mother ark

[iseng]

mother ark acts as a base ship. basically a "moving colony". a fleet containing a mother ark can move beyond the border.

i've built some mother arks. but still can't move beyond my border.

is this a bug? what do i miss?

btw patched with 1.01.

thanks in advance.

---

EDIT:

never mind. it doesn't work. but i found the way around it.

[Andrew Loveridge]

ORIGINAL: iseng
it doesn't work. but i found the way around it.

Could you elaborate on this, so it can be fixed, and others can use the work around?

[iseng]

this is my understanding from reading the description of mother ark. the idea is to use mother ark as moving colony/base, thus allowing the fleets to travel beyond the border.

this does not work in the game. you need both "mother ark" and "precise location" technology.

move the fleet to the edge of the border (still within border). as soon as the fleet move, it will push the border. on next turn just move it a bit farther. so you can't jump straight to any location beyond the border. have to do it leapfrogging.

i think the problem is that the game just check the border and disregarding mother ark altogether. maybe modify it like so:

if (destination within border)
{
  ships selection dialog
  travel routine
}
else if (origin contains "mother ark")
{
  ships selection dialog

  if (selection contains "mother ark")
    travel routine
  else
    invalid travel // message popup "requires mother ark be selected to travel" might help players
}
else // beyond current border & no mother ark
{
  invalid travel
}

[Ntronium]

It serves as a base for movement in the same way as a colony. That is the border is generated based on the position of mother arks. As they move, the border moves. By extending the border, it  always all ships to use the extended area, not just the fleet containing the mother ark.

And if you don't have precise location, you will only be able to move to stars and wormholes as per normal

[Warspite3]

Last I tried, the mother arks were working as they were supposed to as Ntronium is describing.

[iseng]

Isn't the primary function of mother arks is deep space exploration? If can't reach systems beyond borders, then it's pointless.

The "precise location" tech is just a workaround too.

The programming change is simple enough to accommodate this, as I pointed previously.

Anyway, my two cents.

[Ntronium]

The borders move with the mother ark, so it's not pointless. True if you want to move a long way beyond your borders you'll have to order it in several stages, but it takes several turns of movement to reach the border around it, so it's not that much trouble