Survey ships loose Drone over multiple FTL jump

[fpg]

If I embark a drone on a survey ship and then send this ship to a distant system that requires multiple FTL jumps, drone separates from ship after first jump and survey ship continues alone. I guess I have to set AI for the drone to off before FTL jump but I think the engine should handle that by itself (surveying is already a lot of micmanagement).

[Balthagor]

Thanks for letting us know. Ticket 36755 started.

[Balthagor]

Adding the follow up comments we received by email;

Not only Survey Ships drop their Drone after the first jump, but I can't embark them back. When I instruct the drone to move to Survey Ship location, it resumes surveying as soon as the Move order is completed. Same for survey ship. Look at 10th drone 12th survey ship in the attached save and try to embark the drone on the ship. It may be the same bug. If it's a bug (and not a confusion about how to put a drone on a survey ship) it makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to use drones.

We did some investigating into this. This isn't an actual bug, but the implementation is creating a conflicting priority.

This case happens if (as you mentioned) a drone with AI initiative on will always be looking for things to survey. When you put the drone on a survey ship and FTL to a new system, the drone immediately reacts to new unexplored celestial bodies. Because the FTL capable ship needs time to recharge, this will nearly always happen, unless you encounter one of the rare systems that has nothing but a star.

We've updated the ticket to request a change in the code so when a ship is given a multi-step FTL move order, we suspend the AI initiative of any loaded units until the FTL order is completed, but I'm waiting to hear back form the coding team if this is possible. If it is, we could also try to catch that if you load a drone onto a survey ship that is preparing to FTL jump, that the drone's initiative gets suspended.

[fpg]

OK that makes sense. Just one additionnal point : it is very difficult to check wether AI is on or off by just looking at the AI icon/button when a drone is selected. Off is light grey, On is white, the difference is minimal. I'd rather have eg dark red off, light green on (actually I'm considering modifying the graphics on game file, easy to do). I always have doubts regarding AI status. At times I have the feeling AI can't be set to off and I doubt whether the button is working and properly reflecting the ship AI status. I can be wrong but look at drone behavior on the saved game I sent and the impossibility to attach the drone to the survey ship..