Had a problem today where I launched a flight of drones (2 geckos) that never appeared in my “active drones” window and were immediately abandoned in space - I’ve filed a bug report but was just wondering if anyone else ever had this happen? Couldn’t find anything with some quick google/forum searches. It resulted in a pretty embarrassing killmail as I fumbled around for my missing DPS and completely forget to activate my reppers (for your amusement: Stratios | Fury Audeles | Killmail | zKillboard). I was able to launch a second flight (5x lights) before I died and they entered space correctly and successfully connected with my ship?!
My initial target lock failed to complete too - it actually might have failed on the same tick as the drones were launched but I’m not certain (my sequence of actions is 1) decloak 2) lock target 3) launch drones 4) activate mods). The game showed me the locking animation for the full duration of my locktime but then I got the “unable to lock target” message you get when the other ship warps off or is invulnerable. Except he hadn’t warped, obviously, and when ships are invulnerable it tells you that immediately it doesn’t go through the locking animation first.
Just an all around screwy experience. First time I’ve had any kind of gameplay bug outside of TiDi fights or connection issues. The death is on me - I would have lived if I’d kept my head and prioritised activating my repper so that’s a good lesson to learn - but it’s frustrating. I die often enough to my own idiotic mistakes without adding bugs to the mix as well!
(Afterwards I was able to warp my alt back to the hole and scoop the two geckos so I’m 100% sure of what happened - they were definitely abandoned in space a couple of km away from my wreck alongside the second full flight of light drones)
I didn’t warp anywhere. I right click->launched from my drone window and they never activated they were just immediately abandoned in space.
EDIT: Pretty sure I described it clearly but just to be explicit: the group I launched disappeared from the “Drones In Bay” part of the window as you would expect but never appeared in the “Drones In Local Space” half of the box underneath.
Maybe you experienced a very short internet disconnect, short enough to stay ingame but long enough for your drones to be abandoned and lock attempt to stop? A packet loss at the tick that should have launched the drones and finished the lock?
Not sure if that’s how EVE would handle a short disconnect.
Did your logs say anything? I dont actually know if the logs show launched drones but I imagine they would?
Did you have the 2 geckos set into a group (you you tried to launch the groups) or 2 seperate drones. Ive had an issue lately where when i launch a group the list does not expand when the drones are in space, so it looks like nothing IS in space if you quickly glance.
Both in a group. The logs don’t show anything but then again, to my surprise, the in-game logs don’t show me launching the flight that were succesfully launched either. I checked again later and apparently that just isn’t a thing that is recorded on our client-side logs. They were definitely in space and definitely not connected to my ship because I was able to succesfully launch the second flight of lights a few seconds later.
Yeah it feels like some kind of server/client desync to me which is sort of the same thing. I’ve had the locking “bug” a few times before now that I think of it. It usually happens when you try to lock immediately after coming out of warp. From googling most people seem to think it’s a case of the client showing you a legal locking opportunity but the server still thinks you’re in warp/cloak/whatever leading to the lock failing. In an ideal world it would tell you this immediately rather than making you wait the full lock time but I suppose I can get used to that. The drones disconnecting are more problematic though. I can’t be 100% certain but it felt like it happened on the same server tick as the lock dropping which also makes it feel like a client/server thing.
Definitely not - I’m 99% sure I click/dragged the group. It’s possible I might have right click/launched but even if I did the abandon drone button is miles away.
EDIT: just checked and there isn’t even an option to abandon/jettison drones from the drone bay right click menu. You only get that choice after you’ve launched them from the “drones in local space” menu.
If that is the case… you disconnect from drones when you are in warp, so if you could start targeting and launch drones and in that same tick the server thinks you are still in warp and breaks your lock, it might have disconnected your drones too?
It is possible that the two issues (lock breaking and drone disconnect) are related and is possible that both are caused by the server thinking you were still in warp.
Experiment: anchor a MTU or other lockable object, warp to it and immediately spam lock and launch drones. Repeat this process (warp, lock + launch) a couple times until you notice your lock breaking as if you were still in warp: does it also disconnect your drones?
If yes, then you may need to be careful immediately launching your drones when coming out of warp. At least be careful while you notice those desync hiccups.
Interesting theory. It would explain both things and tie them together nicely if it’s what happened. I’ll definitely try that experiment next time I’m on. Nice idea, thanks.
