Advanced Survey Ship Designs and Orders?

[Borealis4x (OP)]

I'm interested in creating and automating survey vessels that are more advanced than just 'go here, survey, then refuel'. Specifically, I'd like to create a jump-capable survey 'mothership' that sends out smaller boats with survey sensors and ground teams while the mothership surveys jump points and I want this to be done more or less automatically.

Ideally, once all the orders are set up I'd just have to order the mothership to jump to an unexplored system and then wait for it to finish all its orbital and ground surveillance and refuel at the nearest dock. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to either design nor order such a ship.

Alternatively, I heard survey probes were a thing. Perhaps instead of having a mothership I should just have a probe ship that launches missiles to all bodies and then drops a survey team if required. Although that's a big more boring IMO. 

Any advice?

[Pedroig]

You can do it with probes, fighters, or ships.  All require different types of micro, and as it stands currently can not be accomplished fully automated as you are describing...

[Borealis4x (OP)]

You can do it with probes, fighters, or ships.  All require different types of micro, and as it stands currently can not be accomplished fully automated as you are describing...

That's unfortunate. A game as complex as Aurora needs to have powerful automation tools in order to keep the player sane IMO. Hopefully they are improved. Stuff like having an unlimited amount of standing and conditional orders and being able to copy and label said orders would be great.

[Father Tim]

You can do it with probes, fighters, or ships.  All require different types of micro, and as it stands currently can not be accomplished fully automated as you are describing...

That's unfortunate. A game as complex as Aurora needs to have powerful automation tools in order to keep the player sane IMO. Hopefully they are improved. Stuff like having an unlimited amount of standing and conditional orders and being able to copy and label said orders would be great.

I think it would be terrible.  People are already complaining that their survey ship was destroyed and they didn't notice, or that their ships found six anomalies and they didn't notice, or that an entire alien civilization declared war on them due to incursions into their home system, and they didn't notice.

I hope you see the pattern.  "Set it and forget it" surveying causes players to miss large portions of the game, and then some of those players agitate for changes that would make the game less fun for me.  The easier we make it for players to ignore survey ships and their results, the more likely Aurora gets worse for me.

[SpikeTheHobbitMage]

You can do it with probes, fighters, or ships.  All require different types of micro, and as it stands currently can not be accomplished fully automated as you are describing...

That's unfortunate. A game as complex as Aurora needs to have powerful automation tools in order to keep the player sane IMO. Hopefully they are improved. Stuff like having an unlimited amount of standing and conditional orders and being able to copy and label said orders would be great.

I think it would be terrible.  People are already complaining that their survey ship was destroyed and they didn't notice, or that their ships found six anomalies and they didn't notice, or that an entire alien civilization declared war on them due to incursions into their home system, and they didn't notice.

I hope you see the pattern.  "Set it and forget it" surveying causes players to miss large portions of the game, and then some of those players agitate for changes that would make the game less fun for me.  The easier we make it for players to ignore survey ships and their results, the more likely Aurora gets worse for me.

Those problems are entirely due to high micromanagement requirements and interrupt fatigue.  Too many things require simultaneous detailed attention, distracting the player, and important events get buried in message spam.  Good automation would help with the former while creating opportunities for better message filtering so important events get noticed.

[Borealis4x (OP)]

You can do it with probes, fighters, or ships.  All require different types of micro, and as it stands currently can not be accomplished fully automated as you are describing...

That's unfortunate. A game as complex as Aurora needs to have powerful automation tools in order to keep the player sane IMO. Hopefully they are improved. Stuff like having an unlimited amount of standing and conditional orders and being able to copy and label said orders would be great.

I think it would be terrible.  People are already complaining that their survey ship was destroyed and they didn't notice, or that their ships found six anomalies and they didn't notice, or that an entire alien civilization declared war on them due to incursions into their home system, and they didn't notice.

I hope you see the pattern.  "Set it and forget it" surveying causes players to miss large portions of the game, and then some of those players agitate for changes that would make the game less fun for me.  The easier we make it for players to ignore survey ships and their results, the more likely Aurora gets worse for me.

This sounds more like the game isn't doing enough to notify the player of what is happening. I find it hard to believe just that a ship was destroyed without the player noticing, let alone an empire declaring war on them. If people are actually missing this information I think the game is the most likely culprit.

[Father Tim]

This sounds more like the game isn't doing enough to notify the player of what is happening. I find it hard to believe just that a ship was destroyed without the player noticing, let alone an empire declaring war on them. If people are actually missing this information I think the game is the most likely culprit.

In the example I quoted from, the player noticed the empire declaring war.  What they didn't notice was that the empire was there in the first place, and thus would probably be unhappy if the player's armed survey ship hovered over the empire's homeworld for several days.

[prophetical]

This sounds more like the game isn't doing enough to notify the player of what is happening.  I find it hard to believe just that a ship was destroyed without the player noticing, let alone an empire declaring war on them.  If people are actually missing this information I think the game is the most likely culprit.

In the example I quoted from, the player noticed the empire declaring war.   What they didn't notice was that the empire was there in the first place, and thus would probably be unhappy if the player's armed survey ship hovered over the empire's homeworld for several days.

I think the point is that this could be solved with either solution.  Better automation and notification tools would have prevented this, and less of those would also.  However, one results in far far more micro for the player.  Some people like that, and that is defensible, but it is not really accurate to say "more automation would results in more bad things happening".

[kks]

If you use single ships instead of a carrier based survey force, much of the process you describe can already be automated.

I often use larger survey vessels and the only thing one has to do manually is to send them to overhaul (every 5-10 years is what I aim for), once their deployment time is exceeded and to send ships through unexplored JPs. Also ground based survey, but that is something I rarely do to every suitable body (which there are only a few of).

I use the standing orders: "Survey location"/"Survey bodies" and "Go to System needing Grav/Geosurvey" with conditional orders Refuel, when fuel <30-50% and resupply, when MSP <20%.

A pair (geo and grav) of these ships surveys every system you have discovered. It doesn't need special player attention apart from hostile contact, overhaul once or twice an decade and manual orders(or help from a specialised fleet) to explore new jumppoints.

Some of my empires do this with special geo/grav vessels, other use general survey vessel which can easily switch roles if the demand for grav/geo surveys changes. Some empires use jumpcapable ships, other give the role of exploring JPs to stabilisation ships or jump tenders.