[Higgsboson]

--Long time lurker, first time poster--
I last played fs2scp/fsport over a year ago, and decided recently to replay the campaigns. 
Its a fresh install a couple days old, using Turey's installer.  I'm running fs2_open 3.6.9 with fsport and fsport-mediavps.  I started a new pilot file for this campaign.
In the enter the dragon mission, after Arjuna 1 is disabled Charon warps in to recover it.  After it warps in my wingmen request rearm, and it ignores arjuna in order to do this.  After my wingmen are sated, it does not resume its recovery of the dragon.  This behavior prevents completion of the mission. 
After the third time this happened, I impatiently used the primary-goals cheat code and continued.  Later, I realized that I probably could have just ordered my wingmen away before Charon arrived. 

Is this a known bug?  A search of the forums did not uncover any past reference to this bug, but I could have missed it.  Additionally, is this bug reproducible by others, or is it confined to my installation?

[Snail]

Strange. That shouldn't even be possible. The Charon is given a freighter designation and shouldn't accept rearm orders from any ships. Must be an FSPort bug with the latest version then.

[Goober5000]

EEEEEEEeeeeeenteresting.  That's probably why FS1 had a duplicate Centaur with the "freighter" designation.  (We removed it in the Port.)

Maybe we should just disable support for that mission.  It doesn't require tons of ordnance, only flying skill.

[Higgsboson]

Disabling support is certainly workable, but it should be accompanied by an in-character explanation during the briefing- i.e. "due to the current Shivan patrol pattern, we cannot stage resupply craft for this mission."  Otherwise you might have some confused missile-happy players.  This might cause a problem with the fs1 voice files, since that line would presumably be unvoiced. 

An optimal solution would just be to simply return the duplicate entry to the ship (table? list?), assuming that will not conflict with any other changes made since the entry was removed. 


Don't take this personally Goober, but your explanation reminded me of a common (although details vary between disciplines) cautionary tale among engineers.  It generally goes like this:

Engineer 1: Why does that meaningless widget have duct tape on it?
Engineer 2: I have no earthly idea. *considerate pause*  It doesn't make any sense.
Engineer 1: Should we just remove it?
Engineer 2: Why not?
*bridge collapses* or *rocket explodes* or etc. 
Hilarity ensues. 

I noticed the mantis link in your sig.  Don't know why I never noticed it before.  I'll use that in the future if I encounter any more bugs. 

[Goober5000]

It's not necessary to provide an extra briefing stage saying support is not available.  Very few briefings state that outright; in the majority of cases it's implied or not even addressed.

We removed that extra entry because it freed up an additional ship slot and the mission played fine without it.  And a FSPort campaign is quite a bit different from a bridge.

[Snail]

EEEEEEEeeeeeenteresting.  That's probably why FS1 had a duplicate Centaur with the "freighter" designation.  (We removed it in the Port.)

With , there is always a reason, even if it isn't clear immediately.

[Galemp]

IIRC disabling support in the mission only disables your ability to summon a support ship. I don't think it would prevent you from requesting support from a ship already present.

But yeah, it looks like the only foolproof way to get Charon to ignore the players and wingmen is with the Freighter tag. Disappointing.

[Droid803]

Is it possible to give it no dynamic goals or no player orders?

[Goober5000]

IIRC disabling support in the mission only disables your ability to summon a support ship.

No, it disables support completely, even if there's a support ship present.  That's why you can't rearm in "Love the Treason..."

[BlackFulcrum]

Well I'm stuck on this one too, it seems to me though that it's not the fighters requesting re-arm that is causing the bug, in my last try I decided to ignore Arjuna 1 during the entire fight, to pretty disastrous results, my whole Alpha wing got slaughtered by it, Beta left after the Cain was destroyed, and I called in Delta to deal with Arjuna 1 cause it's to quick and twitchy for me to get a decent shot in (in fact it was tearing me apart) no calls for rearm went out as far as I know, because right after disabling Arjuna 1, Delta left as well.

Charon just seems to sit there, probably just where it enters, and does nothing.

[Artscrafter]

I'm playing FSPort v3.1.1 on fs2open v3.6.9, and I'm stuck on the mission Enter the Dragon. My problem is that after I disable Arjuna 1, the Charon jumps in and proceeds to just sit there. When I target it, it says "No Orders." Strangely, it says "Dock Arjuna 1" while it's jumping in, but then it loses that order once the jump animation has completed. It'll just sit there, except that it'll function as a regular support ship if another one hasn't already been called in.

I've tried everything I can think of that might affect the event flags: Clearing out everything but Arjuna 1 and then disabling it, going straight for Arjuna 1 and disabling it while the Shakti is still there, destroying that transport that jumps in or letting it escape, sending my squadmates away or keeping them around, etc. but nothing seems to make the Charon want to keep going in the direction of Arjuna 1. I've even tried letting myself get killed five times in a row so I could skip the mission, and I got the dialog for it, but then I just ended up repeating this one again.

One other thing I noticed (might or might not be related) is that if I call in Delta wing after I've cleared everything and the Charon is there, they never seem to show up.

Anyone got any suggestions for how I can get past this?

[Galemp]

There's issues with Charon being handled like a support ship in this mission--we're working on a solution. In the meantime, have you tried dismissing all your wingmen before summoning Charon?

[Artscrafter]

Yep, tried that. I noticed something was weird once I saw the Charon start executing the orders "Rearm Alpha 2" followed by "Rearm Alpha 3" one of the times. But sending the wingmates away isn't solving it. I even tried sending everyone away right at the beginning of the mission and killing everything myself and even that didn't work.

[BlackFulcrum]

Yup, nothing seems to work, it just seems to warp in, and then sit there (if no requests for rearming are made).

I also want to pitch in on Delta wing, as mentioned by Artscrafter there is something odd about them as well, tho I did not call them when Arjuna 1 was already disabled, I called them in to disable him.
They did eventually show up, but they took a good deal of time getting there, as Alpha wing were all dead, and Beta had left after destroying the Shakti, I was alone, eventually I got a message from Command telling me that I was the only one left, and no reinforcements were available, this was a few minutes after Beta left, and I had called for reinforcements (Alpha was dead before that), only to have Delta wing jump in 30 sec or so after Command told me I was on my own.

[Xorlium]

Is there some way to skip (but still beat) this mission? I want to continue playing, but I'm stuck there... i.e., are there cheat codes?

[Jeff Vader]

Fail five times in a row and you'll be presented with the option to proceed to the next mission.

[Recluse]

Interesting. I just finished this mission and didn't see this. 3.6.10 latest build + FSPORT-MediaVPs. Of course, it was in EASY mode, so maybe that makes a difference in that the wingies didn't expend so much ordnance to need rearming. I even had to call on Alpha2 to finish off the Disabling of the Arjuna 

As an aside, I think the Briefing said the Arjuna was low on power and thus a good target, but in the mission it seemed fully powered.. Shields, Hull, Maneuverability and Weapons.

As another aside, is there any progressive damage modelled? That is, if you start degrading a ships engines does it get slower? Less maneuverable, etc?  Do weapons get blown off the way they did in the Wing Commander universe?  I haven't noticed this happening either to enemies or to my ship. Seems to fly just as well with major hull damage than when at 100%.

No biggie, just asking   

Recluse

[Lucika]

Interesting. I just finished this mission and didn't see this. 3.6.10 latest build + FSPORT-MediaVPs. Of course, it was in EASY mode, so maybe that makes a difference in that the wingies didn't expend so much ordnance to need rearming. I even had to call on Alpha2 to finish off the Disabling of the Arjuna 

As an aside, I think the Briefing said the Arjuna was low on power and thus a good target, but in the mission it seemed fully powered.. Shields, Hull, Maneuverability and Weapons.

As another aside, is there any progressive damage modelled? That is, if you start degrading a ships engines does it get slower? Less maneuverable, etc?  Do weapons get blown off the way they did in the Wing Commander universe?  I haven't noticed this happening either to enemies or to my ship. Seems to fly just as well with major hull damage than when at 100%.

No biggie, just asking   

Recluse

A bit offtopic, but I'd like to mention something like that regarding the hull system: Why do you need to deal with envery ship by lowering its hull to 0? For instance, imagine a TerSlash cutting thru a ship (or as the Lucy did in the FS2 intro) - it would be in two pieces but it is sure that it  didn't receive that total damage. So, why do you need to destroy every bits and chunks of a ship in order to deal with it????
Add destructable ships with parts blowing off!

[Jeff Vader]

A bit offtopic, but I'd like to mention something like that regarding the hull system: Why do you need to deal with envery ship by lowering its hull to 0?

Probably for the same reason why this occurs in every other space sim.

[Rhymes]

@ Lucika:  The most likely explanation is that the engine isn't built for it.  Yeah it'd be cool, but the game wasn't made that way.  Besides, it's a lot of work, because you have to model everything, and you have to convert it, and then you have to find a way to use it effectively.  Just thinking about that amount of work makes my head spin.