Mass driver mineral packets move really slow.

[se5a (OP)]

first game here,
I've got mass drivers on a couple of high mineral comets and one on earth, I've set the mass drivers to target earth.
when I enabled show packets on the system map they're there next to where I'm sending from, one for example says 42tons distance 4. 07b ETA: 4:19:59 9738km/s
another is at 35ton 597m eta 0:14:09 11751
the eta of one of these appears to be increasing too. . .
I did have a third, but I stopped the mass driver from sending by selecting nothing for the target, and the packet disappeared completely
the destination (earth) shows nothing in the massdriver column in mining/maintenance, yet the sending bodes do show a neg number, with nothing in the stockpile, yet I only see the one packet after several months. 

is this normal?

[Traveler]

Those velocities sound normal.

Increasing ETA does not seem normal.

Do you see the packets move across the solar system?

I do know that the mass driver column of the receiving point zeros out from time to time.  Check it out right after a packet arrives.  I would really like to see a running tally of packets received for the year rather than to have it zero out.

[se5a (OP)]

ok now I feel a little silly, I'm guessing they send the packets every 30 days, which is what I was hitting each time. . .  so the new packet was always in the same place as the old one. . .  incrementing in 5 day increments I see them moving. 

[se5a (OP)]

ok some more noob questions:

is there a way to automate picking up and delivering minerals to where you want with ships, other than shipping mass drivers around?

ditto mass drivers themselves and auto-mines. 
all these little orders are getting rather tedious, I did find the pickup and deliver default orders for automated mines, however these don't seem to work, my cargo ships have enough space for exactly one mine each currently, with these orders set they will load an auto-mine, then sit there complaining that they can no longer load auto-mines without the deliver order getting triggered.
mass drivers are a pain too if you've got a ship or task group which can take more than one, since you have to specify it to only load one, also I'm scared I'm going to accidentally take the last one of my homeworld.


is there a way to encourage more scientists? I've got four now, and though I've not yet hit the limit on research labs I've had one die on me and one that came in had bonuses in an area I'm not yet interested in.

is there a way to reduce the amount of accidents my administrators/scientists/offices seem to keep having?

how long before I really need to start worrying about arming myself? I've finally got jump tech and am exploring immediate neighboring systems, but I've not yet got any warships, or missiles. 

[Conscript Gary]

If you set reserve levels at your colonies, you can use the load/unload orders and cycle them.
I'm pretty sure there's a warning if you try to take the last mass driver, but I'm not sure.
Scientists come like all other officers from the academy, so building more academies is the only direct control you have over it.
Accidents and health are beyond your control.
Luck of the draw, though I would at least set up some missile defense for your homeworld at the bare minimum.

[draanyk]

I can confirm there is a warning when you try to take the last mass driver off of a planet set to receive packets from other planets. I had an enterprising civvie captain try to make a profit on moving mass drivers by taking the last one from one of my planets that had incoming packets. Thankfully, facility security became suspicious of his contract for the mass driver, which he had apparently forged in crayon, and the colony was saved.

[Erik L]

I can confirm there is a warning when you try to take the last mass driver off of a planet set to receive packets from other planets. I had an enterprising civvie captain try to make a profit on moving mass drivers by taking the last one from one of my planets that had incoming packets. Thankfully, facility security became suspicious of his contract for the mass driver, which he had apparently forged in crayon, and the colony was saved.

You have not truly played Aurora to its fullest until you've dropped a mineral packet on your homeworld.

[se5a (OP)]

cool thanks guys.   


so I had a survey ship with servey next 5 bodys as default order, but because all the inner bodies had been surveyed it often ran out of fuel before it got back, I  stuck a refuling ship on refuel target, move earth load fuel, then checked the cycle orders box.   

nekminit I'm getting
"Error in CycleOrders
Error 3421 was generated by DAO.   field" when I incremented time. 
had to kill the process as the error just keeped popping up nomatter how many times I clicked ok.   
so I killed it, ran again and went straight to task groups and to the refuel tg to see if I can kill the order.   
but I'm now getting
"Error in populate moves
error 381 was generated by Aurora
Invalid property array index.   
the orders box is filled up with the three orders over and over.   

it's looking liek this game is fubur, am I going to have to start over?

[Steve Walmsley]

cool thanks guys.   


so I had a survey ship with servey next 5 bodys as default order, but because all the inner bodies had been surveyed it often ran out of fuel before it got back, I  stuck a refuling ship on refuel target, move earth load fuel, then checked the cycle orders box.   

nekminit I'm getting
"Error in CycleOrders
Error 3421 was generated by DAO.   field" when I incremented time. 
had to kill the process as the error just keeped popping up nomatter how many times I clicked ok.   
so I killed it, ran again and went straight to task groups and to the refuel tg to see if I can kill the order.   
but I'm now getting
"Error in populate moves
error 381 was generated by Aurora
Invalid property array index.   
the orders box is filled up with the three orders over and over.   

it's looking liek this game is fubur, am I going to have to start over?

Try using Remove All to get rid of the orders.

Steve

[se5a (OP)]

That's the thing, I can't.   
As soon as I open that task group in the task group window the error pops up.   (and stops me doing *anything* in the TG window).



another question that came to mind:
is it worth sending geo teams to planets that geo ships don't find anything on?
I sent a team to Mars which my geo ships said had no minerals, the team seems to be happily upskilling, but not finding anything.   

[Traveler]

That's the thing, I can't.   
As soon as I open that task group in the task group window the error pops up.   (and stops me doing *anything* in the TG window).



another question that came to mind:
is it worth sending geo teams to planets that geo ships don't find anything on?
I sent a team to Mars which my geo ships said had no minerals, the team seems to be happily upskilling, but not finding anything.   

I don't believe so.  I think the survey team just refines or augments the geo ship's survey.

[Erik L]

another question that came to mind:
is it worth sending geo teams to planets that geo ships don't find anything on?
I sent a team to Mars which my geo ships said had no minerals, the team seems to be happily upskilling, but not finding anything.   

On the Economic Summary tab, left column, bottom. There is an indicator whether or not a geo-survey has been done. This is the survey by a team, not ship. If that says "Completed" then there are no more minerals to find. Otherwise, drop a team and let them work.

[se5a (OP)]

On the Economic Summary tab, left column, bottom.  There is an indicator whether or not a geo-survey has been done.  This is the survey by a team, not ship.  If that says "Completed" then there are no more minerals to find.  Otherwise, drop a team and let them work.

Ah! Seen!
thanks.

I managed to *fix my broken TG by opening the ships window, and deleting the ships in the task group. 

ok so now some questions on missiles, there's some stuff on the wiki and I've read posts and stuff on the forum, but what speeds and ranges should I be aiming for at this point in the game?

[Paul Tankersley]

but what speeds and ranges should I be aiming for at this point in the game?/quote]

I try and get around 100 million Km range with speeds in the 20,000 kms range for both early ASMs and AMMs. Gives you a bit of redundancy with your ordinance- throwing AMMs at the target as a last ditch or FC overwhelming tactic. Maybe some savings on sensors too? Anyway, keep ramping your AMMs to as fast as you can get them using Max engine multiplier techs. Oh and don't forget a bit of agility for both kinds of ordinance.

[se5a (OP)]

himn ok, my initial designs might be slow and a tad over ranged.   

is there a way to see details on a component that you've designed and researched?

also, the civis do not seem to be building ships, here's a cargo design I've had floating around for a while now I can't see anything there that would stop them building it, it's 678 BP and the one and only freightline has 20000 wealth:

Rhiddry - II class Cargo Ship    47,600 tons     235 Crew     678 BP      TCS 952  TH 1000  EM 0
1050 km/s     Armour 1-116     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 9    Max Repair 31. 25 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 5 months    Spare Berths 1   
Cargo 25000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 10   

125 EP Commercial Nuclear Thermal Engine (    Power 125    Fuel Use 8. 84%    Signature 125    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 700,000 Litres    Range 29. 9 billion km   (329 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes