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I was wondering if something could be done on how exploration ships explore. As it is now if I set multiple ships to explore a sector or even auto. 1 is soon following the other, being off by only a jump. which is a little annoying, as I find myself manually setting explore orders. This is especially true if 2 or more exploration ships are finished at the same time and same base, and just auto explore.

A way to overcome this could be. If the ship encounters a planet already explored they would choose to go to the 2nd closest unexplored star system. either in sector or galaxy(for auto). an exception to the rule would be sector explore, if there is 2nd closest system, then it would default to the closest system.

Also if there could be an option for a sensor warning on monsters and enemy ships. this would be for monsters/ships inside proximity sensor range, for monsters/ships and long range sensor range for enemy ships.

This would allow us to cancel exploration orders, if ships enter a system with monsters in them,

/Deldk

Agreed the first behaviour is pretty annoying but also I imagine pretty low priority.  I know it's a workaround (and I hate workarounds as it indicates something is broke) is simply to manually send your exploration ship to the destination and then set it on auto.
 
Regarding your second point there are warnings actually.  Though what I think could offer an improvement is to be able to designate systems off-limits because the AI quickly forgets there ever was a threat there.

Hi Deldk,

Even when they start out going to the same system on auto, they will split up eventually and spread out without any player intervention. When within the same system, they should explore different areas to speed up the exploration of that system.

Regards,

- Erik

they do split up eventually,
but still they tend to go in a similar direction.
had 6 explorers and they all went "west" before rerouting.

simple solution would be, that they "reserve" their next 5 destinations
so that other explorers have to choose another route

ORIGINAL: Joram

Regarding your second point there are warnings actually.  Though what I think could offer an improvement is to be able to designate systems off-limits because the AI quickly forgets there ever was a threat there.

yes there are warning, but I have only experienced those when a ship/station is under attack from a monster. (cant say about enemy ships and long range scanners (LRS) haven't really had a war, where I had sensors in place. but assume the warning is also just when a ship/ base is attacked).
Now seeing as the basic LRS range is 450000 and basic proximity is 15000. and looking at a galaxy map showing the LRS' range I surmise that basic proximity range could cover a system. which would make an exploration ship, with with a basic proximity sensor able to detect enemies in a system. and from the sensor data received, know not fly near any hostile spots. As it is now an exploration ship will continue on course far to long, just to explore something, with hostiles near or around the target, and unless the enemies actually targets the exploration ship no warning will go off. If there was a warning on proximity instead of attack, then you could take adequate steps, instead of trying to decide on where to fly the ship so it might have a chance of escaping.

with regards on how the exploration ships explore, tried some non-intervention exploring, and true they did spit up. guess I am just to worried that, when I see 2-3 exploration ships in the same system and close to each other, and start thinking, ship C is following ship B, which is following ship A, on their exploration path. which I have seen quite a few times. although not with "auto" explore but more with explore sector exploration ships.

Ah, the old GalCivII problem ... [;)]

IMO the best solution to that would be if the AI just maintained a common list of explorable locations and every explorer would just pick the next unassigned location from there and mark it as assigned. Of course then the AI must keep track of explorers not fulfilling their assignment because of pirates / space monsters / enemy ships etc.

Yes the exploration in galciv2 was horrid! I had like 5 scout ships all following each other.