BUG: Nebula Plow
 

multiple times now I've gotten stuck in a nebula because my plow wasn't working. It's not separating the clouds quickly enough and I get caught in the nebula. So a trip that should take a couple hundred days turns out to be a thousand!!! There's some bug with how the plowing effect is calculated. When I'm hung up, I'm moving very slowly AND the nebula is being plowed slowly. Something has to rearrange the priority so the plow splits the nebula first.

Re: BUG: Nebula Plow
 

I've noticed this too...I suspect it's something to do with having a ship equipped with a fast drive (say the Gravity Implosion Drive) and the Nebula Plow...

Those pesky clouds just don't get shunted out of your way quickly enough...

Re: BUG: Nebula Plow
 

I wonder if it's a bug. After all, the plow has to push not only the immediate nebular clouds, but also the whole nebular width. Think of it as a "domino effect" on the nebula. I guess you have to ponder the use of the Plow if you want to cross a very large nebula right across the middle. No gizmo is ever perfect...

I tend to be extra careful with the Plow. When I have to cross large nebulas, I try first to "divide" it in smaller chunks through my first travels (criss-crossing and working close to the edges). Then, crossing through the middle is a breeze.

Re: BUG: Nebula Plow
 

Getting the Plow to work as you expect takes some trial and error. Use it with the Nebular Extent Calculator installed and you can see the impact it has.

Just like a snowplow, it doesn't clear away ALL of the snow/nebula. (Or, if you have our local town snowplow service, it doesn't bother to try to get the area in front of your driveway. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif )

Re: BUG: Nebula Plow
 

I realise it's probably not technically a 'bug' as such, rather more a 'feature' of the way the plow has been implemented.

It is however still very annoying as the player has very little control over when and where the plow will be ineffective...

Re: BUG: Nebula Plow
 

sure, the player has control. dont try to go into a nebula without building up speed, and dont go too deep into a thick one or you will get bogged down.

youve got plenty of control, the component just isnt as great as a hyperdrive.

now maybe you could mod in different levels of plow, so that better ones didnt get bogged down as easy. i dont know if thats a variable, or not.

Re: BUG: Nebula Plow
 

The only relevent section in the plow's file is TYPE plow..everything else is flavor text. Not terribly encouraging. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: BUG: Nebula Plow
 

I don't think it's a bug as such. The behavior of the plow depends on the angle you are plowing at and the amount of nebula. If the nebula is really dense, it takes time to get out of the way.

Re: BUG: Nebula Plow
 

well, that's all nice and all, but it is a bug. It's a bug because the plowing action acts quickly when your ship is moving quickly, and acts slowly when you're bogged down by nebula. So, when you're moving more slowly, which should be giving the plow plenty of time to divide the nebula, it instead works the worst.

The coorelation between slow move speed and slow plow action tells me that it's a bug, and the priorities of ship nebula speed and plowing calculations are the cause.

When you are crossing a nebula, and a 200 day journey becomes 2000, it makes you want to never use or depend on the plow again. So, of course, including an item that claims to do something, that is worth 5 coins, and doesn't work, is a problem.

I don't remember the plow ever having problems in the demo. Could there be a difference between the demo code and the full version?

Re: BUG: Nebula Plow
 

Oh, the plow definitely has the same issue in the demo..

Re: BUG: Nebula Plow
 

I've only ever encountered a problem with the nebular plow if I folded to a system in the middle of a nebula and then tried to go to another system by the use of a normal stardrive.

What level do you set your nebulas at when you're starting your game? I don't care for nebulas so I keep mine set at the lowest coverage and I've never had this problem. If it's occurring at highest levels of nebula coverage, it would seem to me to be a function of the difficulty level.

Also: does anybody know if use of the nebula plow loses you points? Something about environmental destruction? If this is so, do you lose points even if you're not on a scientific mission?

Re: BUG: Nebula Plow
 

Yep, check out that negative value in the "bonus" section of your mission score-card. I don't know whether if there is any multiplier attached to this depending on the mission type.

Re: BUG: Nebula Plow
 

The travel time estimate never underestimates the time, and it takes the nebula into account. So you'll never see an ETA of 200 days and have it actually take 2000.

You need a nebular star drive to move fast in the nebula. The plow creates a path through the nebula so that you can cross it faster with a normal drive afterwards; it's not intended to be a replacement for nebular drives.

Re: BUG: Nebula Plow
 

Ok, there's an issue with that.

1. There's only one nebular drive that is worse than a standard drive, the hydrogen nebula drve. All others have a nebula speed of 12 or higher. Therefore the nebula plow doesn't help you if, by your statement, you are supposed to have nebula drives in addition to the plow.

2. Since when do we backtrack using the exact same path as before anyway? The nebula plow isn't very useful if we can only move faster after we've plowed our way through and are taking the same path again.

3. We see the plow working well and efficiently about 50-75% of the time. So obviously it is capable of working well. When it only works well some of the time, that tells me there's a bug.

Re: BUG: Nebula Plow
 

1) With combos of drives its very easy to have a decent nebula speed but faster normal speed for your flotilla.

2) The plow is great for visiting the edge systems of a nebula where you often go in a bit slower but leave quickly because of plowing action.

3) The plow works better when you don't start in a nebula and when you have faster drives and when the nebula isn't thick.

The reason it 'works better in the demo' is because its small map only, in a large map with more nebulas total its much more possible to get a 'thick' nebula, which is harder to plow. (Thick nebulas are overlapping nebula, which btw are easily created by the plow)

It's not a bug, it is well know and intended by the developers.

Re: BUG: Nebula Plow
 

Especially given that the penalty for disturbing the nebula is based on the amount of nebula you disturb -- for instance, in one game a 'glancing blow' (accidental, as it turned out http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif cost me just 2 points -- so it is a pretty decent idea to use it to visit those sorts of systems if time is going to be a concern.

Re: BUG: Nebula Plow
 

You might also look to see if you have more than one ship. I read somewhere that the speed your flotilla goes is a function of the drive on your biggest (leader?) ship and an average of all the drives sorta. I don't know the function, but I know it considers all of the ships in your flotilla that can support drives. I wonder if the plow considers those other ships, as well, and says 'they don't have a plow, so it shouldn't work as effectively for the whole fleet.' That's my guess on what's happening or a combination of the two. I'll try to test it the next time I get the plow.

Re: BUG: Nebula Plow
 

Your fleet sped is an average of all your drives 'weighted' for how heavy your ship is. So a good drive on ripcords fighter has almost no effect of fleet speed. Who the leader is doesn't matter.

Also I doubt the plow cares which ship its on. It'sprobably just a function of nebuladensity and flet speed.

Re: BUG: Nebula Plow
 

Yeah, I did some testing and it doesn't seem to matter how big your fleet is or what ship it's on. What I have noticed, however, is that there seems to be pre-defined...borders..for lack of a better word..that are more easily separated than the regular nebula region. These borders I'm referring to are internal. Sometimes you'll hit a pocket that is easily separable and the rest is dense. I need to pay attention to the little nebula density graph thing up above my ship info the next time I do testing. I'm sure it's related to the density.