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Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: September 22, 2022, 05:55:49 AM »

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I have multiple cases where the grav survey has been completed before the geographical survey was, so now my science vessels won't return on their own to finish the geo survey and it's not until much later that I realized it, which leads me to basically considering that conditional to be more or less useless unless you have separate grav and geo survey ships.

This is why I recommend having a ship with both sensors and their standing orders to be "survey nearest system body" and "survey next system location." This way if a system has nothing but the 30 survey locations or hundreds of asteroids you will scan them all until there is literally nothing left to see and then give you a prompt saying there is no valid orders for them to follow prompting you to move them to the next place which I am sure you know. As for overhaul and refueling once done they will give the same prompt so you will need to manually send them back but there wont be any other micro other then the occasional auto route order or order to enter a unexplored jump point

There is also an option to 'Survey Next Three System Bodies or Locations', so a ship with both sensors will survey more efficiently.
Posted by: Conscript Gary
« on: September 21, 2022, 08:49:41 PM »

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a fleet-level checkbox as an additional step to make them respect those flags
Posted by: Xanithas
« on: September 21, 2022, 06:16:55 PM »

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I didn't think of using the "exclude alien controlled" because I thought it was a filtering option for you, not for the automated routing so *you* don't send your ships where you don't want?
No sir, as long as its correctly flagged on the galactic map your ships will ignore the system and will either route around it or ignore anything beyond it if they haven't to pass through. Huge plus for salvage ships if one of your ships get caught and survey ships if you get a peek of baddies and don't get caught. I am also fairly sure it wont give you the choice to auto route to the system as well when issuing orders but I would need to check on that
Posted by: CAPFlyer
« on: September 21, 2022, 05:38:56 PM »

Quote from: Xanithas link=topic=13111. msg162496#msg162496 date=1663787722
Quote
2) they may go to a system that I've provisionally made "off limits" due to hostiles or other alien races that maybe I don't want to piss off while I'm trying to improve relations with,
Your other concern about entering hazardous systems, in the orders window there is a check box to "Exclude alien controlled" which as long as you mark the system in question on the map as owned by another power (In the galactic map, click the planet and in the overview tab change the controlled race from the drop down menu) they wont ever auto-route though there.

I didn't think of using the "exclude alien controlled" because I thought it was a filtering option for you, not for the automated routing so *you* don't send your ships where you don't want?

Quote
Quote
I have multiple cases where the grav survey has been completed before the geographical survey was, so now my science vessels won't return on their own to finish the geo survey and it's not until much later that I realized it, which leads me to basically considering that conditional to be more or less useless unless you have separate grav and geo survey ships.
This is why I recommend having a ship with both sensors and their standing orders to be "survey nearest system body" and "survey next system location. " This way if a system has nothing but the 30 survey locations or hundreds of asteroids you will scan them all until there is literally nothing left to see and then give you a prompt saying there is no valid orders for them to follow prompting you to move them to the next place which I am sure you know.  As for overhaul and refueling once done they will give the same prompt so you will need to manually send them back but there wont be any other micro other then the occasional auto route order or order to enter a unexplored jump point

I always use the "Survey next 3 system Bodies or Locations", it does the same thing without needing 2 conditionals to get it and seems to be relatively fuel efficient.
Posted by: Xanithas
« on: September 21, 2022, 02:15:22 PM »

I don't think there is a way to set up orders to do what your asking for however I have some advice that might help:

Quote
2) they may go to a system that I've provisionally made "off limits" due to hostiles or other alien races that maybe I don't want to piss off while I'm trying to improve relations with,
Your other concern about entering hazardous systems, in the orders window there is a check box to "Exclude alien controlled" which as long as you mark the system in question on the map as owned by another power (In the galactic map, click the planet and in the overview tab change the controlled race from the drop down menu) they wont ever auto-route though there.

Quote
I have multiple cases where the grav survey has been completed before the geographical survey was, so now my science vessels won't return on their own to finish the geo survey and it's not until much later that I realized it, which leads me to basically considering that conditional to be more or less useless unless you have separate grav and geo survey ships.
This is why I recommend having a ship with both sensors and their standing orders to be "survey nearest system body" and "survey next system location." This way if a system has nothing but the 30 survey locations or hundreds of asteroids you will scan them all until there is literally nothing left to see and then give you a prompt saying there is no valid orders for them to follow prompting you to move them to the next place which I am sure you know. As for overhaul and refueling once done they will give the same prompt so you will need to manually send them back but there wont be any other micro other then the occasional auto route order or order to enter a unexplored jump point
Posted by: Garfunkel
« on: September 21, 2022, 11:41:48 AM »

As others mentioned, this is very much a self-inflicted wound. It really doesn't matter whether the survey ship goes back to the same system or if it's another ship that finishes the survey. Galaxy map tells you which systems require surveying as well as shows you where your fleets are. This makes it easy to send a survey ship out once you get the message that it has finished overhaul. There's no need to automate that process since it is a good time to review your survey progress as well as consider whether to explore new JP's or not.

Remember, Aurora doesn't reward you for surveying loads of systems that you are unable to exploit - rather, due to how the NPRs and spoilers work, surveying far ahead of your colonization efforts tends to punish you instead!
Posted by: CAPFlyer
« on: September 21, 2022, 09:14:52 AM »

Quote from: Rich. h link=topic=13111. msg162475#msg162475 date=1663742488
Two conditionals fix this, firstly set one up so when fuel is low they return to a colony to refuel, resupply, and overhaul (you may as well do this unless your design for some reason have a very long deployment time and short fuel time).
The second condition is whenever deployment time is exceeded to return to a colony and refuel, resupply, and overhaul again.
Unless your design has issues with the amount of msp on board or you have been very unlucky on maintenance checks then you should never need to do anything, at worst just keep an eye on maintenance failures.

Rich, I think you're missing the point here.   I use the automated orders to refuel and overhaul.   I don't have any issue with that.   This deals with what people's preferences/systems are for *after* those are done and you get the message that the fueling/overhaul is complete and they're ready to go back out.   The only way to have them "automated" return is 1 order - "go to system requiring grav survey".   However, I have 3 issues with this (personally) - 1) it means that they may not go back to the system they were last in, 2) they may go to a system that I've provisionally made "off limits" due to hostiles or other alien races that maybe I don't want to piss off while I'm trying to improve relations with, and 3) I have multiple cases where the grav survey has been completed before the geographical survey was, so now my science vessels won't return on their own to finish the geo survey and it's not until much later that I realized it, which leads me to basically considering that conditional to be more or less useless unless you have separate grav and geo survey ships.
Posted by: smoelf
« on: September 21, 2022, 06:07:12 AM »

It's been a long time since I gave up trying to send survey ships back to the system where they came from. I usually run with a handful of surveyors and whenever one is done with a regular overhaul or refuel, I use the galaxy map to reevaluate where it is most resonable to send them. The map shows which systems still haven't had all locations surveyed and where there are currently survey ships are work, so it is fairly easy to find a section or a chain where the unemployed survey ship can go. Some times this means that I might make a plan for survey progression and then forget about it when a survey ship is done with overhauling and send them somewhere else, but that's usually okay.
Posted by: Conscript Gary
« on: September 21, 2022, 05:18:29 AM »

I don't often expand rapidly enough for this to be a problem, but my solution would probably be to rename the fleet or command the ship is in when they're tasked to a new system. Or maybe by jump chain, if it hasn't branched yet. "Sirius Passage Survey Expedition" or somesuch.
Posted by: Rich.h
« on: September 21, 2022, 01:41:28 AM »

Two conditionals fix this, firstly set one up so when fuel is low they return to a colony to refuel, resupply, and overhaul (you may as well do this unless your design for some reason have a very long deployment time and short fuel time).
The second condition is whenever deployment time is exceeded to return to a colony and refuel, resupply, and overhaul again.
Unless your design has issues with the amount of msp on board or you have been very unlucky on maintenance checks then you should never need to do anything, at worst just keep an eye on maintenance failures.
Posted by: Snoman314
« on: September 20, 2022, 07:15:06 PM »

It makes no difference to me which survey ships survey which systems, i,e, if survey ship A is surveying in system A, and ship B in System B, and after they both come back for refit the automated orders send ship A to system B, and vice versa, I don't even notice to be honest.
Posted by: mike2R
« on: September 20, 2022, 05:06:53 PM »

I go the fully automated route, now the standing/conditional orders support it.  But another fairly recent change is that you can queue up orders after an overhaul - so if you're manually giving them orders to go back and overhaul, you could just tack on the orders to go out again to their current location.  It's really handy for things like resting during training (Overhaul, followed by Join Training Fleet) and just general organisation since you can tell returning ships to join the relevant reserve fleet after they overhaul.
Posted by: CAPFlyer
« on: September 20, 2022, 02:53:32 PM »

Kinda a generic question here -

How do you keep track of the progress of your survey ships?  What I mean by this, is when your ships have to go back for refuel and/or overhaul, right now the my way to get them back to the system they came from is to go into history, find out what system they were in, and then manually route them back there.   Anyone else have another system?  Is there an "automated" method that I've forgotten?  I know there's the standing order to "move to system that required gravitational survey" but I don't want them randomly going to another system, I want them to pick back up where they left off.

Let's hear it!