v1.12.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Is there any ETA on 1. 12 ?
Would really love to start a new game, but 1. 12 has so many nice features . . .

I need to finish going through the bugs thread and I am halfway through adding formations, so it just depends on my time. At the moment, work is very busy and we are going away every weekend in our motorhome, so progress is slow.

Things will speed up if the weather gets worse

[Froggiest1982]

Is there any ETA on 1. 12 ?
Would really love to start a new game, but 1. 12 has so many nice features . . .

I am halfway through adding formations

WTF!!!!!!!

 

Long Live Walmsley

[Kristover]

Is there any ETA on 1. 12 ?
Would really love to start a new game, but 1. 12 has so many nice features . . .

I need to finish going through the bugs thread and I am halfway through adding formations, so it just depends on my time. At the moment, work is very busy and we are going away every weekend in our motorhome, so progress is slow.

Things will speed up if the weather gets worse

Formations!?!?!?  Did he say Formations!?!?!?  What is this!?!!?

[Froggiest1982]

Is there any ETA on 1. 12 ?
Would really love to start a new game, but 1. 12 has so many nice features . . .

I need to finish going through the bugs thread and I am halfway through adding formations, so it just depends on my time. At the moment, work is very busy and we are going away every weekend in our motorhome, so progress is slow.

Things will speed up if the weather gets worse

Formations!?!?!?  Did he say Formations!?!?!?  What is this!?!!?

Formations are the solution to all my problems and I am sure to a lot of Jorge's one too. I hope he is reading

[kenlon]

Things will speed up if the weather gets worse

In that case, I hope it's terrible weather for days and days.

[xenoscepter]

Well, I wish him good weather.

The quarantine sucks.

[TMaekler]

Just read that we will finally get governor auto assignments. All hail Steve ;-)

I was wondering though if there will be any messages if the auto system wasn't able to auto-assign to certain posts. That would be awesome.

[Coleslaw]

Adding formations? Aren't formations already in the game or is this something entirely different that I'm completely out of the loop on?

[Froggiest1982]

Adding formations? Aren't formations already in the game or is this something entirely different that I'm completely out of the loop on?

Formations for ship/fleet were in VB6 but not yet implemented on C#.

You may be confused with groung unit formations which are a different thing both is use and function.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Adding formations? Aren't formations already in the game or is this something entirely different that I'm completely out of the loop on?

Here is a quick preview.

Each fleet can be set to act in relation to another friendly fleet, designated the 'Anchor Fleet', and the presence of 'threats'. So you might set fleet A to place itself a million kilometres from fleet B in the direction of alien ship C. As fleet A and alien ship C manoeuvre, fleet B will attempt to maintain that position.

Once an Anchor Fleet is set, there is a descending order of potential threats. Firstly, you can specify a specific alien ship, even if that ship is not currently on sensors, in the same system or hostile. However, that threat will be ignored until the specific alien ship is on sensors in the same system. Secondly, you can toggle the fleet to use the nearest hostile warship as the threat. A 'warship' in this context is an alien ship that you know has weapons (as per the Intelligence for the parent alien class). So if the specific threat is destroyed or moves out of sensor range, the fleet will use the nearest hostile warship as the threat instead. Third is the toggle for the nearest hostile contact. So with no specific threat or warship, the fleet will use any hostile contact as the threat. Finally, you can use the Anchor Fleet's destination as the 'threat'

You can set a distance from the Anchor fleet and an offset bearing. So you might have two fleets set to be 30 degrees either side and ahead of an Anchor Fleet to act as sensor pickets, or you might have your support ships set at 180 degrees so they follow the Anchor fleet.

The second and third panels on the screenshot allow you to choose anchor fleets and specific threats.

Finally, if a fleet joins another fleet as a sub-fleet, the sub-fleet will retain its formation settings. While they won't be used by the sub-fleet while it is part of a fleet, they will become active again if the sub-fleet is detached and becomes a fleet again. This will allow easy detachment of escorts. I intend to have recall escort fleets and deploy escort fleets orders to make this easier. It's not all coded yet, but this is the general idea.

[smoelf]

This is absolutely beautiful. Makes me really excited for 1.12 

[Shuul]

ahh, this looks cool really
i just hoped its something for ground forces to build them in batch or reinforce to set formation

[Jorgen_CAB]

The new formation and escort mechanic sounds really fantastic, allot better then I initially hoped for 1.12 release. Really exiting new possibilities for complex manoeuvring with relatively little efforts.

[Droll]

More auto assignment is a good thing in my books :0

Just one question: I see the priority has "0 = Low". Can I get confirmation if Ship priority works the same way? I ask as this post makes it sound like 0 is the highest priority for ships: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg104046#msg104046

Thanks!

0 is the highest priority for ships, which had caused a lot of confusion because people have different ideas regarding whether high or low numbers should indicate priority. I think I mentioned somewhere I was going to reverse that, but the code still has 0 as highest priority so it looks like I never changed it. I've edited the post you linked to make it clear.

The above is why I called it importance instead of priority for colonies, as most people would assume higher numbers mean more important. I should probably do the same for ships in v1.12.

What will you do about bridge crew allocation? Right now I have a problem where because command assignments are prioritized over bridge crew assignments, all my tactical and chief engineers are being hoovered up by freighters or defence satellites. Do you have any plans to make it possible for someone to designate a class as "important" so that its bridge crew assignments receive priority over the command posts on lesser ships like freighters?

Do you also have any plans to add something like "exclude class from auto assignment" so for example I can bar my defence satellites from having officers? (I build literally 100s of them)

Edit: Are there any plans to add officer priority to formations as well? For example set a default priority on template creation and maybe change it later after training. This way garrisons wont hoover up officers for lets say the assault infantry.

[Dreadder]

Do you also have any plans to add something like "exclude class from auto assignment" so for example I can bar my defence satellites from having officers? (I build literally 100s of them)

Edit: Are there any plans to add officer priority to formations as well? For example set a default priority on template creation and maybe change it later after training. This way garrisons wont hoover up officers for lets say the assault infantry.

I second that. The number of early warning satellites I use makes using auto assign impractical for me as well. I'd personally love to have an option of making them fully automated as well but that's a different story.