Unable to build ships even though requirements are met

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meandyou
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Unable to build ships even though requirements are met

#1 Post by meandyou »

Hi there

Late in the game (around turn 400) with all research completed except transcendence, I am finding that I am unable to build any ships other than troop and colony. I can design ships but none of the planets can build them even though they have all the structures required. A few designs from earlier in the game (around turn 200) were still available but when I deleted these designs in favour of upgraded versions the upgraded ones did not become visible to build. I have not filtered out the ship building from the engineering menu and I'm still able to build colony/outpost/troop ships. It's very frustrating... Has anyone else had this problem? Is it a known bug?

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Unable to build ships even though requirements are met

#2 Post by Geoff the Medio »

What version are you playing? What OS?

What do you mean by "none of the planets can build [ships]"? They can't be enqueued, or they are on the queue but don't accumulate production towards completion?

If the version you're playing has them, what do the tooltips say when you mouse over an unproducible design on the production screen while a planet that should be able to produce them is selected?

meandyou
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Re: Unable to build ships even though requirements are met

#3 Post by meandyou »

Sorry - I should have read the forum requirements for information in the post... :? I'm using the latest download version (ver4.03?) onMac OS X 10.8. The problem is that I cannot see the new designs in the list of engineering items that are available for build, consequently I can't enqueue them. I can enqueue troop and colony vessels (which do appear on the list) but nothing else shows despite having created designs for a variety of vessels that should be available due to the facilities available on the planets concerned. I can't tooltip over the ships because they don't appear in the list.

I noted when looking at the 'solar' vessel in the pedia I did see that it stated a couple of structures were required which were not listed in the requirements in the design section but this was not the case with any other vessels I should be able to build - I thought perhaps these structures might not have been incorporated in the game yet and that hull might not be possible (?) they were a couple of 'neutron' things (sorry not to be specific but I'm away from my Mac...).

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Dilvish
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Re: Unable to build ships even though requirements are met

#4 Post by Dilvish »

meandyou wrote:I can't tooltip over the ships because they don't appear in the list.
One of the buttons at the top of the build menu controls showing 'unavailable' designs, with that the list will include all existing designs whether or not buildable at the current planet, and if you mouseover over one the tooltip will list the location requirements for building that design, in green if met and in red if not met.
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AndrewW
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Re: Unable to build ships even though requirements are met

#5 Post by AndrewW »

Do they show up as Finished Designs in the Design screen?

If not make sure when you design a ship you click on Confirm New Design.

meandyou
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Re: Unable to build ships even though requirements are met

#6 Post by meandyou »

They show up as finished designs and I checked the criteria were met when I first noticed the problem but in the 'pedia not the unavailable ships - thanks for pointing that out, I'll check that when I get home and can give you an answer to that one. I had been building structures some planets to specifically be able to build designs I had made for different hulls - all the ship designs were successfully 'committed' in the design interface but none became available even on planets where I seemed to have built every structure possible (with every single research topic completed except transcendence). This condition arose late in the game, I don't suppose it could be related to a combination of planetary structures or a combination of completed research? Just a wild stab in the dark - I have no idea how the program is structured.

BTW on the commitment topic, I found when I started playing that I would click on commit more than once expecting something to 'happen' to show that the design had been added to the finished designs. Might be something worth adding to the interface? Change the colour of the 'commit' button when the design has been accepted?
Last edited by meandyou on Wed Jan 15, 2014 5:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

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MatGB
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Re: Unable to build ships even though requirements are met

#7 Post by MatGB »

Apart from what Dilvish suggested, one possible mistake I've made in the past. You've researched Neutronium Armour and put it on all your ships, but you don't have a Neutronium Extractor or Forge, thus no recent design will work. Like Dilvish says, click the unavailable tab, then the list should give you a tooltip showing a red line for what requirement you're not meeting.

If you upload the savegame in a zip file someone might be able to take a direct look, but I'm not sure of cross platform compatility there.

(also, it might be worth simply rebooting the game and loading again, there are some weird memory bugs that seem to affect the UI if you've been playing for a long time)
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meandyou
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Re: Unable to build ships even though requirements are met

#8 Post by meandyou »

MatGB wrote:Apart from what Dilvish suggested, one possible mistake I've made in the past. You've researched Neutronium Armour and put it on all your ships, but you don't have a Neutronium Extractor or Forge, thus no recent design will work. Like Dilvish says, click the unavailable tab, then the list should give you a tooltip showing a red line for what requirement you're not meeting.

If you upload the savegame in a zip file someone might be able to take a direct look, but I'm not sure of cross platform compatility there.

(also, it might be worth simply rebooting the game and loading again, there are some weird memory bugs that seem to affect the UI if you've been playing for a long time)
I'll try taking the Neutronium armour off the designs although I do have a number of neutronium extractors / forges but perhaps they're not in compatible systems(??). The savegame is over 3Mb - I'll see if I have an app. to zip it on my Mac and upload if they have a compatible platform. I tried rebooting and loading again - and also switching it between two different Macs but the problem remained. I'll start off with the Neutronium armour tip - that sounds like a good possibility... Will let you know if it worked in a few hours time...

Thanks for all the suggestions BTW!

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Dilvish
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Re: Unable to build ships even though requirements are met

#9 Post by Dilvish »

meandyou wrote: I found when I started playing that I would click on commit more than once expecting something to 'happen' to show that the design had been added to the finished designs. Might be something worth adding to the interface? Change the colour of the 'commit' button when the design has been accepted?
Yeah, it's a bit of a nuisance having to check the completed designs list to be sure you got the new design committed; it would probably be reasonable to just disable the commit button when there is already an existing design with the same name and details.
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meandyou
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Re: Unable to build ships even though requirements are met

#10 Post by meandyou »

I am an idiot.

It was the neutronium armour without a neutron star... When I removed it all was fine. Having had this experience would it be possible to set the pass/fail to prevent you from both building multiples on the same planet and also building things that were not compatible with that system (like neutron forges for example ... :oops:)?

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MatGB
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Re: Unable to build ships even though requirements are met

#11 Post by MatGB »

A forge can be built and used anywhere, and the extractor can, IIRC, only be built on an outpost or colony orbitting a star.

You need one extractor, total (or find a single synthesiser in an Ancient Ruin), and that doesn't need to be in supply, merely under your control. Once you've got that, then you can have aforge at each shipyard without a problem. It's fairly easy to script in "you can't build this here" requirements for buildings, but I wouldn't want a restriction on forges that required owning an extractor somewhere as a) you sometimes build them both at the same time and b) you sometimes send out a fleet to *ahem* aquire one from a neighbour (most common with synthesizers mind).

You can't build a second building of the same type on a planet if there is already a complete one there, but IIRC it can't test for queued but not finished ones, so you need to check your build queue for that.

FWIW, the more recent test releases highlight everything in your buildqueue for the system you have selected, which makes things easier, I heartily recommend DLing the most recent test version, it's currently as stable as the main release and has a huge number of improvements in.

Still, I diagnosed it right, yay! Of course, it helps I've done that myself more than once...
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Dilvish
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Re: Unable to build ships even though requirements are met

#12 Post by Dilvish »

MatGB wrote:You can't build a second building of the same type on a planet if there is already a complete one there, but IIRC it can't test for queued but not finished ones, so you need to check your build queue for that.
It would currently be possible to add to the build location requirements the condition that there not be twoof the building queued at the same location. That way if you added a second one to the queue you could get the immediate feedback that it was displayed as 'Never' completing. That by itself is not an especially strong visual cue, however. I'd propose that we mod the queue so that any build items whose build location condition fails be colored in orangish foreground color or something.
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