Beware the watchers! (Trader won't land bug)

[Asgarus]

I tried to do the landing site differently this time.

Normally I straighten a big area and designate that as a landing site.
This time though I wanted to go for a scifi metropolis style city and put the landing site on a platform above my manufacturing building.
That shouldn't be a problem normally, and I guess it isn't. My fault was that I made the area too small.

And now that the trader I requested arrived, they just didn't land and instead kept floating at 127.
I tried to enlarge the area but the trader doesn't seem to care. They keep floating ahead, watching my colonists doing probably important colonist things.

I guess the solution would be to either tell the player that they have no landing site large enough for the trader and simply not sending it, or to let the trader notice when there is a large enough landing site available.

edit: screenshot

[Administrator]

Tremendous exercise of a boundary case, man. You should be a QA professional! I don't think I've ever tried initiating trade with an incomplete or undersized landing zone before, so this is awesome. What's happening is that the ship's pilot determines that landing isn't possible, but he doesn't want to give up on his trade mission. As you correctly note, the core problem is that he's not noticing that the landing site's size then becomes adequate.

I suspect that if you let this run long enough, he and the crew will eventually die of dehydration in their ship, especially if it's not carrying any food or drink to trade.

Awesome find once again, man, and I'm so sorry I haven't gotten a patch out yet. My work situation is pretty intense at the moment, and a bunch of things in my personal life are monopolizing what little free time I have. I'm going to do everything possible to get at least a few bugs fixed and put out a minor patch this weekend. Thanks again man, as your testing here continues to be absolutely invaluable!

PS: This looks like a big, kickass colony you've got going here!! Can you post any more screenshots? I'd be absolutely thrilled to see what you've made!

[Asgarus]

Don't worry, personal life comes first

I can make some screenshots later and post them in the story section. It has about 60 people again, but this time without hunger and disease dead spirals^^



edit: I've also found a work-around for the floating items. You can simply "dig" them away. (Same with leftovers from trees)

[Torvus]

I suspect that if you let this run long enough, he and the crew will eventually die of dehydration in their ship, especially if it's not carrying any food or drink to trade.

Question: what does the ship do when this happens? Does it keep afloat or come crashing down on the colony?

[Asgarus]

I suspect that if you let this run long enough, he and the crew will eventually die of dehydration in their ship, especially if it's not carrying any food or drink to trade.

Question: what does the ship do when this happens? Does it keep afloat or come crashing down on the colony?

They are still there, but I will let you know if it ever happens (and if Sam doesn't find a fix before it happens^^)

[Lubricus]

I built a platform out of stone floor, big enough but the ship didn't land. I think the landing site must bee on the "ground" and the floor is in the way.

Then we should get a message and instructions on how to initiate trading and building a landing site, if trying to negotiate trade without a landed ship. Know nothing happens without a hint of what is wrong and how it is supposed to work when trying negotiate a trade deal.

[Administrator]

Then we should get a message and instructions on how to initiate trading and building a landing site, if trying to negotiate trade without a landed ship. Know nothing happens without a hint of what is wrong and how it is supposed to work when trying negotiate a trade deal.

Agreed, landing sites are currently one of the more bug-prone, difficult structures to build, and a lot of this comes from difficulty in perceiving how they're laid out from the top-down perspective.

When the isometric overhaul is done, it should be much easier to tell if something's wrong (ie not flat) with a landing zone, and we should definitely work error messages from the ship crew in if they can't land, for any reason. It's frustrating as hell when the ship appears and fails to land / initiate trade.