Warp Gate Bug

[Spiff]

I’ve encountered a bug with the Warp Gate speed bonus that may be related to the way adding a gate gets processed in a turn-based game when you’re the last person to Submit orders.

Just before the turn ran, I added gates between two stars 18 hours apart at normal speed, 6 via a gate. My carrier began that leg with 6 hours left in an 8-hour turn, so it should have arrived at the star. Instead, it’s 12 hours out, with no speed boost.

When I use the Ruler to check the timing, it says ETA Base Speed: 12 hours. It also says ETA Warp Speed: 12 hours. The Gates display properly, but the bonus doesn’t.

In a similar thread from years ago, someone asked if the bugged gate was added right before the Tick in a real-time game. In this game, I was the last one to Submit my turn, and I added the gate right before submitting. Is it possible that the gate didn’t ‘take’ in the processing, even though it was recorded as being in place on that star?

[xjhdexter]

1
Can you provide game number, and name of two stars that have WG added ?
It may be past, but if you can provide screenshot, then that can be helpful for troubleshooting also.

2
Carriers fly normal speed = 1/3 LY per tick.

Carriers flying between 2 WG will travel 1 LY per tick, however if either one of both WG become non-operational, then those carriers will fly 1/3 LY per tick.

3
Anytime that you give an order or click OK or some kind of click acknowledgement of an order, you should allow 2 or 4 or 6 or 8 seconds delay to allow the browser to send order to the server & for the server to send updates back into your browser, because there can be cloud network delays.

4
Anytime that the server needs to make calculations either at turn based tick jumps or end of real time tick, you should allow the server perhaps 30 seconds or more to complete all calculations + appropriate delay times to update your browser.

[Spiff]

Can you provide game number, and name of two stars that have WG added ?
It may be past, but if you can provide screenshot, then that can be helpful for troubleshooting also.

Sure, thanks for asking. PBM Community Game #1, Tick 392 (WG added as the last item of last turn, 8 ticks ago)
The stars in question are Sadatoni and Ri. WG travel between Ri and Chow worked as expected, so the Ri gate seems normal, but while my carrier should have warped from Sadatoni to Ri, it instead traveled only a third of the distance, at normal speed.

Screenshot here. Note that both ‘Base Speed’ and ‘Warp Speed’ are calculated at 12 hrs.

Carriers flying between 2 WG will travel 1 LY per tick, however if either one of both WG become non-operational, then those carriers will fly 1/3 LY per tick.

Right. This carrier is moving at normal, un-warped speed, between two WG that were up at the start of the turn and are still up now.

Anytime that you give an order or click OK or some kind of click acknowledgement of an order, you should allow 2 or 4 or 6 or 8 seconds delay to allow the browser to send order to the server
Anytime that the server needs to make calculations either at turn based tick jumps or end of real time tick, you should allow the server perhaps 30 seconds or more to complete all calculations

I expect that’s the problem here. I did get confirmation of the gate going up, so I figured I was safe to Submit the turn, but now I’ll be more careful to wait a bit after such an order. Thanks!

[xjhdexter]

1
Usually when players trade game numbers, they are asking for something that looks like this.

https://np.ironhelmet.com/game/5606417032282112

You can find that URL from the browser address bar.

@Spiff

PBM Community Game #1

I am not able to find your game.

2
The ruler always determines that a carrier is never a WG, so calculated travel times from a carrier will always be 1/3 LY per tick.

3
To read the accurate arrival times at future destinations, you should either double click that carrier or also click the button to VIEW that carrier’s list of destination, and then also click to “Show Eta” .

4
From your screenshot, I would guess that Sadatoni WG is 5.875 LY from Ri WG, and the carrier traveled 2 LY at speed of 1 LY/tick from Sadatoni WG & should arrive Ri WG in 4 ticks. Am I correct ?

[Spiff]

Ah, it’s game 6569417385967616.

To read the accurate arrival times at future destinations, you should either double click that carrier or also click the button to VIEW that carrier’s list of destination, and then also click to “Show Eta” .

Right, and it says 12hrs, as if no gates were up.

FYI, I need to drop both gates this turn. I just wanted to mention the fluke here and that, as you said in the second post, that players should wait a moment before adding a Gate and then Submitting in a turn-based game.

[xjhdexter]

@Spiff

it says 12hrs, as if no gates were up.

That is because your ruler end points are carrier (which is not a WG) to Ri WG, which the ruler correctly reports as 3.876 LY ETA 12 hours.

If your ruler end points were Sadatoni WG to Ri WG, then the ruler would report 5.876 LY ETA 18 hours normal speed & ETA 6 hours warp speed.

You need to read that carrier’s list of destinations to find 4 hours warp travel time to Ri WG. The ruler will only tell you the distance remaining is 3.876 LY, while dumbly also giving you the normal non-warp travel time. The ruler only knows that carrier is not a WG, but it will not know whether that carrier is flying between two WG.

It is impossible to have 12 hours travel time (neither warp nor non-warp) between Sadatoni & Ri.

[xjhdexter]

A carrier’s list of destinations will give travel arrival times based on whether stars are WG or not. The ruler does not know whether a carrier is flying between two WG.

Stars can become WG, but carriers somewhere in flight are never at a WG location.
The carrier’s location while in flight can never be a WG, so speed calculations by the ruler will be 1/3 LY per tick when one endpoint is a carrier in flight somewhere between random stars.

A carrier may be in flight between two WG flying 1 LY/tick, but the ruler end points need to be at those two WG stars to calculate that warp speed.

[xjhdexter]

You are showing an interesting problem. I will need to look more closely at it.

In the mean time, the ruler was designed to chain.

[DarkDragonwing]

Did you originally send your carrier from Sadatoni to Ri or did you route the carrier from another star via Sadatoni towards Ri?

If I understand correctly, your carrier was heading Ri via Sadatoni last turn and had 6h left to reach Sadatoni before finally flying towards Ri, right?
If it was like this, everything went correctly.

The turn has 8h to jump.
6h to reach Sadatoni, because only Sadatoni had a warp gate; 2h jump left.
In the remaining 2h your carrier was travelling 2ly of ~6ly between the warp stars Sadatoni and Ri with warp speed. That‘s why there are 12h (normal speed in the ruler) or ~4ly left (4h warp speed). If the carrier just traveled with normal speed, it would need another 16h or 5,333 ly to reach Ri.

Click on your carrier to check ETA. It should say 4h, not 12h . The ruler always calculate on normal speed between a star and a carrier and never on warp speed, even when the route is between warp gates (that‘s why ETA warp speed is always equal to ETA normal speed).

So I‘d say everything went the way expected?!

[xjhdexter]

I post what I partially have for now. I seem to have partially replicated OP problem described by @Spiff .

When a WG is purchased, the changes to carrier speed are not updated until during the movement phase of the next tick, so current tick calculations would not represent the faster speed due to the new WG.

I will analyze this some more later. Still looks a little goofy somewhere though.

[DarkDragonwing]

The ruler is always on normal speed between a star and a carrier, as far as I know.

[Spiff]

Thanks for the info about the ruler. Got it.

@DarkDragonwing

Click on your carrier to check ETA. It should say 4h, not 12h

It should, but it doesn’t. The ship didn’t travel last turn with the boost for Warp Gate speed, nor did it recognize the gate for the coming turn when checking its ETA. To be clear, I’m talking about the carrier ETA, not the ruler.

@xjhdexter

When a WG is purchased, the changes to carrier speed are not updated until during the movement phase of the next tick, so current tick calculations would not represent the faster speed due to the new WG.

That makes sense, but the ship in question still moved two ticks before reaching the WG. And the WG didn’t affect either its movement or its projected ETA for the next turn.

A different WG paired with Ri worked fine - the ship made its journey at 3x speed, as expected. So I do wonder if the trouble with Sadatoni occurred because I added that WG only seconds before clicking Submit (and, as the last person to Submit, the turn ran immediately after).