Expansion planner sort by distance question?

[hammer58]

Ok guys,

I like to find places to build new mining stations by sorting by distance.

But my question is how does that distance work exactly?

Does it sort by distance from my home world?

Or does it sort by distance from any of my colonies?

I am trying to figure out how to locate mining locations near my outlying colonies.

I assume that if I mine needed resources near a remote colony that those resources will get picked up and delivered to the nearest colony, that being the one that is short on what I am mining.

However, I am concerned that the game just might pick up all resources from all mining stations and return them to the homeworld first then sort according to need and ship them back out to the remote colonies.

Can anyone clear this up for me on just how the private sector que works when moving resources around my empire.
Why does it so often seem much faster to just order the stuff I need from the pirates even when I have loads of excess sitting around at my planets not being used? Confused how this all works. I will say it right now the private sector in this game is not very efficient. My government handling is much more effective. (jib)

The more I dig into this game the more questions it raises.

[Bingeling]

Very good questions. They triggered me to test things myself.

Distance: Opening a mature game, and filtering on steel (those are plentiful), it appears clear that distance is from the closest colony. The top of the list are in colony systems all over the place.

If you are picky about where to build a mine (say you want one at the north part of your empire), using the galaxy map showing known resources can be a good solution. For caslon/hydrogen it also works to click on star systems looking for the correct resource symbol, then sample the likely gas giants.

I peek around in the game, watching a mining system. Where are freighters exiting the system heading? They all seem to be heading towards the same spaceport. A good tip if you replicate this test, is to select the spaceport the first few head for, enable civilian travel vectors, and will know that all the red ones are for ships that will deliver at that spaceport. More importantly, a grey vector to and from your mining system will reveal those with other targets.

From my test it is pretty obvious that they move to closest colony or closest spaceport. The reason why I am note sure which it is, is that all my colonies got a spaceport in this game. An interesting point was one system with 2 colonies, for brief moments the destination of goods from a mining system switched to the other one, as it was closest for a short time.

It is as easy as finding a mining system on the map. Eye-balling the closest colon/spaceport. Select it with travel vectors on, and see all vectors in and out of that mining system turning red.

Se the image below. That mystery grey one? It is working for one of the mines in the system, bringing 25 hydrogen. The station got 0, and seems to want 25 if empty.

[hammer58]

Hmm, Well my remote colonies do not have space ports. And I am not getting frieghters to unload at them as (the nearest colony). The game must choose the nearest space port as a first option to unload at. So the stuff piles up there and not where I need it. Now for the million dollar question; How do I get the private sector to prioritize that load I need and move it to where I want it? Answer I don't!  Added[After reviewing this a bit more I am not sure if this behavior is because they are out of fuel or not. I will have to recheck my work]

Which begs another question how to optimize your frieghters designs for fuel vs frieght depends on the size and expanse of your empire and your fuel source availability.

I wonder how it orders priority in a que?

If I have lots of mining stations that need to be emptied, and I have lots of remote colonies that need strategic goods for building, and I have stuck building ques, and I have lots of colonies that need luxury items and I have lots of everything I need at my home world but it is far away.
Some of what I need is piling up at semi remote space ports sort of near the remote colonies. Does the game work first come first served or does it prioritize based upon some (unknown criteria)? In my experience so far I can order what I need from pirates and get it much faster than I can get it if I build a mining station in the same system and mine that item myself. Because most often it leaves the system anyway goes somewhere nearby at a space port and sits there for some long length of time before it moves back to my remote non space ported colony.

I have discovered some of this by tracking myself since I wrote the first question. But on occasion stuff does get moved in the same system from a mining base to a new colony without a space port. So far I do not understand why or what the parameters are that makes that happen that way. I wish I did it would make planning an empire easier.

[Bingeling]

I have not seen much studies about the way of freighters apart form old complaints of them not being very bright. Also, the "red arrows" feature has made this much easier, and the freighter logic has changed in Shadows.

So this is a point where I think it is possible to learn stuff by paying attention, and where good answers are not easily found on this forum.

As for expansion, my general rule is: Try to stay reasonably compact. And if 2 spaceports are not getting built due to lacking resources, don't order more until they are done.

[hammer58]

Yea and there are so many parameters that can effect the way of the frieghter. So one has to be very diligent when undertaking a study of them.
Things such as being interupted by an attack, changes where they are going. And running out of fuel triggers a change in destination but not all the time only when a fuel source is in range. Then I am not sure if they continue on their mission after refueling or move on to the next mission in queue.

I do remember reading in the manual that one has to protect the frieghters lest they stray and become much less efficient at their job.
I suppose this is what happens when they get attacked and or run out of fuel their missions get dropped and possibly go to the bottom of the queue.
So one has to wait then for all the items in the queue to be dealt with before they get back around to servicing that particular item you are waiting for.

Thanks for your help. I will strive to further my understanding of the way of the frieghter.

[invaderzim]

I've been wondering about this myself actually. I would be better if it was the distance from a selected object. That would allow you to focus easily on resources in systems you have colonized before moving further.

[Bingeling]

I agree that it would be better. If the empire is large, and you try to find a few good "common" strategic sources in your new area, it would make it easier to find the good ones.

With lots of colonies, filtering the planner for steel, gold, and friends gets very noise with poor nodes in places of no interest.

[hammer58]

Oh that would be so nice if it sorted by distance from a selected object! Lets make that a request for the next patch!

[invaderzim]

Speaking of the next patch, it would be great if you could select multiple items with shift or control clicking and queue them all for construction at the same time. This would be helpful in late game where you have tons of cash but are short on certain resources and just want to quickly build up all the resources points in one system.

The F11 ship menu lets you sort the list by class, grab a bunch of ships and put them in a fleet in seconds. It would be great if you could do the same thing when queuing resources up.

[Plant]

Yes, and same with garrisoning troops and colonising.