Feedback Required A big discovery about "Clear Pivot" and suggestion

Discussion in 'FAQ & Feedback' started by LyfeForse, Apr 23, 2023.

  1. LyfeForse

    LyfeForse Lieutenant

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    .. That the uncleared pivots of ships are whats causing the -ships to disappear when warping issue-, among other things such as miners getting booted from underground.

    This courtesy of Filbertfarmer's research, and was hinted to me a good while back by Damarius Shaw/Vagabond_Goat.

    So moving forward with this information if that's the case, I guess a few things to ask:

    1. Is there something on Eleon's end that needs to be done to finally fix it? Maybe it's a solution that might involve the scrambling of texture work to our builds once more, but would ultimately fix it? If that's so, I would be fine with having to go over the builds one more time, and i'm sure others would if they knew the scope of what it could resolve.

    2. If that's not possible, can we learn the scope to full extent of what causes the pivot to go off, and maybe we as builders can adjust our build methods accordingly. Would it be best for us to define the outer bounds of blockwork for our builds first, then clear pivot, and finally start the texture process? Can the pivot be thrown off post blueprint spawn by block extensions, adding turrets etc.

    Lastly the suggestion: Is there a way to flag the builds that get uploaded to the workshop by their Clear Pivoted status? Like with airtight, by class, etc.

    In this way, the players could have a control over determining a fleet of builds that would unlikely be susceptible to vanishing. This could also help server hosts and admins, in that maybe they would want to curate builds that hit there servers by clear pivot, saving them alot of trouble of having to restore them, or they could at the very least generate awareness to those affected, that they can search by clear pivot on Workshop to help eliminate future issues.

    Cheers.
     
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    Last edited: Apr 24, 2023
  2. TwitchyJ

    TwitchyJ Commander

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    Searching in these forums for those names returns no such research.

    Steam doesn't allow to search through community posts by member name, and only showing you a members posts if you already have one to click on first.
    So nothing to be found there unless we have a link to a post already.

    Even googling those names returns nothing useful.
    So you are going to have to share this "research" with us first......

    Honestly though, if there IS actual research that proves what you are claiming..... Why isn't a bug report being filed properly so the devs are aware of it too?!?!?
     
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  3. ravien_ff

    ravien_ff Rear Admiral

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    I would think it better to fix the bug.
     
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  4. LyfeForse

    LyfeForse Lieutenant

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    I guess in my experience some presume Eleon is already aware of many of the issues.
     
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    Last edited: Apr 24, 2023
  5. LyfeForse

    LyfeForse Lieutenant

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    A lot of filbert's data came from testing one of Xcaliber's Auger builds. Xcal has since clear pivoted that Auger, so that couldn't be used. Another thing he notes is the requests from ship restorations come often from my builds or Ente's, and neither of us clear pivot; me not doing it because it scrambles the texture work, and presumably the same for Ente. So they are seeing requests for Judicator restoration requests, or ships attached to the Jud, or a number of Ente builds.

    For my data, I got from extensive playthrough with using my Hannibal, and its associated connecting pods. With them I was running into situations where connecting the HV pods to Hannibal was causing a number of issues;
    1. The process would work fine most of the time, but on occasion it would sometimes cause "punting" where trying to dock the pods underneath would perpetually push Hannibal away, or on some occasions after a connection was made, Hannibal would refuse to stop spinning, and I could not escape until and undock was done. A lot of these experiences were most profound in space, and they were not excluded to HV's docking to Hannibal, but also to Hannibal docking to a CV on occasion
    2. Another experience is, if I had to guess a 1 in 60 chance of the pods being "lost" through a playfield change. The pods wouldn't appear visually, but would be in registry, and might show in playfield. Tagging their registry location, and attempting to travel to them, would result in some sort of infinite "kick the can" outcome, with their locations perpetually moving away from Hannibal
    3. I havent run clearP on them to check the results, but the other mentioned party; Vagabond_Goat / Damarius Shaw, gives indication that the issues were resolved after clear pivot.

    One of the more popular approaches to building style is to build HVs/SVs planetside because the lighting is better. Builders tend to mount the builds on "Stands", which is temporary blockwork to allow access to working underneath the build and removed later, but consequently expands the bounding box past actual block dimensions, which is probably why there are issues with some HV/SV miners getting punted outside of the ground.

    With that notion in mind, it may be possible to faster replicate the issues by artifically blowing up the bounding box with stretched out temporary blockwork, then removing the blocks leaving a compact form. Do this for two or more connecting builds, and I think that in theory should faster trigger a reaction
     
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  6. ravien_ff

    ravien_ff Rear Admiral

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    I have always cleared the pivot point of my ships before doing a final save, and I've never lost a ship to warping (though I have lost ships due to a different desync issue but that issue was since fixed).
    However my data point is just one entry.
     
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  7. Escarli

    Escarli Rear Admiral

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    Isn't it a simple solution? Clear the pivot and problem solved
     
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  8. LyfeForse

    LyfeForse Lieutenant

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    If it is that lack of clear pivot is the problem, which strong indication suggests, then clear pivot would obviously be the solution.

    It's not a simple solution however, since right now it scrambles texture work, so we as builders need to change our approach. Maybe defined the outer block boundaries, clear pivot, then start texturing.

    Then there's the issue of popular builds still being used by inactive builders, who won't/can't update to clear pivot.

    My thought is that if the pivoted status can be flagged like airtight, ship class etc. then people could curate builds by that, and have some control over the problem
     
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  9. Escarli

    Escarli Rear Admiral

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    This right here is what I've always done, to me I'm sorry it is simple. It's not like you (collective you) didn't know about the (texture) issue because of what happened a while back.
     
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    Last edited: Apr 25, 2023
  10. LyfeForse

    LyfeForse Lieutenant

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    The "texture issue" has no significance until the surfacing of recent data to suggest the consequences of not clear pivoting.

    Why would I, or other builders clear pivot on a build, and clear 40 hours (just for an exterior) of texture finessing work, when theres no knowledge toward the side effects of it.

    The build process is an elaborate thing of course, where texturing and geometry happens interchangeably. A builder might think they are done with the geometry phase, begin texturing, then realize something is off. Maybe the hangar was actually too small for X build, or maybe didn't notice that a generator was parked against a thruster, and for either reason the build now needs to expand to accommodate corrections, and subsequently running clear pivot scrambles the work.

    Even moving forward, and being militant about it, It is an unusual thing to have looming over your mind as a builder. "Did I get the geometry right? am I satisfied with the final form? or will I need to expand the build for some reason, maybe to push a thruster out because i missed a section where im burning players?"

    And of course, theres still the issue of old builds people use, where the builder is inactive
     
    #10
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2023
  11. ravien_ff

    ravien_ff Rear Admiral

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    This is assuming that the pivot actually has any bearing on ships going missing, and that there isn't a better solution in fixing whatever bug causes it in the first place.
    This needs to be reproduced consistently and then reported as a bug so it can be acted on.

    Based on my understanding of the game and the issues, I don't see how the pivot location would have any bearing on ships going missing.
    It was my guess that missing ships are due to the server trying to write too many things to the database at the same time and therefor some writes get dropped. I don't see how that could have anything to do with a ship's pivot location. Even if the pivot location is written to the database along with the ship itself, it's not like having that pivot point be centered would change anything. Center isn't even 0,0,0 in a blueprint's block coordinates either.
     
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  12. LyfeForse

    LyfeForse Lieutenant

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    Well i've already reached out to a few servers, and one seems interested in running with some tests themselves.

    Besides that, I can do some public outreach and look for volunteers to investigate and give feedback here
     
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  13. TwitchyJ

    TwitchyJ Commander

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    I will add that i ALWAYS clear the pivot point on all my ships.

    Even still I've experienced every one of these issues.
    So I highly doubt the pivot point is the cause here.
     
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  14. Insopor

    Insopor Commander

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    I've never once cleared pivot on any of my ships, in 3k hours of play, only three times have I experienced a docking issue. One ship being left on a distant planet as I warped across nearly a hundred systems, and the others were both instances of ships suddenly being moved, they remained docked, but were docked like 5km away, causing my ship to turn very slow.

    The latter two both occurred under heavy server load in the middle of intense combat, so I'd wager it was more due to server/database issues than pivot.

    The other issue of being booted from underground I'm pretty sure I can prove does occur due to pivot location. But it's not really a bug I would say. That is, if the pivot passes through the terrain, the game thinks the ship did, and relocates the ship to prevent players getting stuck and/or exploiting.

    Only reason I have for clearing pivot would be to make a POI work or if the pivot wasn't attached to the ship (which breaks rules on most servers due to exploits). Due to how I build, I've never encountered the latter.
     
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