ORIGINAL: martok
If I might ask some clarifying questions regarding the movement of resources, luxury goods, and whatnot:
1.) If these types of automated civilian ship movements are vulnerable to pirates, space monsters, and enemy empires, I can only hope/presume that we can employ naval forces for the purposes of classic "commerce protection", yes?
2.) If that is in fact the case, do these automated ship movements occur at regular times/intervals, thereby facilitating our ability to arrange military escorts for them?
3.) If the answer to #2 is also "yes", is there a function that will allow us to automate said escorts so that we don't have to manually assign them to civilian ships/convoys every time one sets out (from a colony, space port, etc.)?
1. Yes, there are Patrol and Escort missions for military ships. You can assign a ship to patrol a mining station or other base - it will then keep an eye out for any nearby threats and engage them. Escort missions mean that the ship travels with a mining ship, freighter, etc and likewise fends off any threats.
2. You have no control over the movement of your civilian freighters, they move in response to requests for goods, etc.
Nearly all of the dangers to freighters are at the endpoints of a trip, either at the origin or the destination. It's very difficult to intercept a ship while it is enroute. So the best strategy is to patrol those endpoints, e.g. your mining stations, colonies and space ports.
But escorting does make sense for other ship types, like mobile mining ships that seek out resources at a wide range of locations.
3. If you automate some of your military ships they will assign their own patrol and escort missions. As long as you maintain a decent number of military ships, they should generally keep your facilities covered, at least from smaller threats like pirates and space monsters.
My personal style of play is to have a large pool of smaller automated military ships that I leave to patrol/escort most of my stuff. I then organize the rest of my military into fleets which I use for larger missions like taking out pirate bases, or engaging enemy empires.
The overall effect of this play-style is that things don't become onerous, but you're still in control - you can manually direct any of your automated military ships at any time. You're also notified of any attacks and can quickly respond with the nearest available military ship.
