Game mode: Online
Problem: Bug
Region: America
Using another players campfire and tannery I was able to instantly finish crafting times, the campfire also instantly rotted food as well. This is an official pvp server.
Steps on how to reproduce issue:
I’ve noticed some of this too, on my server (private dedicated). It doesn’t always happen, but I have placed seeds and plant fiber into a campfire, turned it on, and had the fiber instantly used up with about a 70 gruel turnout (from a couple hundred fiber) with seeds left over (originally under a full stack). Has happened a little with some other crafting as well.
Official server or a private one
It happens on private server too. Not always, but sometimes!
I made a video of this and will upload it tomorrow.
It’s a very old bug that is random and hence difficult to reproduce reliably so the underlying code errors can be detected and fixed.
What I speculate it is related to is the scripts that the game runs when we or any player comes into vicinity of a station that crafts over time, especially those that burn fuel.
As you have probably realised the game stops processing code to progress crafting, NPCs fighting each other etc when there is no player in the vicinity. When a player comes into range the game runs a series of scripts to reconcile what should have occurred in between the last time a player was there and now.
So for example: you put 100 bark and 400 hides into a tannery and press play. You then run out of rendering distance or log off. You are absent for ten minutes. When you log in and/or run back into the tannery rendering range then the game runs a script that calculates how much of the bark should have been used over that time and how many hides should have been converted to leather and tar. And when you go to the tannery that is what you will normally see and the station should still be processing without you having to turn it back on again. And of course if you were away long enough and there was sufficient fuel then all would have been converted and the station would have stopped.
Sometimes this script has a glitch and this is when we get mass instant crafting (if it’s food that is being made then often it applies the decay timer as well) … it either:
a) fails to calculate the conversion and you see items in there and as soon as you activate the station it applies the conversion it should have done before you get there
b) the game does not apply the reconciliation code until after you have loaded a station and activated it
Or c) the game has calculated the elapsed time incorrectly as well as not applied it prior to you reaching the station
… but whichever it is the result is the same: you get massive instant craft happen.