Astro Galaxy - a realistic space exploration game

I am getting more than often prospectors usually of the gas giant's where I have searched every single gas of the type it says in the area specified with no luck at all! The so called gas giant they are looking for is non-existent! For example my current one.

Prospectors: Mining expedition (Talk) Q 4,0->Terrain: Hot Gas Giant

Checked every single hot gas in the whole area, not a single one was the prospector and this has been happening a lot.. not just with gas types but all others as well. Its already bad enough to get prospectors on already nova'd systems but to be dealing with a 2 whammy combo of this.. really needs to be fixed please Emi. Can you respond to this bug please?

I also have been looking for the elusive Hot Gas in sector 4,0



(edit - this is a disturbing bug, there are already two separate postings regarding the problem.)

6 months ago I used to have to visit every system twice because most of the time would not find the target the first time through.

The problem is not that the target is in a dead system, you need to do more prep work when you arrive at a planet before you go to the cargo bay.

First go to orbit view, then go to surface view, then survey the planet. Only after you do all three of those will you find your planet.

... if this were six months ago, I'd believe you unreservedly - it's well-proven that you know your stuff.

But: it's also known that COM missions picked up now, 'expire' because the system itself goes Nova. Then it points to nothing, and there's nothing left to do, but return it to Earth.

... so, how can you definitively say that's not also the case now with Prospector missions?

You can pick up either a COM mission or a mining mission when the system is critical and due to go nova in less than 24 hours. Both types of missions will be in navigation screen for 23 hours 55 minutes after the star goes nova, but in both cases it is impossible to pick up the mission, you get an error message saying that you can't exploit this bug. When you pick up a COM mission and when you pick up a mining mission, AT THAT MOMENT the system and planet that the mission leads to does exist. The system may be critical soon to go nova, but at that moment the destination does exist. Again, it is impossible to collect a mission if the system has previously gone nova. If you try you get a message about exploiting a bug.

I have never failed to find the planet of a mining mission if I searched for it the same day (before the 12:23 game update) Sometimes the system has been critical, but it has always been there, and others in the SPQNR report the same.

If you collect a mission and wait a few days or weeks, by the time you look for it the system may have gone nova since the mission has been picked up, but again, with dozens of mining missions searched for, I have never failed to find the planet if I searched for it the same day I picked up the mission. I have checked with others in the SPQNR who report the same thing.

lol you do realize ive been mining in this game for nearly 2 years.. I know exactly what to do.. I ALWAYS surface view, scan planet then check the prospector.. I did this because incase I did not find the planet I would click every system I explored and recheck every planet of the type to see if I even scanned the planet at all.

I can say for a hot gas giant and only 6 systems total.. there was only a handful of hot gas giants.. not a single one was the prospector and there was nothing else to search. This has happened to more more than enough times thats it is irritating me to go and make this post in the first place.

There is a bug going on because even when a system blows up and is gone.. you can still have the prospector make you search for that same system / planet. So seems whats happening is there are SoS prospectors giving a location to an already nova'd system. Thats my guess.

... then your original assumption that "The problem is not that the target is in a dead system" is 100% inaccurate. I'm talking about missions that have been picked up prior, stored, and searched for later. At that point, they *are*, almost certainly, in dead systems. Throughout the game's history, that's worked. It no longer does; the Nova update broke it (as well as old COM missions, which point to nothing. But at least then they SAY they point to nothing, which is my point.)

I've also adapted by making sure to search Mining missions same-day :-/ It is what it is, but a programming workaround (rather than allowing a no-feedback-search for a no-longer-existent needle ... or a silly 'don't exploit this' error, for that matter) is what we're requesting of the Dev ... rather then months of radio silence on the subject. I realize we all have lives, and they certainly come first, but some feedback would be nice ...

reference back to the original post: that said in effect: I can't find SOS mining missions. ...
He didn't either state or imply after the nova update. ...
He didn't either state or imply that he kept the missions in storage for weeks or months ...

My statement is that you have to do more than just go to the target planet and activate the mission. This is DEFINITELY 100% true before the nova update and wouldn't have changed. 

My statement that I have never failed to find a mining mission when I first check orbit view, surface view, then survey the plant before activating the mission is 100% true, both before and after the nova update.

Just because you like to store mining missions for months before you look for them dosen't mean that others do the same. In fact, most people would either not collect a mining mission instead of collecting it, or build mining modules to handle it. Keep in mind that MIF/ATH Mk 150 take less than 10 days to build.

Therefore, I reject that you claim that I am wrong.

It is far more likely that the problem that LAVIS is having is because of incomplete search techniques than that he has been storing his mining missions for months before searching for them. 

I'm pretty sure that the prospector mission receives it's treasure destination the first time any player talked to the NPC after the spawn. If that player does not pick up the pod, and lets it floating, then the location of the treasure is set. If the player comes back a few days later, the data of the pod is the same...
At the time of the first conversation the system WAS there, but if the pod is floating long enough, the system might be gone by then. Collected COM pods delete destination after the location went nova, but SOS prospector missions don't.

So, if your not sure that the prospector pod just spawned, then you just won't be sure how long it's already been floating. It can float long, as long as nobody triggered the destination with a conversation it doesn't matter, but if another player talked to the pod the day before, the system could already be gone the next day when you picked up the pod.

That's the only logical explanation I can think of why sometimes we can not find the treasure even though we used APs to reach the destination right after picking up the prospectors.
The SoS pod was old. It's not a bug.

It's good to know that your missions just spawned... :)

No, both I and someone else in SPQNR has visited an SOS mininmg mission with the system not there error message. the planet is set at mission creation.

I love the "NO"...what makes you so absolute sure?
Tell me when you find a second mission.

Just to get it strait...you say that you and NoBrain have found ONE SOS mission each that was an error message saying the system went nova?

And you both found ONE "error SOS prospector mission" since the nova update?

Ok lets leave it like this, it's very hard for me to believe Darrell. Possible you had that message on a SOS mission, did you have 2 or 3 or 20 ???

It's been months since the update...

the Empire has found dozens.


(edit - oops, never mind, I have only found COM and not SOS error messages)

Whaaat??? :21:
Well, then I am the only one not finding any??? Well that's unfair.
 
If anyone finds a error on a SOS prospector please PM where it is so I can finally see one for myself.

Dozens of SOS pods with error message???

The good thing about having a tax set, is that you can count how many times you had to pay tax to the corp, meaning, I can see how many fuel/meds SOS I talked too yesterday.

SOS count from the 31.5:
SOS pods fuel/meds = 74
New prospectors = 7
Return to earth = 27

Now that are 108 SOS missions I talked too yesterday!
Considering that yesterday was a "full on" AG day for me, I am going to take only half of the pods as my day average. 60 ...lol that's half. :))
On 30 OCT 2015 the nova update was released.
Including may that's 7 months so ...210 days

210 days times 60 pods = 12,600 SOS pods

So, I possibly talked to 12,600 SOS pods since the update and NEVER got an error mission on any of them? Wtf? Cool, the only thing I can say is, thanks Sir Emi. :))

 :atention: at this point I really would like to point out that I only mean SOS pods, and NOT COM pods. The orange/yellow pods only, not the blue ones. Lol :))

Yup, that's clearly the disconnect in the previous discussion. It's because the UI displays even COM pods, on the right side of the screen, as types of SoS Signals. :-/ I came across three bugged COM pods in a row today. The yellow SoS ones ... no, haven't seen a bugged one of those. Yet. lol

So I waited 5 or 6 days at most to check a 37 millon deposit. I had things to do. Wasn't there. This has happened so often I really can't just accept it. It's insult to injury. Mining is alreayd so time consuming and less profitable than COM. Maybe I"m missing somethingm like with the tech you get from QP donation, but COMs are just so mcuh easier it seems unbalanced.

I say this after mining a lot of planets. It's not like I only did 1 or 2. I did several dozen. I used different strategies over time. I eventually adopted the strategy of using a ship to defend and using undefended MK 1 stations with MK 1 miners for small deposits.

I've experienced huge losses in MMO's b4 and I've accepted. I've played very hardcore over the years. But this.... idk. Maybe I"m just burnt out on this mmo. I've been playing off and on since 2014. It's just right now I feel like walking away for a while.

And btw I don't know if it's just me or what but this happens wiht gas giants a lot.

EDIT: And yes I click on orbit and surface and evne survey before activating the mission in cargo

Yes Antilak, I feel you. :(

Nova didn't only make a treasure very much harder find, but you also need better mining gear to be faster, and you need to have much much more time, cause 1/3 of your missions are either leading to a "4 slot Epic patience test" or a "missing system" or leading to a system with a "1day15h nova countdown".

So yeah, mining isn't what it used to be...it's a pity but it's a fact that combat is way more profitable then mining, but it was that before too, just even more boring.

But many players enjoy mining, including myself, it's exciting to find a treasure, and frustrating if the mission leads to "nothing".

 Sir Emi, we find a prospector that wants to lead us to a 50M$ treasure. We get excited, we jump to the quadrant and sometimes have to spend HOURS, HOUUURS...to survey all systems, and already at the last system we have this funny feeling that we won't find it... And even though we need to get up a 6 am the next morning....STILL we choose to check the quadrant corners, maybe just maybe we missed a system hiding there. And then we give up, exhausted... and disappointed about the senseless and meaningless way we spent our evening on this game.
No good Sir Emi, the adaptation of "AG mining" to the nova update still needs to happen! ...or, at least it would be nice to know if this is ever going to happen. Lots of players like mining...cause letting pirate ships line up and get zapped "one after the other" (strongest first lol) IS for many unrealistic and even boring btw bro. :))

Mining is the most realistic thing about this game, it's sad to see how mining itself is the least profitable and hardest way to make bucks.

Hear, hear. (Hear. Hear. HEAR. SirEmi, ... HERE!! HEAR!!!)

This completely changed the game for me. I'm still (obviously) playing and exceeding, but treasure mining is so much less enjoyable than it was a year ago. And all because (I believe, and unless the author ever comments, we will simply never know for sure) of an unintended, untested consequence, of a well-intended change ... a consequence that has gone completely ignored by the author for many months now. Grade: fail.

A simple solution is to make mining prospect missions point to comets (gas) and asteroid fields (minerals) without a sun, so they don't go nova. :-)

 :cheers:

Had to just say that this is quite false lol

Congratulations captain! The deposit has been located and will now appear on your survey scanner.
We've measured the deposit at 25795 m3 of Xenon, for an estimated value of $14,832,000 solars!

I mined all that within 24 hours .. No COM even comes close to that kind of 24 hour income =D
It does take luck though, Rarer finds on large places = incredible income. Very volatile, keeps it interesting. And yes it is possible to get a Diamond prospector which is friggin sweet lol

Prospectors are a passive income, I personally have 2 SoS prospector hunters and rest are all coms. Keep some variety.

I also have 2 mining fleets (complete with MKL infusers each).

I think mining is making the game fun and interesting. But it would be nice, if Prospectors locations was existing places.

I have 2 mining ships, 1 stabiliser ship and 17 mining stations, online. + My Swifter for locating mining prospects.
Current have 2 stations working on mining prospects deposits, the rest is doing system stripping for mats.

that's pretty much my philosophy too.

...must be a 'No-Brainer'... :12:

that would require the creation of new object classes etc for the game ... and probably new properties to be set for all star / planet objects so others cant accidentally find the comet etc for the missions

without access to the guts of the game to scope it out my suggestion when an error occurs (star is nova) ....
is they turn into 'return to earth' missions in the cargo bay ?
or that they become PoW (instead of passenger) cargoes ?

Which in turn requires some new coding full stop. A rare event these days, unfortunately...

thus my thoughts on error re-directs to make them pow or rescues .... hopefully fairly simple compared to the amount of change required for new places (comet) etc