Mass driver mineral packets move really slow.

[Shaitan]

I think as of the most recent versions, civilian shipping uses vessels of their own design, seperate from any freighters or what not that you might design, I've also seen them vary between different shipping companies.

[Person012345]

civilians design their own ships now, but you still have to have something for them to ship (eg. colonists to an infrastructure'd colony or infrastructure to some poor dying civilians). If you do, then it's just a matter of waiting.

[se5a (OP)]

I've had contracts for auto-mines to go to comets for a couple of years now, but as yet still nothing. 
I've also set Mars and Luna as colony too, though neither of them have anything useful on them.  (they're the only two bodies in the system that I can colonise)

[strych90]

I've had contracts for auto-mines to go to comets for a couple of years now, but as yet still nothing. 
I've also set Mars and Luna as colony too, though neither of them have anything useful on them.  (they're the only two bodies in the system that I can colonise)

To get the civilians started, you have to give em a kick in the butt. Drop a bit of infrastructure on the target planets and the civvy lines will start producing ships and moving goods. As far as contracting them, I've never been able to get that working. I always move my own drivers/mines/factorys/what-have-yous -- its good to keep at least a small cargo line for yourself and not completely rely on the civs.

[se5a (OP)]

Ok, how do I un-picket ie get a ship moving at its normal speed after giving it a picket order.

Nevermind, found it, right under my nose.


yeah once I put some industry on mars, Dale freight started launching ships.

[draanyk]

Keep in mind that your increment length affects civilian performance. They only do at most one trade run per increment. I've found civilian shipping is essentially worthless when running in 30-day increments, as they don't make enough money to replace ships, and don't contribute much to my economy. They make lots of profit on 1-day increments, and can expand quickly, but more ships slows turn processing, and running 30 1-day increments is already slower than running 1 30-day increment. And with civvie's not giving equal weight to all contracts (or even prioritizing contracts over trade location run), some contracts never get filled. Because of these, I've been kind of turned off civilian shipping and have been handling it myself. Honestly, I don't see a point in making the mechanism explicit. It seems like something that could be abstracted, where it could be more effective without impacting game performance.

[strych90]

I think to best get civs involved,  8 hour turns are best.That's the minimum turn length in which they will calculate trade runs, IIRC. So running 8 hr increments will let the civs impact your economy to the fullest.

[Traveler]

To get the civilians started, you have to give em a kick in the butt. Drop a bit of infrastructure on the target planets and the civvy lines will start producing ships and moving goods. As far as contracting them, I've never been able to get that working. I always move my own drivers/mines/factorys/what-have-yous -- its good to keep at least a small cargo line for yourself and not completely rely on the civs.

It's worth getting the hang of Strych.  Not much to it.  Just make sure you set the supply check box for where the mines, mass drivers, whatever will be coming from and the demand check box for where you want it delivered and the civvies will start moving it.

[se5a (OP)]

Mine seem to be carrying out contracts.
it's a shame the interface is so unresponsive while running the turns.

is there a reason they can't do minerals? that might help them by not doing so many empty return trips.

[se5a (OP)]

Ok, slowly getting the hang of designing missiles.

from my experiments, here's what I've found so far:

more speed = better hit chance

for any speed/weight ratio, increasing the agility and decreasing the fuel to stay at the same weight gains you better hit chance [bold]up to a specific point[\bold].
playing around with that fuel/ag rating to find this CTH ceiling will get you the best range for a given speed/weight.

I need to design and research a few more engines so I can mess with the speed vs weight ratio and see how that affects things.

so far I've had a geo ship attacked and destroyed by what I suspect was a fighter. it had a beam weapon and had a speed of 10,000 so it was damn fast. had a thermal sig of 160 iirc.
is there somewhere to see this info again?

[Conscript Gary]

The intelligence window will show you everything you know about alien ship classes, including encountered weaponry.
Though, with what you've said I have a hunch, hehe

[se5a (OP)]

himnn, meson with a range of 60,000
nasty.
if it's only giving me info on thermal, does that mean that it was not detected on the grav sensors?
I have got a little bit of thermal sensor research up my sleeve, but not yet designed a sensor for it.

wish I had a slightly more even team of scientists. ah well.

[Conscript Gary]

Yup, I know exactly what that is.
Did your geosurvey ship even have an active sensor?

[se5a (OP)]

actually good point. no no it didn't have an active. got confused between my geo survey and grav survey ships for a bit. I put some active sensors on my grav survey ships since they're bumming around potential JPs and classed as mil anyway.

is there somewhere to re-name missile designs after you've designed them?
or would I have to re-design the same missile and re-research it.

[Shaitan]

actually good point. no no it didn't have an active. got confused between my geo survey and grav survey ships for a bit. I put some active sensors on my grav survey ships since they're bumming around potential JPs and classed as mil anyway.

is there somewhere to re-name missile designs after you've designed them?
or would I have to re-design the same missile and re-research it.

You can rename component designs on the technology overview screen. (The one that lists all of your previously researched racial components)