We just participated in the largest battle in our empire's history to date - roughly 300,000 tons of Precursor ships, plus STOs on the planet below against a roughly equal tonnage of my own ships.

Something I don't think I ever appreciated before was just how devastatingly quick beam combats can be. The design philosophy I've been following in this game is massed laser weapons - 10cm turrets for primarily anti-missile operations, then 12cm or 15cm for higher damage and more range. Everything with the capacitor technology needed to fire every 5 seconds.

Once our fleet got within beam range of the planet - close enough that everything I had could fire, but far enough away that the (50!) STOs were only hitting for 1 point of damage; missing often - the entire combat took less than three minutes. I know this, because about halfway through the fight, some of the damaged Precursors came after us - either because they had run out of missiles and were going to ram, or because they wanted to get within range of their mass drivers; I'm not sure. In any case, I knocked the engines out on one of them, and deployed assault troops mid-fight. That combat - which ticks every minute - only got a single round off before the shooting stopped.

Roughly 400,000 tons of combat ships (100% of their force, ~30% of mine) vaporized in minutes.

Quote from: vorpal+5 on April 22, 2024, 07:10:53 AM

An easy one for you veterans!

Is Fuel Production not in fact Fuel Productivity? This would change my priorities ...

Not sure what you mean.

The Fuel Production technology determines the base number of liters per year your race produces with a single Fuel Refinery installation or Sorium Harvester ship module.
Actual production of a given Fuel Refinery is modified by the Production bonus of Planet and Sector governors, as well as the Manufacturing Efficiency Modifier of the population.
Actual production of a given Sorium Harvester ship module is modified by the Mining bonus of the Ship commander and of the appertaining Naval Admin commanders.

Regardless of tech or bonuses, production requires one ton of sorium for every 2000 liters produced.

Uh oh... there goes my mind again.

So fuel creation on a PLANET is modified by personnel production bonuses and NOT personnel mining bonuses, but fuel on a SHIP is modified by personnel mining bonuses, but not personnel production bonuses?

...

I've been sabotaging my own fuel for so many playthroughs...

It's "Fleet Range." At the top level, you see the total fuel in your fleet and the distance of all move orders. However, the information that's missing is the overall range the fleet could travel. To find this out, you currently have to expand the ship tree and check the range of each individual ship.

Admittedly, one reason for this might be the ability to transfer fuel within the fleet. But without considering fuel transfer, the current interface requires constant checking of individual ships to get an idea of the fleet's range.

That line is solely for the fuel, therefore limited to the amount of fuel in the fleet. The way I understand it, the tab is for maintenance and logistical purposes, so at a glance, you are able to understand costs for MSP, fuel for the fleet to be operational, and other important information such as location and/or orders.

Having said that, perhaps the range could be implemented in the same way that speed works, including the smallest ship's range in the fleet itself, which I assume currently triggers the 50% (or any other) conditional order?

Perhaps, you can add this as suggestion on the https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13404.msg169562#new thread as I think we could benefit from something like that.

It seems that civilian ships will load colonists from colonies marked as sources even if there are no destinations available. This isn't a big deal normally, but it's somewhat annoying in empires with multiple species: colony ships will fill up with one species, and if they don't have a valid destination they won't be able to carry colonists of a different species. I think it would be better for civilian colony ships to only pick up colonists once they have a valid destination, like civilian freighters.

This is a great point.
Though perhaps the behavior should remain as it is now (loading colonists immediately, rather than waiting for a destination) if an empire only has one race.
As soon as an empire is home to two different races, the colony ships should wait to load until they know which race they will need to deliver.

It seems that civilian ships will load colonists from colonies marked as sources even if there are no destinations available. This isn't a big deal normally, but it's somewhat annoying in empires with multiple species: colony ships will fill up with one species, and if they don't have a valid destination they won't be able to carry colonists of a different species. I think it would be better for civilian colony ships to only pick up colonists once they have a valid destination, like civilian freighters.