ships are not docking

[dux]

in an open game i have the problem since jan. 2030:
no more ship is docking in one of the shipyards. freighters and yachts are just circling round the island and then disappear without a stop.  any idea about that?

[Leader Of The Enviromentalist Faction]

Are there dock workers?Because if there aren't they will not dock.

[Privateer0]

No, that can't be it. Yahts will dock even without any workers. In fact, I never have workers on my tourist dock - you only need them to load up your exports.

This sounds like a bug, but I don't know if there's any way to fix it. Obviously, try exiting the game and loading it again. Try loading one of your earlier saves.

[dux]

sure, dockworkers are there and awaiting work. clicking on a dock will highlight them but not a ship as usual. even firing them won't work....seems that I have to say good bye to that game, since I am running out of cash and recognised that bug too late. ..

[Coffeebean]

Hi dux and welcome to the Cafe.

Have any ships ever stopped at that dock? Sometimes if the land is too close to the edge of the square docks and ships don't work as they should.
Similarly have you built any other docks or fishing warves close by recently as that can cause problems too.

Yahts will dock even without any workers.

I am sure that you have to have at least one dock worker assigned to a dock before you get any yachts. The Yacht will dock and the tourists get off without the worker being "at work", but you still need at least one slot filled.

[Privateer0]

I am sure that you have to have at least one dock worker assigned to a dock before you get any yachts. The Yacht will dock and the tourists get off without the worker being "at work", but you still need at least one slot filled.

Oh? I could've sworn I x-ed out all slots on my docks near tourism areas. Then again, I haven't done tourism in a while, so I am probably wrong. Nor do I have the saves to check it anymore.

[dux]

hi coffeebean

Have any ships ever stopped at that dock?

yes, it's the year 2030 and all the decades all worked fine. the freighter dock is the dock the game comes up with and the second dock is for the tourists and works probably since 25 years, this is not the problem nor any other building nor dissatifaction of the workers.

the problem is, none of the ships is even trying to get to one of the docks. if I click on a dock, all workers are selected (yellow arrow), but none of the ships! the ships appear on the map, cruise around the island and disappear with no intention to stop anywhere.

I fired all workers and aquired new ones --> no effect
I crushed all docks and build a new one --> no effect
I stopped all building processes and raised the loans --> no effect
I reloaded all versions of savegames --> no effect

the only point I wonder is:
there was a maritime strike before and no ship came along for a couple of years, which is normal. then the strike was over and ships passed by again. and I guess it's since that time, that the ships are no more connected to the docks, but I'm not quite sure, 'cause I recognized it too late.

I was looking around, to see if this is a known bug and there could be a workaround, cause this was really a good running game....

greets from berlin


dux

[Captain Carrrghter]

Just had the same problem, trying to play the "Ride 'em, Caballero!" scenario.

Random events were set to, "Are you Loco, Presidente?" and I had two maritime strikes in the first eight years. After the first one, ships docked again relatively quickly, and my accumulated mound of exports quickly got my treasury back into the black.

However, the second strike ended in May 1957, and four years later in May 1961 I still have had no ships dock. I have one dock, and currently its output store is 73.9 and it has a staff of three workers. Treasury is $31k in the hole--not bad considering no exports for five years, but obviously I can't build another dock, and my military's getting grumpy about having their wages cut. Saving and reloading doesn't help, so it looks like the situation's unredeemable.

Three ships are visible, circling the island. None go off the edge of the map. When I select the dock, yellow arrows do not appear over any of the ships. So it looks to me like it's a bug in the maritime strike event.

I'm playing Tropico PI, "Mucho macho" edition, bought in the "Tropico Gold" package with T2. I think it's version 1.51. Is this the latest, or should I be looking for a patch?

OS is Windows 98 SE, 384 MB RAM, 1000 MHz AMD Athlon processor.

[Captain Carrrghter]

My game is actually v1.53

Arrows showed for the workers, just not the ships.

Most likely a game corruption. Possibly a bug that only manifests itself on the second maritime strike in a game.

I didn't try firing all my dockworkers. Being a bit short of labor and having wages capped, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to hire new ones. I'll give that a try, though.

I don't know what would happen if I build another dock. I have the saved game yet--maybe I'll cheat my way back to positive cash, and try that.

[Brf]

If you are going to cheat anyway....just give yourself a free dock:

Under your program_files\tropico directory, create a new directory called "Events".

In the new directory, create a textfile called OneDock.evt.

In the textfile put these lines:

CheckfrequencyMonthBegin
ExecuteOnlyOnce
Generaleffect AddTo FreeDock 1


Now.... whenever you startup your game, you will have a free dock.

[Zebe]

Personally i had a similar problem in Tropico 1.07. When i created a map wich was sort of a city on a shore like wooden limbs... half of land was sea and half was land. not a true island. what would happen first i waited 1,5 years for first frighter to arive than frighter unloaded 7 ppl and wanted to go away but when it reached the edge of the sea it didn't go through but turned around and was cruising endleslly for about 12 years when i gave up. Than i tried the sam map again. this time pretty soon after a few month 3 frighters arived but agian non of them could leave map for some time. 2 again were cruising indefinatlly and one manaaged to find a "hole" in the sea edge to go out. so that one returned than and my dockers load it. and than this one again couldn't get out for about 8 years when i completlly gave up. I think tropico has to be an island not just shore and sea. that was my asumption. anyway them frighters sure suck. I even tried editor and manualy (with U key) ading more frighters but just had many more cruiser frighters cruising around my shores lost in space. my conclusion is frighters are tricky

[Brf]

You cannot play an island that goes all the way to the edge of the map. You have to have water all the way around your island.

[El pablo]

I once had a slightly different problem.  The shape of my random map seemed to end up so that the dock was in a such a place that the ships blocked each other.  I had a first ship come and dock.  While it was docking a second ship came to wait.  The first one started to leave and then just stopped, and both of them just sat there.  I waited for five whole years and the two ships just sat in the same place... so I quit that game and started a different map.

[Brf]

That is funny... Typically, in my islands, the one ship will just run over the other one.

[Fox]

 and i've witnessed two ships collide with each other, but no Explosion, why?

[Coconut Kid]

... Yachts will dock even without any workers. In fact, I never have workers on my tourist dock - you only need them to load up your exports.  ...

...  I am sure that you have to have at least one dock worker assigned to a dock before you get any yachts. The Yacht will dock and the tourists get off without the worker being "at work", but you still need at least one slot filled.

Although Privateer0 backs off of his claim in this thread, I'm not sure this dispute has ever been settled - finally. Probably having one Dockworker for a Yachts only Port is the safe way to go.

[Coconut Kid]

in an open game I have the problem since Jan. 2030:
no more ship is docking in one of the shipyards, freighters and yachts are just circling round the island and then disappear without a stop.  any idea about that?

Although you are surely not around anymore, let me say something for the benefit of others.

You say the problem began January 2030. Well, I believe it is well established that when a player runs a game beyond the "normal" ending - and especially beyond 70 years - lots of program errors may creep into the specific game. When that happens in such long-term games, there is little to do to correct the situation.

If you really wish to report it as a BUG, please reproduce the game from its start at least a couple of times to get the same result. Then we may talk about bugs.

[dux]

If you really wish to report it as a BUG, please reproduce the game from its start at least a couple of times to get the same result. Then we may talk about bugs.

hi coconut kid

I was able to reproduce it with early stages of savegames from that particular game. but that is long ago and I was just wondering, if there was a  work-around or patch or anything else to keep that game running.
Thank you for your explanation. Before that error occured I didn't realize, that there is a 'normal' ending of the game and errors start to raise. That was the reason for posting my problem and the target was, to see if there is help. To me it seems very, let's say sophisticated to make a difference between an ERROR and a BUG, what else is a bug if not a program error?

best greets

dux

[Coconut Kid]

Welcome back!

 

It was long ago. No patches specific to that. Patches just bring the version of your game up-to-date. For Original Tropico it's 1.07 ; and for the add-on Paradise Island it's 1.53. Mucho Macho is inclusive.

As to "work-arounds" - there are cheats to get money, the lack of which would be, as nearly as I understand, the most likely reason for the game to end because no ships arrive.

As to program BUGS and program ERRORS -- huumm!

I am not a programmer. I have always (since ~ 1970) understood a BUG to be a piece of code which does not produce the result intended by the specifications. When the scope of programs was expanded to include random events - indeed many of them - which built one upon another, there came to be events not covered by the specifications. Some of these interfere with the correct operation of the program but can not be replicated because of the random path that led to them. With unlimited resources and complete records, highly skilled folks can back-track to find the "bad code." However that is not the gaming world - that is NASA. And yes, it is possible to include code to force "stray" random events back into norms if the specifications provide such checks.

So the program ERROR in the gaming world is the unintended event in a single iteration of the game for a single player. The cost is low. For NASA, it would indeed be a BUG and cost billions.

So perhaps it is not "sophisticated" but rather "unsophisticated" to have two levels of bad or incomplete code.

As to the "normal" ending of the game - early in the development so far as I have been able to seach out the history, there was not only a fixed end in time, but also a fixed top limit on the population. Probably the more difficult decision was to un-cap the population limit.

Thanks for coming back, and I hope that helps.

 

[Brf]

I think what we were trying to say is that a BUG is something identified as a error that can be easily duplicated, such as "Hotel revenue is added twice to the treasury." This bug happens any time you have a hotel.

The type of error you are seeing: "Ships stop docking at one specific dock" is not easily reproducible and typically happens on maps that have run for a long time, or have certain buildings built in certain configurations. If that configuration were defined and confined, then we could call it a bug.

Likely such an error is caused by some sort of execution error.... table overflow, string data corruption, etc. I sould use a dozen buzz-words.... But the point is that it is not something that can be easily reproduced.

[Coconut Kid]

Most likely a game corruption. Possibly a bug that only manifests itself on the second maritime strike in a game.
I don't know what would happen if I build another dock. I have the saved game yet--maybe I'll cheat my way back to positive cash, and try that.

I think that is what Brf was trying to contrast with a "bug" - a corrupt file in an individual game. He mentioned several of the buzz words for the causes.

The point is that when a saved game file suffers a corrupting event, there may not be any corrective action (work-around) to be taken. There are common steps to be tried. When they fail, the ordinary player needs to abandon that file, and start a new game\map.

[Coconut Kid]

... As to the "normal" ending of the game - early in the development so far as I have been able to seach out the history, there was not only a fixed end in time, but also a fixed top limit on the population. Probably the more difficult decision was to un-cap the population limit. ...

Since I said that, I have found that while the "hard" cap was taken off the population, there are some "soft" limits built into the engine which make it very difficult to grow the population beyond ~500. You can do it, but some things don't operate the same as they do when the population is well under 500.