited: Jun 21, 2021
  4. Garaman

    Garaman Captain

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    All good questions. My hope is that the devs know what the issue is and as you said it hasn't been the highest priority for them to fix (they are focusing on SP at the moment), but we may have to science this a bit. They like to see reproducible step-by-step cases or save games they can load in for testing.
     
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  5. Germanicus

    Germanicus Rear Admiral

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    You do not need Iron any longer to produce it ...;).
     
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  6. Garaman

    Garaman Captain

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    See? That's what happens when I don't look at the recipes before replying.
     
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  7. Nasar

    Nasar Ensign

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    How can they move this is not reproducible when it's literally a bug that's been around for 3 years? It's a different server, different version yet same bug.

    Whatever mod moved this. Mind saying something on that?
     
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  8. Germanicus

    Germanicus Rear Admiral

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    I am NO Mod but if the Devs have no way to REPRODUCE/Provoke it happening that shows the way HOW it happens/can be triggered... well that is the problem to solve such issues. How old they may ever be. Sad but that's they way it is.
     
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  9. Myrmidon

    Myrmidon Rear Admiral

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    The time calculation is messed for years now. They refuse to fix it or alter the method (procedure used) of calculation. Not sure why. Also I strongly doubt they ever test it properly. There are two ways the game calculates time and they work overlapped, though I am not sure how until I see the logic behind it or the code. You see the player can alter the speed of time and there is global time. Something is really messed with those two and even if the player never touched speed, production is messed. Also they never explain how it works, so we can test it properly. Per device, aka generator consumption, water o2 condensers sprout growth, food spoilage etc. Which time we see on the devices as remaining. The mixture of real time calculation with internal game time is borked. I ceased to make bug reports only to see them go "currently not reproducible" or supposedly "fixed" , only to see them happen again and again. I do not even bother. There is no manual on it for reference. And it seems that things go all over the place, worst when multiplayer gets involved.


    It is like the bug with the solid ore resource depots that one last ore remains in the depot and can not be mined but it goes always with the reload of the same save game.
     
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  10. Pantera

    Pantera Administrator Staff Member

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    Simply put it's because each time we have tried to trigger this deliberately (not just on our own internal servers) it hasn't triggered.
    This is something we ideally need to be able to trigger in a debugging environment to see where this problem is from when this triggers.

    We are currently looking into adding some outputs to logs for the persistence systems so they can be monitored & give the devs something to look at.
    As of now I cannot give an ETA when this will be added but will update here when it's ready. Sorry for the inconvenience caused by this.
     
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  11. Kaeser

    Kaeser Rear Admiral

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    So now you delete our posts?

    What's next?.... you gonna start deleting bug reports as well?

    What I said is what me and many in HWS had experienced and I did already provided a bug report with a test case in SP and not just once....
     
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  12. Pantera

    Pantera Administrator Staff Member

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    I deleted 1 post from you which wasn't factual.

    Sorry but nothing ever reproduced from it.
    Your last use case was basically que 100 bio fuels in the HV constructor in SP > Go to sleep in the tent > No items will be finished when you wake up but each time I do these steps (amongst others) nothing happens & the items are made in SP (tested in MP also by being in another playfield for multiple hours & also leaving the server & returning multiple hours later).
     
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  13. Kaeser

    Kaeser Rear Admiral

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    In the past 3 to 4 years this bug has been reported several time in several occasions in several game modes by several different people as this post is just one last example of such and every one has received the same treatment, "CURRENTLY not reproducible"

    What would you say is the issue here, we are not testing the game properly?... maybe we're playing it wrong?
     
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  14. Germanicus

    Germanicus Rear Admiral

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    Stop @Kaeser . Think. Please.:)
    Even you must recognize that there are a few different PC's and I-net connections out there and if @Pantera says that they have tried it within their available types and it did not appear and could not be traced back or even triggered ... Is this so hard to believe?

    I played too on 2 MP-Servers over a period of 3 Months. We had large Industrial Plants with 2 dozen Constructors and hundreds of fuel Tanks. We were 15-20 People playing. Even with often being alone on the Server - US/EU time Difference - nothing happened what here got described. (Wolfs-Server together with Spanj)
     
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  15. Pantera

    Pantera Administrator Staff Member

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    If a thread is marked "CURRENTLY not reproducible" it means we haven't had success in reproducing the reported issue based on the information posted in the thread & various other methods used to bring to bring a bug to surface.

    Cannot say really for sure until it is triggered in a debugging environment or if the proposed logging I asked for shows exactly what is happening when this occurs.
    I get it's annoying when such logging is ready I'll update this thread again.
     
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