A few issues

[Joram]

I'm not sure if any or all of these are bugs so I'll just put this here and the mod can move as appropriate:

1) There seems to be a couple bugs when you tell your ships to refuel automatically. In one case, there was a neutral planet in the same system as an enemy of mine. I noticed my ships always wanted to go refuel there even though there was a planet of my own nearby (and in some cases the very same system). AI controlled ships went there which I missed but finally noticed it when I told some other ships to refuel. They jumped out of the system to the enemy one and promptly got demolished by the enemy fleet. Annoying. Perhaps there is some reason they couldn't refuel at the friendly base but at the least it has been suggested to be able to set 'avoid' on certain systems. The other refuelling issue is related in simply that they don't always seem to pick the closest point to refuel.

2) When I queue up a construction ship to build a base, almost all the time it jumps back to my home planet (even if others are closer) to refuel before continuing with the build. This is even with fuel almost 3/4 full. Even if nearly empty, I would want it to follow my instructions exactly rather than go back to base first.

3) I've noticed ships will NOT fire on enemy ships unless they are patrolling or sometimes when they are actively being fired upon. This is fine if you let the AI control your ships but if you want to control them, it can be frustrating seeing your ships being fired upon without a response. I believe I have seen this reported before but I didn't see it in my brief perusal so I'm reporting it again.

4) For monsters, I've noticed ships will not attack them until right on top of them. This is annoying because monsters (that I've encountered at least) have no range ability to why would a ship be dumb enough to put themselves in range of the monsters to fire. I realize this may be because the ship is 'stronger' than the monster and is firing at 'point blank' but the only way to fix this would be to have them fire at 'standoff' which will produce undesirable behaviour with non-monsters. Also, can you even change the behaviour after it's built?

5) I had a home planet and three small colonies. I wanted to queue up three colony ships to try to colonize three planets occupied by a minor faction. All three colony ships were trying to build at the same place which was ironically not only my smallest colony but not even the one closest to the minor factions so I could not figure out the rhyme or reason of why it did what it did. At the very least, the game should distribute the builds amongst my planets starting first with idle planets with the highest development where distance is the tie breaker. Then it can move down to the lower developed colonies to build.

6) The AI likes to park exploration ships at the edges of my systems. This is perfectly fine and somewhat cunning even. However, I have military ships on patrol in the system that do nothing but chew bubble gum and wave idly at the exploration ship. When an enemy ship like this is in a system, I'd like to see my patrolling ships actually patrol and chase it away. Same for other enemy non-combatants like mining ships and freighters. It is war after all.

[Joram]

7)  I kept trying to build a defensive base on a planet of mine.  Several times it seems to have disappeared.  I was at war and it could have been sabotaged I'm guessing but I not once saw a message telling me this.  I finally got one up by first building a space port and then a monitoring base and then finally could get the defensive base.

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: Joram 1) There seems to be a couple bugs when you tell your ships to refuel automatically. In one case, there was a neutral planet in the same system as an enemy of mine. I noticed my ships always wanted to go refuel there even though there was a planet of my own nearby (and in some cases the very same system). AI controlled ships went there which I missed but finally noticed it when I told some other ships to refuel. They jumped out of the system to the enemy one and promptly got demolished by the enemy fleet. Annoying. Perhaps there is some reason they couldn't refuel at the friendly base but at the least it has been suggested to be able to set 'avoid' on certain systems. The other refuelling issue is related in simply that they don't always seem to pick the closest point to refuel.

You're probably seeing a situation where the planet you wanted to refuel at didn't have enough fuel. When you say 'they jumped out of the system to the enemy one', do you mean they attempted to refuel at an enemy planet? Or an enemy fleet was present and intercepted them?

2) When I queue up a construction ship to build a base, almost all the time it jumps back to my home planet (even if others are closer) to refuel before continuing with the build. This is even with fuel almost 3/4 full. Even if nearly empty, I would want it to follow my instructions exactly rather than go back to base first.

The construction ship has to load the required resources for building the new base. They'll go to a nearby space port first to get these and then head off to the build location.

So don't send your construction ship to the build location directly - instead simply select the construction ship (where-ever it happens to be at that time, use the Y key to cycle through them) and then right-click the build location to initiate the construction mission (pick up resources from space port, travel to location, build base).

3) I've noticed ships will NOT fire on enemy ships unless they are patrolling or sometimes when they are actively being fired upon. This is fine if you let the AI control your ships but if you want to control them, it can be frustrating seeing your ships being fired upon without a response. I believe I have seen this reported before but I didn't see it in my brief perusal so I'm reporting it again.

We'll be looking at this for the upcoming patch.

4) For monsters, I've noticed ships will not attack them until right on top of them. This is annoying because monsters (that I've encountered at least) have no range ability to why would a ship be dumb enough to put themselves in range of the monsters to fire. I realize this may be because the ship is 'stronger' than the monster and is firing at 'point blank' but the only way to fix this would be to have them fire at 'standoff' which will produce undesirable behaviour with non-monsters. Also, can you even change the behaviour after it's built?

Thanks for that good point about ranged attack with monsters. We'll make an adjustment for that.

You can change battle tactics for all ships of a particular design in the Design screen - select new tactics and click Save for the design.

5) I had a home planet and three small colonies. I wanted to queue up three colony ships to try to colonize three planets occupied by a minor faction. All three colony ships were trying to build at the same place which was ironically not only my smallest colony but not even the one closest to the minor factions so I could not figure out the rhyme or reason of why it did what it did. At the very least, the game should distribute the builds amongst my planets starting first with idle planets with the highest development where distance is the tie breaker. Then it can move down to the lower developed colonies to build.

The planet the colony ships were building at may have been your only planet that had a race capable of colonizing your new target colonies. Some planet types can only be colonized by certain races. Or your other planets may have been busy building other things already.

6) The AI likes to park exploration ships at the edges of my systems. This is perfectly fine and somewhat cunning even. However, I have military ships on patrol in the system that do nothing but chew bubble gum and wave idly at the exploration ship. When an enemy ship like this is in a system, I'd like to see my patrolling ships actually patrol and chase it away. Same for other enemy non-combatants like mining ships and freighters. It is war after all.

Your military ships may not always spot the exploration ship, especially if it is far away. Your Proximity Sensor components determine how far away your ships pick up enemies.

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: Joram 7)  I kept trying to build a defensive base on a planet of mine.  Several times it seems to have disappeared.  I was at war and it could have been sabotaged I'm guessing but I not once saw a message telling me this.  I finally got one up by first building a space port and then a monitoring base and then finally could get the defensive base.

Hard to say what's happening without more info. Did you check the Messages screen for any messages about sabotage?

[Okim]

Did you build them by your constructor? In some cases you can miss the planet and its vicinity with constructor`s right click. If this happens your constructor will decide that you have ordered him to build the station in space not on orbit. Such stations will remain stationary and wont follow the planet.

I find it a very good way to construct bases by selecting planets and right-clicking on space at some distance from it. They will still travel with planet, but provide a wider coverage area and sometimes even engage enemies right after they jump in making it easier to hunt troop carriers and other nasty things before they reach the planet.

[Joram]

First, thank you very much for going over each point, I do appreciate it.

ORIGINAL: elliotg

ORIGINAL: Joram 1) There seems to be a couple bugs when you tell your ships to refuel automatically. In one case, there was a neutral planet in the same system as an enemy of mine. I noticed my ships always wanted to go refuel there even though there was a planet of my own nearby (and in some cases the very same system). AI controlled ships went there which I missed but finally noticed it when I told some other ships to refuel. They jumped out of the system to the enemy one and promptly got demolished by the enemy fleet. Annoying. Perhaps there is some reason they couldn't refuel at the friendly base but at the least it has been suggested to be able to set 'avoid' on certain systems. The other refuelling issue is related in simply that they don't always seem to pick the closest point to refuel.

You're probably seeing a situation where the planet you wanted to refuel at didn't have enough fuel. When you say 'they jumped out of the system to the enemy one', do you mean they attempted to refuel at an enemy planet? Or an enemy fleet was present and intercepted them?

a) Ok, I didn't realize planets had an actual fuel supply as well. It makes sense but ss this indicated somewhere?

b) The system they jumped into was for all intents and purposes an enemy system. However, there happened to be a neutral planet from a different race in that system as well. My ships, low on fuel would jump in one by one and get demolished by the enemy trying to refuel at the neutral planet.

ORIGINAL: elliotg

ORIGINAL: Joram 2) When I queue up a construction ship to build a base, almost all the time it jumps back to my home planet (even if others are closer) to refuel before continuing with the build. This is even with fuel almost 3/4 full. Even if nearly empty, I would want it to follow my instructions exactly rather than go back to base first.

The construction ship has to load the required resources for building the new base. They'll go to a nearby space port first to get these and then head off to the build location.

So don't send your construction ship to the build location directly - instead simply select the construction ship (where-ever it happens to be at that time, use the Y key to cycle through them) and then right-click the build location to initiate the construction mission (pick up resources from space port, travel to location, build base).

Ok, that makes perfect sense. Though I read the manual from head to toe, I don't recall seeing anything like this in it! I'm assuming I would be able to see this cargo from the ships screen but it would be particularly useful in this case to be able to get to the cargo bay from the map as well. I may not be able to use the info specifically but it would add flavor and help me understand if the ship had a lot of supplies on it or not.

ORIGINAL: elliotg

ORIGINAL: Joram 3) I've noticed ships will NOT fire on enemy ships unless they are patrolling or sometimes when they are actively being fired upon. This is fine if you let the AI control your ships but if you want to control them, it can be frustrating seeing your ships being fired upon without a response. I believe I have seen this reported before but I didn't see it in my brief perusal so I'm reporting it again.

We'll be looking at this for the upcoming patch.

Excellent, thank you.

ORIGINAL: elliotg

ORIGINAL: Joram 4) For monsters, I've noticed ships will not attack them until right on top of them. This is annoying because monsters (that I've encountered at least) have no range ability to why would a ship be dumb enough to put themselves in range of the monsters to fire. I realize this may be because the ship is 'stronger' than the monster and is firing at 'point blank' but the only way to fix this would be to have them fire at 'standoff' which will produce undesirable behaviour with non-monsters. Also, can you even change the behaviour after it's built?

Thanks for that good point about ranged attack with monsters. We'll make an adjustment for that.

You can change battle tactics for all ships of a particular design in the Design screen - select new tactics and click Save for the design.

Thank you for the information.

ORIGINAL: elliotg

ORIGINAL: Joram 5) I had a home planet and three small colonies. I wanted to queue up three colony ships to try to colonize three planets occupied by a minor faction. All three colony ships were trying to build at the same place which was ironically not only my smallest colony but not even the one closest to the minor factions so I could not figure out the rhyme or reason of why it did what it did. At the very least, the game should distribute the builds amongst my planets starting first with idle planets with the highest development where distance is the tie breaker. Then it can move down to the lower developed colonies to build.

The planet the colony ships were building at may have been your only planet that had a race capable of colonizing your new target colonies. Some planet types can only be colonized by certain races. Or your other planets may have been busy building other things already.

I get your point but in this case neither was the case. The three planets I was trying to colonize were all worlds with independants on them so they were definitely colonizable by any colony I had (which were all my home race anyway at this point). Second, I am certain that none of the other planets had anything in their queue. I doublechecked this.

ORIGINAL: elliotg

ORIGINAL: Joram

6) The AI likes to park exploration ships at the edges of my systems. This is perfectly fine and somewhat cunning even. However, I have military ships on patrol in the system that do nothing but chew bubble gum and wave idly at the exploration ship. When an enemy ship like this is in a system, I'd like to see my patrolling ships actually patrol and chase it away. Same for other enemy non-combatants like mining ships and freighters. It is war after all.

Your military ships may not always spot the exploration ship, especially if it is far away. Your Proximity Sensor components determine how far away your ships pick up enemies.

Well someone can see it because they show up on my galaxy map. While I understand what you are saying, if someone can detect the ship, then that someone should be able to dispatch ships out to investigate regardless of the ships personal range. I realize that one issue is you don't want all your ships galavanting around the solar system for this but if there was a way to set a system patrol, then that would resolve that issue (a shortcut would be by setting the order to patrol the sun but just at a very large radius).

[Joram]

ORIGINAL: elliotg

ORIGINAL: Joram 7)  I kept trying to build a defensive base on a planet of mine.  Several times it seems to have disappeared.  I was at war and it could have been sabotaged I'm guessing but I not once saw a message telling me this.  I finally got one up by first building a space port and then a monitoring base and then finally could get the defensive base.

Hard to say what's happening without more info. Did you check the Messages screen for any messages about sabotage?

Unfortunately I don't have anymore info on this. If I notice it again I will try to get a save for you. This particular game ended as a loss but I was unable to continue (see the other bug report) and never had a save on it.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Joram a) Ok, I didn't realize planets had an actual fuel supply as well. It makes sense but ss this indicated somewhere?

Yes, just like with bases, you can double-click on a planet's name in the bottom left or look at them in the colony screen and check their "cargo" to see how much fuel and other resources they have.

Regards,

- Erik

[Wicky]

It would save hours of time if we could rightclick on multiple ships in the shipscreen (F7) to give them orders to retire/retrofit/scrap them.

And about the colony ships, I was about to report the same issue, too. I had 2 colonies with only humans, the 2nd one was just newly colonized. When I ordered 4 more colony ships in the expansion planner (click build col.ship and send here) they were all enqueued in the small planet which had least building speed, while the primary capital was idle.

[Joram]

ORIGINAL: Wicky

It would save hours of time if we could rightclick on multiple ships in the shipscreen (F7) to give them orders to retire/retrofit/scrap them.

And about the colony ships, I was about to report the same issue, too. I had 2 colonies with only humans, the 2nd one was just newly colonized. When I ordered 4 more colony ships in the expansion planner (click build col.ship and send here) they were all enqueued in the small planet which had least building speed, while the primary capital was idle.

Or simply rightclick them on the galaxy map for the same thing. You may be able to retire in mass that way but you can't refit in mass.

For colonies, you are seeing the same behaviour I describe. I did notice however that when an advisor suggests a new colony, it actually tells you where it will build it too. It would be nice though to be able to see where it's being built as well as where it is headed as with a large empire, it's hard to tell if it's optimal.