Build version: v1.3.4.3.1 Beta (started with v1.3.3.6) + Expansion and all DLCs
Severity: Medium
Annoyance factor: Medium-High
Confusion for new players: High
Saved game:
By default, I want my automated explorers to retrofit to newer designs when they're available. But for those that are far away from my territory, I want a different behavior: I just want them to continue to explore / scout, while refueling the the nearest refueling point as necessary, without having to come back home to retrofit.
To this end, I thought that setting the retrofit path to "None" for those far away explorers would be a solution. According to the UI, it should work: it lets you change the retrofit path of individual existing ships and set it to none (by clicking on its design in the selection panel). And that change is even kept after a reload of the game, confirming that the change was "accepted".
But it doesn't work: at one point, the ship still want to retrofit. It's as if the retrofit path set in the ship designer for that design (ie: not for that individual ship) is still the one taken into account.
Case in point from my current game, playing as the Wekkarus:
I have a small exploration ship design (EX-7 Ion Explorer), that is set, in the design, to retrofit to the "EX-7 Ion Explorer v2". One of my explorers using that design (Stellar Rover) is automated (auto-scout). And it's currently exploring the few still unexplored systems at the outer edge of the galaxy, far far away from my territory. Given that there are only a few unexplored systems left, I don't want it to retrofit. I want it to continue scouting, and stop only for refueling if necessary.
So I changed its retrofit path to none, by clicking on its design in the selection panel. But even after having done so, the ship still wants to go retrofit (the settings isn't honored by the game).
- Wants to retrofit no matter what.png (316.13 KiB) Viewed 249 times
To reproduce the problem:
- After loading the save, locate the Stellar Rover (using the search function)
- Let it scout the system where it's going
- Once it has finished (at around 2839.06.21), it will want to go retrofit at Karuse 2, even if its individual retrofit path is set to none.
If it IS a bug, then there's nothing to add, except that it should, of course, be corrected as soon as possible. But if it's WAD, then I'll add the following:
- In this case, it is, at a minimum, a UI bug. The UI shouldn't act as if it was possible to change the retrofit path, leaving the player with the impression that it did change it (bad UX).
- Conversely, I'll also say that, IMHO, the game SHOULD allow the player to change the retrofit path of individual ships. Because there are many situations that occur in which you want to do it for specific ships, without changing it for all the other ships using the same design (or without creating another design that uses the same hull, just to deal with that situation; or resorting to manually micro-manage those individual ships).
- Similarly to what I wrote in the other report I posted earlier today (see: https://forums.matrixgames.com/viewtopic.php?t=418679: What's the point of having a faster hyperdrives or more advanced reactors if bad retrofit management cause immense waste of time ?