Interplanetary Launcher material loss?

[Gurgel]

I just sent 4t of Super Coolant out and only about 2t arrived (emptied via canister opener). Is this as expected or should the full amount arrive?

I also noted that quite a few payload capsules cannot be manually emptied at the target. I never saw that before.

[Gurgel]

Ok, just sent 10t of Thermium and 6.6t actually arrived. Sounds like a rather steep penalty for using the launcher. 

[Jann5s]

could it be that your beacon is offline / without power? and the cargo pods are landing somewhere else? I generaly have zero loss when using the launcher

 

[Cystof]

Is your launcher nearby the no-building-zone at the top of the map? Shooting payloads directly into red area might cause troubles, especially in the endgame.

 

[Gurgel]

On 6/11/2022 at 3:15 PM, Jann5s said:

could it be that your beacon is offline / without power? and the cargo pods are landing somewhere else? I generaly have zero loss when using the launcher

There is a problem with the beacon power (connected to the solar panels not the batteries by accident), but that should only affect were the payload lands.

5 hours ago, Cystof said:

Is your launcher nearby the no-building-zone at the top of the map? Shooting payloads directly into red area might cause troubles, especially in the endgame.

 

That sounds very much like my problem. In particular,

1. I observed empty payload canisters at the target location just like with this bug and
2. I seem to not have the problem directly after a reload. That seems to have thrown my testing off. Alternatively something else stopped the effect.

My launcher is 3 tiles below the red zone as well. I am now going to move it lower and see what that does. 

[Gurgel]

So after numerous experiments, I was unable to get the 30..50% loss I had seen before. (Could not find the right save in reasonable time...) But here is what I found about the beacon. It seems to be at the core of this:

1. Beacon working reliably: 0% loss.
2. Beacon intermittent, pulsed or on solar power: 10...15% loss. Note: The 30...50% loss I saw before were on solar.
3. Beacon off: 10...15% loss.
4. Beacon removed: 0% loss.

So an unreliable or inactive beacon seems to cause shipment losses. Note that a launcher 3 tiles from the "red zone" was no problem at all. Reloading did also have no effect, I seem to have imagined that.

@Jann5s: seems you were spot-on after all. Thanks!

Note: These were with just 5t of material each, which may be too little to get a good measurement.

 

[Jann5s]

I wasn't spot on, I was assuming that the missing cargo was buried under regolith or something (dealing with that myself right now)

 

After your post I started checking and I found some empty cannisters too (on this challenging astroid where power is an issue). I assumed they were just food that vaporized cos I left it too long in the regolit. Now I'm suspecting my beacon. Seems like a bug to me.

[Gurgel]

On 6/13/2022 at 11:34 PM, Jann5s said:

Seems like a bug to me.

A turned-off beacon causing empty shipping containers? Definitely a bug IMO. Not buried someplace either, I observed the problem on a fully-mined out ice asteroid, nothing to bury the containers there.

I have linked this thread from the bug report above.

[Gurgel]

And one more: Just shot 20t of cobalt to a new asteroid with just a bunch of robots on it and no beacon: 33% loss and all due to empty payloads. I caught one empty in flight as well (was not looking at the others), so this maybe the launcher after all, or both the launcher and some problem with the beacon.

I am now moving the launcher lower to 8 tiles distant from the red zone (was 3) and see what that does. ... Result on 20t iron, no beacon at the target: 0% loss.

So I guess when the launcher is close to the red-zone, the beacon makes a difference. When the launcher is far enough away (8 tiles?), no loss?

This is messed up...