Invaders

[Kurt (OP)]

So, obviously, spoilers 

I have a rift in one of my systems, and have previously encountered invaders, and beaten off an incursion.  As a result, I have stationed sensor buoys all around the rift, and long-duration missile bases to cover the rift against future incursions, along with a fleet base and a small fleet in the inner system.

And now a second incursion has happened.  Okay fine, this is what I prepared for.  But, the invaders were not detected where they entered, within the rift, but after a two hour time advance, allowing the bulk of their fleet to advance past the range of my missile bases guarding the rift.  This is problematic for obvious reasons.  The time advance was stopped after the Invaders moved, not before. 

 

[Steve Walmsley]

It's because invaders arrive in the construction phase and then there is no detection until after movement. I agree that isn't ideal.

For v2.6, I've already added some code that forces a 5-second increment immediately after the arrival of new Enhanced Precursors. I've extended that now to the arrival of Invaders.

[Ghostly]

It's because invaders arrive in the construction phase and then there is no detection until after movement. I agree that isn't ideal.

For v2.6, I've already added some code that forces a 5-second increment immediately after the arrival of new Enhanced Precursors. I've extended that now to the arrival of Invaders.

Would it be feasible to force a single 5-second sub-pulse whenever a Swarm ship (or potentially any military NPR ship, if not too performance-taxing) performs a jump transit? I have a sneaking suspicion that my sensor buoys are getting jumped through when I advance time by larger increments, this would give the game a chance to generate an interrupt if the transit can be detected, and also give the AI a chance to detect the buoys and react to them accordingly. Something similar would also be great for boarding actions, as it's currently quite easy to skip through enemy fire control range while boarding, even unintentionally.

[Steve Walmsley]

It's because invaders arrive in the construction phase and then there is no detection until after movement. I agree that isn't ideal.

For v2.6, I've already added some code that forces a 5-second increment immediately after the arrival of new Enhanced Precursors. I've extended that now to the arrival of Invaders.

Would it be feasible to force a single 5-second sub-pulse whenever a Swarm ship (or potentially any military NPR ship, if not too performance-taxing) performs a jump transit? I have a sneaking suspicion that my sensor buoys are getting jumped through when I advance time by larger increments, this would give the game a chance to generate an interrupt if the transit can be detected, and also give the AI a chance to detect the buoys and react to them accordingly. Something similar would also be great for boarding actions, as it's currently quite easy to skip through enemy fire control range while boarding, even unintentionally.

Any transit generates an immediate interrupt and should end movement for the transiting fleet in that increment, so you should get a detection following the transit and see the NPR before the next turn.

If that isn't happening, its a bug.

[Ghostly]

Any transit generates an immediate interrupt and should end movement for the transiting fleet in that increment, so you should get a detection following the transit and see the NPR before the next turn.

If that isn't happening, its a bug.

Does the interrupt happen at the end of the sub-pulse during which the transit took place? I'm fairly sure the movement for transitting fleet doesn't end unless they require a standing order (or the AI equivalent of such) to proceed, I've observed ships stay at the jump point as long as I keep advancing time in sub-3 hour increments, losing contact the moment I advance enough for my own standing orders to kick in, and I've seen transitting ships instantly register as lost contacts, though direction of their movement could be discerned (example, those at the jump point were usually case 1, some of those away from it were case 2).

Then again, my suspicions about entirely undetected transits could be half-wrong because some of my jump points only have detection on one side, so I guess a transit through a jump point with a buoy on the entry side would potentially not generate an interrupt under the current system, as there's no detection on the exit side?

[Steve Walmsley]

Each fleet has a 'movement complete' flag, which is set to false at the start of each increment and set to true when they run out of orders, or if they transit. When this flag is set, the fleet won't process any more orders in that increment, although they will resume their remaining orders at the start of the next increment.

Standing orders are only checked after detection and won't be acted upon until the following increment.

[Ghostly]

Each fleet has a 'movement complete' flag, which is set to false at the start of each increment and set to true when they run out of orders, or if they transit. When this flag is set, the fleet won't process any more orders in that increment, although they will resume their remaining orders at the start of the next increment.

Standing orders are only checked after detection and won't be acted upon until the following increment.

Thank you, this makes sense! I guess I better make sure my contested systems have buoys on both sides of their jump points then.