A few questions from me (new player)

[HighMountains (OP)]

Hey, I just started playing this game and it is absolutely fantastic.    I really like almost everything about the game and have very little ideas on how it could be improved more, because it is so deep and complex.    I feel that the focus on the mechanics of the game, complexity and the width of possibilities is much more important than any kind of graphics for such games.    I played many 4x games before, but non of them came close to this one.    Compared to Aurora 4x they seem to be straightlined, dumbed down games for kids.   

Anyway, I would like to use this thread for my questions about the game and understanding it.    Right now I have only one, but I think I will come back here at least a few times more, because as I said, the game is very complex and deep.   

In my current game I came to the point, where one of my first ships started to lack the fuel.    I already had one ship that didn't managed to come back to the Earth and refuel, so I figured out the "equalize fuel" button and sent another ship to help this one.    My question is of the other nature, I am keep getting the information that the fuel on one of my ships is below 20% of it's initial amount, which doesn't let me to play faster than one day per round for auto-rounds, because that's the maximum option for sub-pulse length.    Obviously I could use 5 or 30 days manually until this ship will come back, but soon there will be more of those ships, and not going far ahead into to future, there will be most likely dozens of such ships, when I will colonize more planets, which would completely remove this very important option.    This problem combined with the bug that the "Disable Jump to Event" box doesn't save in the "Events" menu makes further game a little bit annoying, because my map jumps to the point of where this ship is every single turn.   

So, is there any way to disable certain kinds of events from stopping the auto-turns?

Also, does someone else also get's "Server Internal Error" 90% of the times he tries to do anything on this forum?

[GreatTuna]

You know, I have a solution to your "issue" with fuel. Design better ships.
Game doesn't interrupt when ship has low fuel, it does interrupt when ship is out of fuel AND has orders.
The issue of not saving the "disable jump to event" can be mitigated by you not clicking the event.

No, there is no way to disable interrupts. Get used to it.

[AL]

I don't know if you can disable interrupts, but when I start to get low fuel warnings I just cancel the orders on the ship and wait for tankers to arrive (especially if the ship wouldn't make it to the nearest colony under their own power).

As for map centering, I believe by default when you click on a system body or fleet, or select an event, your system map will be centered at the corresponding location. After advancing time, the map will usually recenter at the last position it was centered at.
Here's a quick example: So suppose you clicked on Earth to center your map. Then you navigate around Sol using (numpad) arrow keys to look at Mercury. When you advance time, your view should automatically recenter on Earth.
The only exception to this that I can think of is when a ship discovers a new system, then your map is centered on the main star in the new system.

Also, I've been getting a bunch of those 500 server errors lately (probably most people have), and I think it's attributed to the increased traffic as of late.

[HighMountains (OP)]

You know, I have a solution to your "issue" with fuel.      Design better ships.     
Game doesn't interrupt when ship has low fuel, it does interrupt when ship is out of fuel AND has orders.     
The issue of not saving the "disable jump to event" can be mitigated by you not clicking the event.     

No, there is no way to disable interrupts.      Get used to it.     

Sorry to say, but you don't have any solution for me.      It has nothing to do with the design of the ship.      This particular issue is not that simple to overcome by just making another kind of ship, because eventually every ship is going to run of out fuel.      Making bigger tanks for the ships (this is probably what you tried to say by making a "better ship design") is also a failure.      It will make ship slower, weight more, less efficient, it will only last longer in the space, but eventually I will have to deal with the interrupt.     This issue is related with how the game works, not how my ship is designed, I think it is quite obvious.   

Obviously, game is not interrupted by the ship that doesn't have orders, thus the ship does absolutely nothing in the space, besides sitting in one spot, even if it has low fuel.      But why would I want such ship anyway? It does interrupt the game, if it has the order "Refuel at X colony", which is quite reasonable in this situation.  The ship had that order to refuel, if it will go below the certain amount of fuel (in this situation it is 30%), before I even used it, so I've taken care of this potential problem much earlier before it could appear.  That's why I don't see a single reason to remind me and stop the game everysingle turn to just inform me about that.  If anyone thinks it really is that important and has to do that, it could at least do that once, not all the time.

Getting used to it is not a "solution" I could classify as a reasonable one, while having hundreds od planets, dozens of systems and thousands of ships stopping the game to tell me everysingle turn the same information about their fuel situation.      If you are not a developer of the game, don't tell me to get used to it.     

I don't know if you can disable interrupts, but when I start to get low fuel warnings I just cancel the orders on the ship and wait for tankers to arrive (especially if the ship wouldn't make it to the nearest colony under their own power).     

As for map centering, I believe by default when you click on a system body or fleet, or select an event, your system map will be centered at the corresponding location.      After advancing time, the map will usually recenter at the last position it was centered at.     
Here's a quick example: So suppose you clicked on Earth to center your map.      Then you navigate around Sol using (numpad) arrow keys to look at Mercury.      When you advance time, your view should automatically recenter on Earth.     
The only exception to this that I can think of is when a ship discovers a new system, then your map is centered on the main star in the new system.     

Also, I've been getting a bunch of those 500 server errors lately (probably most people have), and I think it's attributed to the increased traffic as of late.     

Oh, okay, that's a shame.      Not efficient at all to send other ships in such situation, but still better than getting these absolutely unnecessary interrupts.      I don't really understand the thought process of developer behind this.      While the priority level of idle factories, shipyards and research facilities is high enough to justify stopping the game from proceeding further, the current priority level of single ship's fuel tank flying somewhere in the space, at any kind of development of your empire, doesn't do that. 

For map centering, it centers on that ship that has 20%> fuel everysingle turn, if I won't move my screen it will just stay there forever, if I do, it will center again on the ship.   As you can imagine, it is quite annoying. 

[Erik L]

What's the ship design in question? That will go a long way to answering your questions.

[GreatTuna]

This particular issue is not that simple to overcome by just making another kind of ship, because eventually every ship is going to run of out fuel.

Nope. It is very-very easy to make a ship that can cover entire sol system, then go back for refuels. It's not like the fuel tanks are one-use, right?
If you don't want to refuel often, make a design with more fuel.

Logic: ship runs out of fuel? -> not enough fuel -> make ship with more fuel -> enough fuel -> ship doesn't run out of fuel.

If your ship is out of fuel, stop it. Issuing orders to refuel won't move it anywhere. Send the tanker (it's a ship with a lot of fuel tanks), or a tug.

<sub>You won't get to the situation where you have hundreds of planets, dozens of systems and thousands of ships if you're bad at managing fuel situation in Sol. Your situation, in fact, can be solved by two simple steps:
1. Making ships with enough range.
2. Not forgetting to refuel them.</sub>

Again, get used to it. You'll see a lot of interrupts from now on, be it sensors, combat, or something else. This is how this game works: if it something that requires your (or NPRs) attention, it interrupts the game to let you access situation. Running out of fuel when ship has orders qualifies.

I think what he's trying to say is that the ship, although low on fuel, has enough to make it back to a colony.  However, it is slow such that it keeps bugging him every day and so he cannot advance time much more.

He's worried that in the future, with many more ships, he would have to face this issue on a much larger scale.

First, I don't remember low fuel causing interrupts, only no fuel, and
Second. Again, the issue can be mitigated by making sure ships have enough fuel in design phase, and making sure they're refueled. Even if low fuel on ships cause interrupts, there'll be no interrupts when there's no low fuel on ships.

[MarcAFK]

There is the autoturns button, if you know how long it will take for your low fuel ship to crawl to a refuel point then divide that by 5 days and set minimum increments to that number.
As I recall Interrupts for low fuel, production, research, unrest, etc happens at the 5 day production cycle.

[Mastik]

So, is there any way to disable certain kinds of events from stopping the auto-turns?

Event updates window, at the bottom you can [filter events]

[HighMountains (OP)]

What's the ship design in question? That will go a long way to answering your questions.

The design of my very first ship only has 50k space for fuel, this let him survey scan for more than 25 years and safely go back to earth, he is right now on the way to refuel, as I ordered him to do that, if his fuel amount will go below 30% of the initial amount.  His amount of fuel is right now 18. 5% and exactly 9261 litres.  I remember a whole lot of details about the fuel situation of this ship and don't really need to slow the pace of the game any further that much to just keep informing me about it.

Also, I don't really think that my question "So, is there any way to disable certain kinds of events from stopping the auto-turns?" have a lot to do with the design of my ship, however it is bad or not.

Anyway, I will copy the design of this ship:

Rendili class Geological Survey Vessel    3 700 tons     45 Crew     201. 4 BP      TCS 74  TH 5  EM 0
67 km/s     Armour 1-21     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/1     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 34    Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 120 months    Spare Berths 0   

Kuehn-Friedheim 5 EP Commercial Conventional Engine (1)    Power 5    Fuel Use 8. 84%    Signature 5    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 50 000 Litres    Range 27. 3 billion km   (4713 days at full power)

Geological Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

I think what he's trying to say is that the ship, although low on fuel, has enough to make it back to a colony.    However, it is slow such that it keeps bugging him every day and so he cannot advance time much more.   

He's worried that in the future, with many more ships, he would have to face this issue on a much larger scale.   

By the way, although I don't think you can fix the 'disable.  .  .  ' issue, you might, in System Maps, want to go to Display on the left, and check "Show Events" under "Options".   That way the events for the turn will show up on the system maps, and you won't have to accidentally click any of them.   
Also, yeah you can't disable events from stopping the auto-turns.

Yes, this is more or less what I am talking about.

Nope.  It is very-very easy to make a ship that can cover entire sol system, then go back for refuels.  It's not like the fuel tanks are one-use, right?
If you don't want to refuel often, make a design with more fuel. 

Logic: ship runs out of fuel? -> not enough fuel -> make ship with more fuel -> enough fuel -> ship doesn't run out of fuel. 

If your ship is out of fuel, stop it.  Issuing orders to refuel won't move it anywhere.  Send the tanker (it's a ship with a lot of fuel tanks), or a tug.

_{You won't get to the situation where you have hundreds of planets, dozens of systems and thousands of ships if you're bad at managing fuel situation in Sol.  Your situation, in fact, can be solved by two simple steps:
1.  Making ships with enough range.
2.  Not forgetting to refuel them.}

Again, get used to it.  You'll see a lot of interrupts from now on, be it sensors, combat, or something else.  This is how this game works: if it something that requires your (or NPRs) attention, it interrupts the game to let you access situation.  Running out of fuel when ship has orders qualifies.

First, I don't remember low fuel causing interrupts, only no fuel, and
Second.  Again, the issue can be mitigated by making sure ships have enough fuel in design phase, and making sure they're refueled.  Even if low fuel on ships cause interrupts, there'll be no interrupts when there's no low fuel on ships.

I really think that you should re-read my previous reply as it answers the most of the points you mentioned here.

If you really don't get it, I will try to explain in a little bit simplified way.  The fuel itself, refueling, fuel situation of the ships, etc. , is just a background story for the problem, so the aspect of the ship design is negligible, as the main theme of it is a question: If I can influence somehow the way interrups appear or not?

About interrupts while on low fuel.  I will say it again, I get them, when ship has low fuel and has orders, but the order is to REFUEL at the nearest colony, and the ship will succeed (will have enough fuel to get there).  It is a total absurdity to slow the pace of the game for a problem that was already solved and taken care of as soon as my first ship was built.  If it would do that once, or once per 10, 20 turns, it would be acceptable.  I think that the option to set what will interrupt the game or not, is a must have.

Event updates window, at the bottom you can [filter events]

Isn't that a menu for just disabling the certain events from showing up? It certainly doesn't stop the event from stopping the game.

[MarcAFK]

This is a pretty significant issue since you're at conventional tech with a slow ship that will take years to get home.
A workaround you could use is to use spacemaster mode to reduce the size of the tanks on the ship while waiting for it to return, or just add more fuel, and take the sane amount out if your stockpile to make up for it. It's not giving you any advantage as long as you know the ship still has enough fuel to get home.

[HighMountains (OP)]

This is a pretty significant issue since you're at conventional tech with a slow ship that will take years to get home. 
A workaround you could use is to use spacemaster mode to reduce the size of the tanks on the ship while waiting for it to return, or just add more fuel, and take the sane amount out if your stockpile to make up for it.  It's not giving you any advantage as long as you know the ship still has enough fuel to get home.

Right now, with this one ship, it is not a huge issue, but it is already annoying.  I was thinking more about the situation in the future when I will have more of ships, even with, for example, 500k tons of fuel (it will eventually be used), and all of those ships one day will start crying for fuel idependently from the fact that they can go back to colony and refuel or not, and it will slow the pace of the game by much.  No more 30d skips per tick.  Ships are not built together, so after sending one after another into the space there will be a time when they will start getting low on fuel, which will trigger the stop-game event.  Eventually the need of ships to remind me about that will spread across the whole line of time, as there will be newer and newer ships, it means that at some point I will be able to proceed further only manually, which for the scale of this game seem a little bit tedious.  Is this the way this game is played or I am doing something really wrong?

[Mor]

You'll see a lot of interrupts from now on, be it sensors, combat, or something else. This is how this game works: if it something that requires your (or NPRs) attention, it interrupts the game to let you access situation. Running out of fuel when ship has orders qualifies.

Correct, although to be precise events that require NPRs attention do not cause interrupts. And, It would be a nice feature to turn on/off interrupts, iirc steve planned to go down to 24 events that interrupt players, so it might not be an issue to add a list where you can tick them on/off.

[0111narwhalz]

You could integrate a "Refuel at Colony" order in your existing orders list instead of relying upon the conditional.  That'll force a freighter to refuel after every trip, or every other trip, or whatever.  The conditional seems to be awkward at best.