Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread: C# Edition

[nuclearslurpee]

Seems to be missing, sadly. A rather curious omission.

If you haven't actually explored any of the JPs, you can work around this by deleting the existing JPs and clicking the Create JP button that many times, as those new JPs will remain hidden until a resurvey is done.

[Steve Walmsley]

There is a 'No Grav Survey' button on the System View in my version, but it is possible I added it since v1.13.

[Blogaugis]

I've added some conventional systems, as suggested by nuclearslurpee.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12523.msg155095#msg155095

Hooray!
While we are at it, what other technologies (and installations, units) You folks think should be available (if not immediately, then at least with research) in a pre-TN start?
I am thinking that a starting army would be nice, something that can give a rough idea on how large formation a player should be initially aiming for. A very primitive STO installations, or stations with weapons could also be... interesting.
Oh and, give an option before start if you want to start with the said army, or pretend that it was some pacifistic (or some other reason) nation.
Though, we do have 'design ground forces' button before starting, right?

[Garfunkel]

We do and we shouldn't have STO's before TN-tech as that would be highly inconsistent.

[ISN]

Under what circumstances do missiles disappear? I just had several fleets squadron-jump into a system and launch missiles at some stationary targets. When the first few squadrons fired, their missiles appeared for one increment and then vanished. (They are far enough away that they could not have hit their targets yet -- and even if they had hit, I should be able to see that in the events log. The missiles are not staged, so this isn't shouldn't involve any of the issues with those.) But when the rest of the squadrons fired an increment or two later, the missiles behaved normally. I've been able to reproduce this behavior by reloading the save several times, but I haven't been able to figure out what makes some the missiles disappear and others not. Presumably there's some sort of bug here (unless there's some weird jump mechanic I'm unfamiliar with), but I can't figure out exactly what the issue is.

[TMaekler]

Under what circumstances do missiles disappear? I just had several fleets squadron-jump into a system and launch missiles at some stationary targets. When the first few squadrons fired, their missiles appeared for one increment and then vanished. (They are far enough away that they could not have hit their targets yet -- and even if they had hit, I should be able to see that in the events log. The missiles are not staged, so this isn't shouldn't involve any of the issues with those.) But when the rest of the squadrons fired an increment or two later, the missiles behaved normally. I've been able to reproduce this behavior by reloading the save several times, but I haven't been able to figure out what makes some the missiles disappear and others not. Presumably there's some sort of bug here (unless there's some weird jump mechanic I'm unfamiliar with), but I can't figure out exactly what the issue is.

Sounds like something for the bug section, DB included for Steve to reproduce... .

[kilo]

Questions about ground forces:

1. When you have a ship in orbit above a colony, which has cargo handling capabilities, you can unload ground units to the ground from troop transport bays. How do you do that when you have a ship without a transport bay? You have to load them to a ship with a cargo bay and then transfer them to the ground to replace losses, right?
2. What happens when you scrap a ship with ground forces on it? Do they get recovered like ammunition or are they lost?
3. Can you accelerate the troop transfer between ships by adding cargo handling systems? If yes, which ship requires them, the donating or the receiving one?

I know it is lazy to ask these questions, but I am at a point in my campaign at which I cannot easily test it. And transferring troops around was quite intensive when it comes to clicks. 

[nuclearslurpee]

1. When you have a ship in orbit above a colony, which has cargo handling capabilities, you can unload ground units to the ground from troop transport bays. How do you do that when you have a ship without a transport bay? You have to load them to a ship with a cargo bay and then transfer them to the ground to replace losses, right?

You can only transport ground units with troop transport bays.

2. What happens when you scrap a ship with ground forces on it? Do they get recovered like ammunition or are they lost?

I'm not certain, but offhand I believe the troops are transferred to the colony, same as ordnance, fuel, crews, etc.

3. Can you accelerate the troop transfer between ships by adding cargo handling systems? If yes, which ship requires them, the donating or the receiving one?

Cargo shuttle bays are always applied to the ship from which goods are being transferred. This applies for cargo, colonists, troops, as well as fuel and ordnance in the case of those specialized transfer systems.

[kilo]

That makes getting troops out of captured hulls unnecessary complicated. I will make the suggestion that Steve changes the order from 'transfer ground units from troop bay' to 'transfer ground units from ship' or whatever it is called right now. I will look it up how it is called right now though to not look completely stupid. I do not see a reason, why it should require a transport bay to do this.

[ArcWolf]

That makes getting troops out of captured hulls unnecessary complicated. I will make the suggestion that Steve changes the order from 'transfer ground units from troop bay' to 'transfer ground units from ship' or whatever it is called right now. I will look it up how it is called right now though to not look completely stupid. I do not see a reason, why it should require a transport bay to do this.

I Think there is some confusion here. Troops can only be in a ship if it has a troop transport bay/ drop bay/ or boarding bay. Without one there can be no troops on the ship.

Now if a ship is designed without cargo shuttles, troops can be loaded form a spaceport but only unloaded at a spaceport (unless dropping with a troop transport drop bay).

[nuclearslurpee]

That makes getting troops out of captured hulls unnecessary complicated. I will make the suggestion that Steve changes the order from 'transfer ground units from troop bay' to 'transfer ground units from ship' or whatever it is called right now. I will look it up how it is called right now though to not look completely stupid. I do not see a reason, why it should require a transport bay to do this.

If you have troops on a captured ship, i.e., survivors of a boarding party, they can be extracted by the same ship that delivered them. There is a specific order to accomplish this. It might require a boarding-capable bay specifically, I don't know because I've not tried to do it any other way.

Otherwise if you have troops on a ship without a transport bay, I think it should still be possible to unload them at a colony. I'm not sure how this would happen outside of a boarding party, since if the transport bay was destroyed by battle damage the troops would have died.

[bankshot]

Lazy Mass Driver question:

I have a colony on Mars with three mass drivers.  This should have a capacity of 15K tons/year.  But every time I advance 5 days I get a 13 ton packet.  30 days/month, 12 days/year gives 13x6x12 = 936 tons/year.

Martian mines are producing 9K minerals/year and Mars is my collection point for commercial mines, I have 5 minerals over the reserve totaling 3K excess, so I should have enough minerals on hand to send full mass driver loads of 200ish tons. 

Or am I missing something?

[Froggiest1982]

Lazy Mass Driver question:

I have a colony on Mars with three mass drivers.  This should have a capacity of 15K tons/year.  But every time I advance 5 days I get a 13 ton packet.  30 days/month, 12 days/year gives 13x6x12 = 936 tons/year.

Martian mines are producing 9K minerals/year and Mars is my collection point for commercial mines, I have 5 minerals over the reserve totaling 3K excess, so I should have enough minerals on hand to send full mass driver loads of 200ish tons. 

Or am I missing something?

Could be a bug. Seems to me that for whatever reason you are vetting shipped only minerals for the quantity of 1 mass driver. Maybe it's not stacking due to a coding error?

[Garfunkel]

What is your production cycle length and what increment lengths did you use? Mass driver packet reporting is notoriously fickle and the information you get per increment might not be correct at all, especially if you look at one day only and extrapolate from there.

[bankshot]

Standard 5 day, production cycle, 5 day increments, automatic sub-pulse.  I've attached the database if you'd like to have a look at my setup.  I'm not extrapolating, just watching the minerals accumulate - I've had to periodically task a freighter to scoop up minerals for delivery.

I stepped through two 5 day cycles using 8 hour increments, and the mass driver is now flinging 5 ton packets, so it looks like a bug.  Can anyone else confirm the behavior on your game before I submit it?

Civilian mass drivers work normally but so far none of them are anywhere near 5K tons/year production.