Change Log for v7.00 Discussion

[linkxsc]

^ would it be possible to transfer crew (and officers) off of a ship, onto a lifeboat. To save some of them? I know i've kept extremely fast rescue shuttles, before(500-1000t, 80% engine, the rest fuel and a bit of extra crew space.)

But those are reactionary, and only come out from my carrier, after the ship in question is going down.

[MarcAFK]

How about an "Abandon ship" button? Use it before self destruct (is there a self destruct? I want to be able to destroy anything at minimum range with my soon-to-be-wreck)

[Steve Walmsley]

How about an "Abandon ship" button? Use it before self destruct (is there a self destruct? I want to be able to destroy anything at minimum range with my soon-to-be-wreck)

There already is an abandon ship button on the damage control tab of the Ship window. At the moment it doesn't transfer crew to lifeboats but that is a good idea.

[gamedesign69]

The NPR changes alone are extremely exciting.  I wonder what else you can cook up, because so far it's looking great as always!

[Zincat]

Finally, at long last, no more minerals needed to assembly prefabricated PDC. That alone is worth a major change in version number XD

[Beersatron]

Steve can you use a similar range rule for existing NPR ships as the one you are implementing for the fighters?

i.e. if the ship's target or destination is more than 50 percent of their theoretical fuel distance then they can not approach it without routing to a tanker or colony? The fuel doesn't necessarily need to exist on the colony but it could then lead to having NPR fuel dumps as well the existing civilian mining centers. Also, it might slow down the NPR's never-ending-surveying.



Apparently having the words fuel dumps within single quotes was stopping me from posting.

[Steve Walmsley]

Steve can you use a similar range rule for existing NPR ships as the one you are implementing for the fighters?

i.e. if the ship's target or destination is more than 50 percent of their theoretical fuel distance then they can not approach it without routing to a tanker or colony? The fuel doesn't necessarily need to exist on the colony but it could then lead to having NPR fuel dumps as well the existing civilian mining centers. Also, it might slow down the NPR's never-ending-surveying.

It's not really the same. Fighters are going point to point within a single system. Tracking destinations across multiple systems is a lot more difficult (and a lot more performance intensive) as I would have to check multiple possible routes with exact distances, especially as those destinations are often moving. It would actually be easier just to track NPR fuel and give them conditional fuel orders. The problem of course is that the human brain is much better than a computer in terms of setting up a logistic network to anticipate future needs.

The fighter rule is just to create more realistic fighter ops - not as a real substitute for tracking fuel. To slow down surveying, I have placed a limit on the number of NPR survey ships (only 3 or 4 I think). I am also looking at limiting different NPRs to exploring only within a certain number of systems of their home world.

[Whitecold]

Fighters for NPRs seem like a cool addition, although I would really appreciate some improved fire control options at Task force level, as manually rotating through 50 something targets is not really fun.

[alex_brunius]

It's not really the same. Fighters are going point to point within a single system. Tracking destinations across multiple systems is a lot more difficult (and a lot more performance intensive) as I would have to check multiple possible routes with exact distances, especially as those destinations are often moving. It would actually be easier just to track NPR fuel and give them conditional fuel orders. The problem of course is that the human brain is much better than a computer in terms of setting up a logistic network to anticipate future needs.

The fighter rule is just to create more realistic fighter ops - not as a real substitute for tracking fuel. To slow down surveying, I have placed a limit on the number of NPR survey ships (only 3 or 4 I think). I am also looking at limiting different NPRs to exploring only within a certain number of systems of their home world.

NPR FAC strikes/ops from a body are pretty similar to Carrier ops I think in that they could also have range limitation within same system.

[Steve Walmsley]

Fighters for NPRs seem like a cool addition, although I would really appreciate some improved fire control options at Task force level, as manually rotating through 50 something targets is not really fun.

Do you use the Multiple Targets option in the F8 Combat window?

[Whitecold]

It was a while ago, I think I did, I tried pretty much everything as I was desperate. It didn't cycle if I recall, it always selected the first few. Also multiple identical fire controls did have to be set up separately. I posted about it in suggestions at the time, and suggested a unified battle control window with useful autofire.

[swarm_sadist]

Steve can you use a similar range rule for existing NPR ships as the one you are implementing for the fighters?

It's not really the same. Fighters are going point to point within a single system. Tracking destinations across multiple systems is a lot more difficult (and a lot more performance intensive) as I would have to check multiple possible routes with exact distances, especially as those destinations are often moving.

Could we have NPR ships just teleport fuel every construction cycle from a base or tanker in the system they are in instead? That way the NPR would have a network of fuel dumps to attack, but there would be no need to have the ships search for a tanker and fly to it.

PS: Will NPRs create PDC hangers or only carriers?

[Garfunkel]

NPR's do not, to my knowledge, build PDCs at all so unless that is changing, they will only build carriers. In any case, a very exciting change!

[Steve Walmsley]

Could we have NPR ships just teleport fuel every construction cycle from a base or tanker in the system they are in instead? That way the NPR would have a network of fuel dumps to attack, but there would be no need to have the ships search for a tanker and fly to it.

PS: Will NPRs create PDC hangers or only carriers?

NPRs managing fuel is an overhead that doesn't really add to game play. You wouldn't be able to detect fuel dumps because they wouldn't have a population signature (just like yours don't) and it would be an performance overhead for NPRs to manage fuel for all ships and work out where to put fuel dumps (plus the time investment for me to write and test the code). As a player, your choices don't really change very much because NPRs are using fuel. If I spend my (currently limited) time adding features such as NPR carriers instead, they will add much more interest and choices to the game. Because of time constraints, I have to look at what time investment would produce the most fun additions to game play.

Currently NPRs only produce carriers. I might add a CV base at some point to make planetary assaults a little more interesting

[Ixeziel]

So with the NPR carriers, would I be correct in assuming if you manage to board one that still has fighters in it's hangers you would also gain control of the fighters in the hangers.