A few more questions if I may

[chrislocke2000 (OP)]

Hey all

So the lack of sleep from sitting in front of my PC playing this game is getting worse but hey gotta say I've not had this much enjoyment out of a 4x game for ages.  A few more questions if possible:

- I've been playing one game for a little while now and am itching to have a go at some combat.  Is it possible to SM spawn a comparable tech NPR in one of the systems I've explored now?

- When starting a new game and selecting a trans Newtonian start are players expected to make use of all of the free picks on ships straight away and do people normally insta research modules on top of taking the computer selected research allocation?

- I've been trying to train my combat ships by placing them on training runs however, despite having officers assigned and having done about 8 months of training the training stat in the TG window is still showing at 0%.  Am I missing something on what I need them to do to train?

- I've been running surveys with one jump capable ship that has a grav surveys and two tag along ships that have geo surveys.  Between splitting the TG up and then reforming it at the end of each system survey I've ended up with a huge pile of empty TGs in my listing.  Is there a way to do this without creating all these empty TGs?

- Finally when doing system survey do people tend to run their ships dark with just passive sensors or have them active and actually looking for stuff? I assume I could be flying past wrecks and stuff and never noticing them with my sensors off.

Thanks in advance for your help

[Edward Hamilton]

- I've been playing one game for a little while now and am itching to have a go at some combat.   Is it possible to SM spawn a comparable tech NPR in one of the systems I've explored now?

I don't know enough to answer your questions, but this is one I've been wondering about.  I was able to create another player race in SM mode, but I don't think there's any way to hand it off to the AI, or to directly create an NPC under AI control in a specific system.

If there is some way to accomplish this, I'd be interesting in knowing!

[James Patten]

I've been trying to train my combat ships by placing them on training runs however, despite having officers assigned and having done about 8 months of training the training stat in the TG window is still showing at 0%.  Am I missing something on what I need them to do to train?

Your Task Force commanding officer must have ship training (that's not the name for it but I can't recall it right now) and it's helpful if one his staff (maybe Operations) has it too. 

[Erik L]

I don't know enough to answer your questions, but this is one I've been wondering about.  I was able to create another player race in SM mode, but I don't think there's any way to hand it off to the AI, or to directly create an NPC under AI control in a specific system.

If there is some way to accomplish this, I'd be interesting in knowing!

Turn on SM Mode (Ctrl-S).

Go the the System View (F9). Select a planet, usually Oxy-Nitro atmosphere, though Methane also works (and I think 1 other). Click the Create Empire button in the button array on the lower right. A new window appears. There is a check box at the bottom of the topmost area "New Empire Parameters" labeled "Creat as Computer-Controlled Empire (NPR)". Check that. If you don't YOU will have to play it as a player race.

[Erik L]

Hey all

So the lack of sleep from sitting in front of my PC playing this game is getting worse but hey gotta say I've not had this much enjoyment out of a 4x game for ages.  A few more questions if possible:

- I've been playing one game for a little while now and am itching to have a go at some combat.  Is it possible to SM spawn a comparable tech NPR in one of the systems I've explored now?

Answered above

- When starting a new game and selecting a trans Newtonian start are players expected to make use of all of the free picks on ships straight away and do people normally insta research modules on top of taking the computer selected research allocation?

About half the time I use the computer allocated research. The other half I select my own. I prefer the computer allocation as it is more of a challenge to work with tech you might not have picked yourself. One thing I almost always do is to Instant RST the designed tech.

- I've been trying to train my combat ships by placing them on training runs however, despite having officers assigned and having done about 8 months of training the training stat in the TG window is still showing at 0%.  Am I missing something on what I need them to do to train?

- I've been running surveys with one jump capable ship that has a grav surveys and two tag along ships that have geo surveys.  Between splitting the TG up and then reforming it at the end of each system survey I've ended up with a huge pile of empty TGs in my listing.  Is there a way to do this without creating all these empty TGs?

All of my survey ships always have jump dries. Much easier in case of alien attack that one might get away and be able to transit.

- Finally when doing system survey do people tend to run their ships dark with just passive sensors or have them active and actually looking for stuff? I assume I could be flying past wrecks and stuff and never noticing them with my sensors off.

Thanks in advance for your help

My survey ships also do not tend to have active sensors.

[Starkiller]

Many of your other questions have been answered better than I could. With regards to fleet training, however,
do you have the "Use Inexperienced Fleet Penalties" box checked on your game start up screen? I know I don't, at
the moment, and training has no effect. I haven't tried it with the box checked, so that might be why your training
runs aren't having an effect.

Eric

[Arwyn]

Fleet/Ship training is a cascade. To get the most effective use out of it, you want the officers in charge of your navy to have as high a skill in Crew Training Rating as possible.

So, if your Admiral commanding Fleet Headquarters doesn't have the skill, you may want to move him around, as he does affect the fleets under him.

Assuming you have a starting setup;

Fleet Headquarters - Admiral (needs the highest Crew Training you can get)
Battle Fleet (or whatever you call it)- The fleet Senior Officer (shows on the F12 tab for the fleet) should have the highest rating you can. This position goes to the highest ranking ship commander in the fleet by default.
Individual ship- The actual captain.

All of this adds up, so if your Admiral as a 125 rating, the Fleet commander has a 100 rating, and the ship captain has a 50 rating, the senior officers pass down some effect to the ship captain. If your admiral or fleet commander doesnt have any skill in Crew Training, it will take a long time for the ship captain to train up the ship. The flip side is that if the captain doesnt have the skill, but the admiral and fleet commander do, the ship will still increase.

[chrislocke2000 (OP)]

Thanks for all of your responses, I feel a lost weekend coming up!