word      Action that Failed
word      Ship Id (0 if not applicable)
word      Planet Id (0 if not applicable)
word      Cause
...optional addition data

Sent when: some action fails

Sent to: owner of the unit which tried the action

This record is intended as a general failure report mechanism, to avoid the need to guess why an order didn't work.

The Action field contains the action that failed; by convention, this is a utilX.dat record number, or a larger number if there is no equivalent record. The Cause field contains a standard failure code. The record provides space for optional additional data.

Failure codes: The following Cause codes are currently defined. Not all of them are already used. The first codes are equivalent to those used in the cloak failure record.

CodeMeaning
0Random chance
1Insufficient fuel
2Excess damage
3Ionic pulse
4Wormhole Travel
5Tachyon pulse
6Ion storm
10Lacking resources
11Lacking tech
12No receiver unit
13Feature disabled by host
14Not allowed by rule
15Not allowed by partner
16Global object limit exceeded
17Per-player limit exceeded
18Required ability missing
19Target object does not exist
20Per-unit limit exceeded

Codes currently in use: These are all the Action / Cause combinations which PHost currently generates.

  • Action = 16 (Ship Recycled)
    • Cause = 14: attempt to recycle a ship you don't own (some clients wrongly allow you to set these orders).
  • Action = 18 (Ship Colonized)
    • Cause = 15: planet was inhabited by unfriendly race
  • Action = 20 (Ship Construction)
    • Cause = 10: cloning of a ship failed due to lacking minerals. This message is sent when you do not have enough minerals by the turn the ship is actually scheduled for building.
    • Cause = 11: clone order not accepted because starbase doesn't have sufficient tech.
    • Cause = 14: clone order not accepted because you can build this ship normally.
    • Cause = 18: clone order not accepted because ship is unclonable.
  • Action = 21 (Ship Trade, give command)
    • Cause = 12: receiver didn't have a ship or planet at the ship position
    • Cause = 18: ship is ungiveable
  • Action = 35 (Cloak Failure)
    • Cause = 0: cloak failed due to random chance
    • Cause = 1: cloak failed due to insufficient fuel
    • Cause = 2: cloak failed due to excessive hull damage
    • Cause = 3: cloak failed due to an ionic pulse
    • Cause = 4: cloak failed due to wormhole travel
    • Cause = 5: cloak failed due to a tachyon pulse (from a Loki)
    • Cause = 6: cloak failed due to ion storm
  • Action = 45 (Planet Trade, give command)
    • Cause = 12: receiver didn't have a ship at the planet
  • Action = 56 (Repair)
    • Cause = 15: attempt to repair a ship you don't own and you are not allied with.
  • Action = 10000 (ship mission failed)
    This record describes a failed ship mission, which may not have their own util.dat record number. It contains three words of additional data, reporting the mission, intercept and tow numbers.
This is a testing version.
It may be incomplete, and have more bugs (or features) than the public live version at planetscentral.com.