Matrix Games Forums

Hey,

I've played the game quite a few hours now and understand most of the mechanics behind the game (thanks to the forums and little to no automation!). I still had a few questions (or possible bugs?) that I was wondering if anyone knew the answer to. Feel free to use this as a general discussion thread around the topics/issues also. These are while playing with Extended AI mod if that makes a difference.

1. Smuggling (as pirate) - its still a bit confusing as to when my civilian [smuggler] ships are eligible for smuggling missions. I have some 80+ freighters with only a single pirate base and a handful of mining bases, yet my smugglers seem to be tied up doing internal goods transport (in pathetic quantities) instead of performing my accepted missions. Any ideas?

2. Pirate mining income - what is this? any clues on calculation? Is this like trade income from independents going to my mines and purchasing directly?

3. Smuggler hyperspeed upgrades (and retrofit) - After researching a existing hyperspeed component upgrade, all non state vessels still are hyper jumping at the slower original component speed (not the recently researched faster speed for the same component). Is this just a bug or is there something I need to do? also is there any way to tell smugglers to retrofit (given that pirates purchase the ships directly).

4. Detials on race characteristics - does anyone have any additional info on race characteristics from an economy perspective? eg, I've read cautious means races stock additional items in facilities. Is this just random junk in anticipation of retrofit, or does this mean extra weapons/def? Does this happen from the constructor (carries extra when building), or does this tie up all my transports delivering 50 quantity of everything to a new mine?


Thanks!

I don't know about the pirate stuff.

3. Check the hyperspace speed in the design. Is the speed in the movement area the same as the speed listed on the component? If not, you probably lack power. Excess power needs to match the full power drain of the hyperdrive to get full speeds. This has often been the issue for AI designed civilian ships (only one reactor, needs two until more advanced reactor tech).

4. I don't think any race stuff apart from the obvious has effect on the economy. "Cautious" should be for instance more defensive bases around top colonies. It could affect resource stores, but I would be surprised if it did. Constructors have a fixed amount added when building mines in an attempt to help with retrofits.

If cautious races have more weapon/defense on ships, it is something set separately in their design templates. Not something taken care of during the game. It could influence AI fleet deployments, but that seems way too fancy for a game struggling enough with AI fleet management in general.

Ok I can answer #3 at least: For reasons unclear, all private sector ships are capped at a maximum speed of 25000, regardless of what kind of drives you install. This applies to everyone, too, AFAIK.

My theory on #2 is that freighter range is a factor in deciding if they will take a mission or not, since those target planets are often very far from you home base. Plus they need to be not doing something else as the time. This is one of the reasons why although all my freighters are the same size I design the three "sizes" by function: Small = speed, medium = range, large = cargo capacity. I've noticed that my "medium" range-based freighters are the ones that most often get sent on smuggling assignments.

I actually did some more digging in regards to #3. I tried with unmodded game also so that I could isolate the issue. Result is that it just seems to be a bug which pirate player ships will only use the base hyperspeed for the component, regardless of tech (even with enough reactor power). This is is pretty limiting to pirates focused on smuggling specifically. Its really easy to recreate.

Just start a new game, game edit to give yourself the hyperdrive tech, make some freighters and speed up the game to watch all your ships fly (automated makes this easier). Upgrade your existing hyperdrive component tech with editor (so no retrofit is required). Immediately you will see all your state ships (even if already in hyper travel) increase to the new speed. All smuggler/non-state ships will stay at the base speed for the component.

A few things to note
- Newly created ships (built after researching upgraded tech) still travel at the slower base speed also, so this is not the issue.
- This only affects pirate games. Empire freighters work normally (correctly) when I did this same situation playing as an empire.

** This issue is definitely something to do with only pirate ships which appear 'gray/neutral' but are still owned by you. Actually ALL components do not receive upgraded effect (shields, hyperdrive, weapons, cargo). You can see this by upgrading your shields for instance as a pirate. All state ships (and even private mines, but NOT smugglers), will instantly get the upgraded shield strength. All smugglers will stay at original. Newly created gray/smuggler ships also have the lower shield strength. I believe the game must be putting these smugglers as an independent type faction which is just somehow aligned to you, but doesnt necessarily share your research (only looks at components in ship). This is pretty limiting to a smuggler-focused pirate. Most ships will travel extremely slow to try to complete a smuggling mission, often having the offered mission end before they even arrive.**

As a separate, but likely related issue. smuggler/gray ships will never retrofit. You can try to tell them to do so through the ship grid/screen (f11), but nothing will happen, even when they are not on a mission. They also never will upgrade/retrofit on their own (tried with leaving it on for a couple hours at 4x).

How do you go about submitting these type of bug reports? they are clearly unintended issues with the pirate faction.

The best way to report would be.

1: Create a save game where you can easily demonstrate the issue. Researches done and a ship with single techs to easily see what is off would be my suggestion.
2: Upload that save game as explained in a sticky in the tech forum.
3: Post in the tech forum explaining what bugs, and how to see it in the supplied save game (and the name of the savegame, of course).

It is probably as easy as starting the game with minimal everything and max tech?