Quick Questions Thread

[vorpal+5]

There is an order delay above the 'add move' button. In VB6 this was expressed in seconds.

[Father Tim]

. . .I have checked after some time, and there is stuff without a commander.

Yes, there are some jobs that will not be filled by auto-assign.  Colony governors and academy commandants and Fleet HQs, etc.  This is because these decisions are too important, and too personal, for Aurora to "get it right."

. . .I do not value 50 training higher than 30% survey AT ALL, I hope the game doesn't either. . .

Indeed.

Go to the C# Aurora Forum, the C# Mechanics subforum, the Change List v1.00 Table of Contents thread, and find the link to the auto-assign commanders post and read the current rules for how it's supposed to work.

[Father Tim]

Is there a table of the population size compared to thermal and EM output?

Also what is the equivalence between cross section and mass or length? I believe I once knew that when playing A-VB6 but my memory fails me ...

No table, but you can find the 'how many people = strength 1 themal' and 'how many installations = stregnth 1 EM' by searching the VB Aurora Mechanics forum.

It's also easily tested by SM editing a colony's population & installation numbers to, say one million pop or one thousand installtions and checking the resulting signature.

- - - - -

Target Cross Section (TCS) is straight "size in hull spaces" and therefore 'tonnage divided by fifty, round up.'

[Father Tim]

A few more from me,

1. What is the annual MSP cost of a ship which stayed in orbit of a colony with adequate facilities?

2. What is the MSP cost during overhauls?

3. And in the wealth tab is that total MSP expenditure on ships accurate?

1 -- One-quarter build cost.

2 -- Variable, based on time on the Maint clock (though this is in place of, rather than in addition to, the normal maintenance cost).

3 -- As far as I know, yes.

[Father Tim]

Guess I will use this threat to ask my simple question. When you assign commander priority in ship design (Miscellaneous) how is it prioritized? Higher or lower? If I give one ship 3 and the other 7 which one will get assigned a commander first?

And please don't link to Steves update, I read it, and it did not clarify for me which way around it was.

It WAS lowest number first.

It is NOW highest number first.

So, the '7' before the '3'.

[Father Tim]

Is there a way to see the distance to a potential target from the ship combat screen?

If it's not automatically displayed when you select the target, then no, not at the moment.

[Father Tim]

. . .Somewhat related, is there a way to delay cycling orders? I want my fuel convoys to only go and get fuel from the platforms once a year or so so the rest of the time they can stay at Earth on emergency fuel duty.

It's probably far easier to park the tankers at the harvester fleet and perform emergency refueling from there.

Second-easiest is to set only one or two tankers on cycling orders to move the fuel form the harvester to Earth, and have a separate (emergency) refueling fleet.

Hardest is likey to be as Vorpal+5 suggested and work out exactly how many seconds delay to add to your cycling orders for the whole fleet  (one million seconds is about eleven and a half days, so about thirty million seconds).

[Borealis4x]

Are Mass Drivers not required to 'catch' mineral packets anymore? I thought I doomed Earth when I realized I accidentally shipped off my last Mass Driver but nothing happened once the packet hit.

[Black]

Are Mass Drivers not required to 'catch' mineral packets anymore? I thought I doomed Earth when I realized I accidentally shipped off my last Mass Driver but nothing happened once the packet hit.

Maybe Steve forgot to program it? It should definitely have very negative effect when packet hits planet without Mass Driver.

[Arekonator]

Was the way jump point transit works changed? I have a fleet guarding a jump point into Sol where hostile NPR that lives on the other side periodically jumps in and out.
Here is the issue: I click 5 day increment but get interrupt.  Yet enemy fleet is nowhere to be seen.  With next 5s increment, i spot the enemy on the jump point, assign targets, give orders to open fire.  But with next 5s increment they are gone, back through the jump point, before i can fire.  Probably different side of the same issue, when i jump through on their side, they also have fleet sitting on the jump point.  But i got imediatelly targeted and shot at the same increment i get through.  Not the increment after.
What can i do to punish them from jumping back and forth and spamming me with interrupts?

[Father Tim]

Are Mass Drivers not required to 'catch' mineral packets anymore? I thought I doomed Earth when I realized I accidentally shipped off my last Mass Driver but nothing happened once the packet hit.

Maybe Steve forgot to program it? It should definitely have very negative effect when packet hits planet without Mass Driver.

I believe that instead Steve disabled the ability to remove the last mass driver from a colony with packets inbound, so most likely you removed the second-to-last mass driver.

[Borealis4x]

We should get this stickied as a 'quick questions' thread.

Does putting a Forward Fire Director on a light vehicle do anything other than make them heavier and a bit better armored?

[Ulzgoroth]

We should get this stickied as a 'quick questions' thread.

Does putting a Forward Fire Director on a light vehicle do anything other than make them heavier and a bit better armored?

FFD is required  for aerospace or orbital close support. One FFD unit per ship or six fighters.

EDIT: If you mean 'does the FFD work differently on a light vehicle instead of infantry', the answer is no.

EDIT2: However, having more of your units be vehicles increases the formation's breakthrough potential. So in an armored spearhead type formation, you might want the FFD to be vehicle-mounted, not because it makes it better at its job, but because it avoids making the formation worse at its job.

[Father Tim]

We should get this stickied as a 'quick questions' thread.

Does putting a Forward Fire Director on a light vehicle do anything other than make them heavier and a bit better armored?

FFD is required  for aerospace or orbital close support. One FFD unit per ship or six fighters.

EDIT: If you mean 'does the FFD work differently on a light vehicle instead of infantry', the answer is no.

EDIT2: However, having more of your units be vehicles increases the formation's breakthrough potential. So in an armored spearhead type formation, you might want the FFD to be vehicle-mounted, not because it makes it better at its job, but because it avoids making the formation worse at its job.

It's not required, it only makes orbital fire support more accurate.

[DFNewb (OP)]

We should get this stickied as a 'quick questions' thread.

Does putting a Forward Fire Director on a light vehicle do anything other than make them heavier and a bit better armored?

I've done my part.