Total Noob needs help on moving ships and fleets

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Total Noob needs help on moving ships and fleets

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Total Noob needs help on moving ships and fleets - 10/2/2014 2:53:57 AM

Von Roon

Posts: 28
Joined: 1/6/2013
Status: offline

I'm sorry to trouble experienced guys with a very dumb question, but here it is. Assigning missions and destinations to fleets and ships just has me totally flummoxed. I've watched YT tutorials and tried to find threads here on the subject, but I guess my question is too basic.

When I select a ship, then right click, it says "Move Here." WTH is "here"? I move the cursor around on the map trying to find the location, but that cancels the click on the ship. I just don't get it. Likewise, I can't find where to assign various missions like "patrol this place" to ships or fleets.

Moving fleets is equally mysterious. I select the fleet, and the same thing happens with "move here." I try doing it with the starred (HQ) ship, and it just asks me if I want to move the ship to itself -- literally repeating the ship's name as a "move here" destination.

This has me totally mystified. I can find help topics that tell me what I can do with ships and fleets, but not click-by-click directions on how. Maybe it's an "intuition gap." I dunno. But I want to dive into this game real bad and this has me swearing and turning off the game after about 10 minutes. Any / all help would be appreciated.

Post #: 1

RE: Total Noob needs help on moving ships and fleets - 10/2/2014 5:00:25 AM

johanwanderer

Posts: 209
Joined: 6/28/2014
Status: offline

"Here" is literally the point of the cursor. If you select a ship (or fleet) and right click somewhere, it will generally try to go to that point. If you right-click on a system, it will go to that system. If you right-click on a planet, well, different types of ships will do different thing.

All kidding aside, use Ctrl-right click to get the context menu with more choices. If you select a ship and Ctrl-right-click a system, for example, it will give you options to move, attack, patrols, etc. various objects in that system.

Also, you might have to zoom out a bit, that way you can keep both the origin and the destination in the same view, no scrolling required.

(in reply to Von Roon)

Post #: 2

RE: Total Noob needs help on moving ships and fleets - 10/2/2014 10:13:32 AM

Bingeling

Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010
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Control right click is indeed your friend in this game. With a ship/fleet selected, control right clicking a system usually allows you to order the move/attack on any station in that system. For me it is easier to move around if zoomed out quite a bit (enough to see a few sectors).

If you have a very specific idea of where to move a ship/fleet and it is far away, you can.

1: Select the ship/fleet
2: Do the necessary clicks to locate your destination.
3: Use the "previous" button above the selection panel (or some key combo), to scroll back through your previous selected items to get hold of the ship/fleet again.
4: Right click, or control right click on the target to order the fleet do do something with it. Or in case it is a point in space, select "move here" when ctrl-right-clicking.

(in reply to johanwanderer)

Post #: 3

RE: Total Noob needs help on moving ships and fleets - 10/3/2014 3:35:45 AM

Von Roon

Posts: 28
Joined: 1/6/2013
Status: offline

Thanks guys. It works for ships. I have a military ship escorting a construction ship! Very nice.

But when I select the fleet, and right click, it will only let me move the fleet to one of the ships in the fleet. Same with Ctrl right click. It says something like "Move to Bushir 001," where Bushir OO1 is the fleet's lead ship. Won't let me move the fleet or assign a mission to it other than refuel or refit. Can I trouble you for a bit more help? THanks

(in reply to Bingeling)

Post #: 4

RE: Total Noob needs help on moving ships and fleets - 10/3/2014 4:07:39 AM

johanwanderer

Posts: 209
Joined: 6/28/2014
Status: offline

What are you trying to do with a fleet (make sure you select the fleet and not the ship, try hitting the "F" or shift-F key a few times)? To me, there are only a few things I do with fleet:

Move it to somewhere. To do that, select the fleet, and right click where I want it to go.
Refuel and/or repair. You already go that part.
Attack. Either right click on the target, or Ctrl-right click (on the target) and choose attack.

Make sure you Ctrl-right click on the target you want to apply the action to. To move / patrol / attack a planet, for example, Ctrl-right-click on said planet.

(in reply to Von Roon)

Post #: 5

RE: Total Noob needs help on moving ships and fleets - 10/3/2014 4:16:30 AM

Von Roon

Posts: 28
Joined: 1/6/2013
Status: offline

Thanks,

I figured on putting different types of ships into "battlegroups" a/k/a fleets and then assigning them to pirate-ridden systems.

(in reply to johanwanderer)

Post #: 6

RE: Total Noob needs help on moving ships and fleets - 10/3/2014 2:20:30 PM

Bingeling

Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010
Status: offline

I am not sure if you solved the last issue or not, and I don't quite understand what it is :)

There are instances where fleet members are away from the leader, they will then move to the leader if they got no order. I don't think they show the "move to 'leader'" order, though, it ought to be a coordinate.

The only way I can see you make the fleet move to the leader like that, is if you right click the leader with the fleet selected. Move orders (and most other orders) are targeted to the point where you click. There is no difference in ordering a single ship or a fleet around, apart from a fleet being multiple ships. Just make sure that the fleet is selected. If you have selected a fleet member, you should be able to click the fleet name (or similar) in the selection panel to select the fleet instead.

(in reply to Von Roon)

Post #: 7

RE: Total Noob needs help on moving ships and fleets - 10/4/2014 6:02:46 AM

Von Roon

Posts: 28
Joined: 1/6/2013
Status: offline

This is pretty frustrating. Sorry to be so dense about this. So far, what I think I need to do is
1) Identify some place I want to move a ship. Write it down on scrap paper.
2) Zoom out until I can see the Empire. Write down on scrap paper the names of the nearest systems.
3). Call up the Ship panel and pray there's a ship of the kind I want to move in one of the nearest systems I wrote down.
3A). If not, repeat steps 1 & 2 with more/different systems.
4). Click go to ship. (If I click select ship, nothing happens except the ship appears in the lower-left hand window. Nothing can be done from the list or the lower left-hand window. So I click go to ship, then select it by left clicking.
5). Gingerly zoom out, and keep on zooming out, until I can see an area corresponding to my handwritten map and notes. Be careful when clicking, because any misstep loses the selected ship.
6). Gingerly zoom in, and keep centering the target system while zooming in, watching out for missteps (like clicking anywhere but on the zoom buttons) until the location appears in my screen.
7). Right click on the destination. If I did it right, a "move here" or similar menu will appear. If I lost the selection, then it's repeat steps 4-7 again.

This is, in my humble opinion, a rather silly way to run a game. I don't understand why I can't select destinations from a drop-down list and why I have to move around this way. On a big empire this must take forever. Am I really doing this right? Thanks again for all your help.

(in reply to Bingeling)

Post #: 8

RE: Total Noob needs help on moving ships and fleets - 10/4/2014 1:43:55 PM

Bingeling

Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010
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Can you give an example of a problem, it is a hard to guess.

In general I attack from control-right clicks on target systems.
I colonize from the left side menu.
I queue mines to be built from the expansion planner, or from the buttons below a selected planet if browsing the map and finding stuff.
I move the same way that I attack, control right click on the system, and select the correct station/colony.

Sometimes I want to "escort" a colony ship. Which basically means waiting at the destination. Since parking at the planet/moon is clunky (as there is no station there), I send defenders to the system (star) instead (control right click on system).

Sometimes I want to explore a coordinate obtained in some way from pirates. I select my ship, and zoom into the target to get close enough to "move here". If it is a ship waiting to be picked up, moving to the center of the target should grab any ship that is there.

Resupply ships are a special case. I need to click on a (good) fuel source to order it to deploy (by control right click). I select the resupply ship. Then I use the galaxy map to find the fuel source, and "go to" from there. I make sure to be zoomed in. I use the "back arrow" above the selection panel to get hold of the resupply ship again, so that I can tell it to deploy.

If you struggle with basic interface navigation, it is probably not a good idea to run a giant empire :)

(in reply to Von Roon)

Post #: 9

RE: Total Noob needs help on moving ships and fleets - 10/4/2014 4:22:19 PM

Von Roon

Posts: 28
Joined: 1/6/2013
Status: offline

Bingeling,

I appreciate your help. The steps I wrote out pretty much apply to moving any ship anywhere for any reason. I guess my basic problem is that I can't get this game to do anything. The UI is a total mystery to me. I click and click and right click and left click and navigate around using the panes and windows and nothing happens. Actually getting a ship do so something is a total mystery -- I seem to do the same things once and the ship ends up assigned to a mission. I do the same things again with the next ship and nothing happens. I still can only get fleets to move to themselves. I try assigning a fleet to move to a construction base and there's small grey icons that don't do anything hovering over the base, I right click and it asks me if I want the fleet to move to itself again. I guess my basic problem is that all the resources I find tell me what can be done, but not how to ^$*^(%(^# do it on the screen with a mouse. I know I can move fleets here and ships there and assign these missions. What I have no idea about is how, mechanically, that gets done with a mouse, keyboard, and monitor. Sorry, perhaps this game just isn't for me.

(in reply to Bingeling)

Post #: 10

RE: Total Noob needs help on moving ships and fleets - 10/4/2014 5:33:13 PM

Bingeling

Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010
Status: offline

Left click to select stuff. Right click to do stuff. There is no mystery to it. Control right click to specify what to do (it defaults to moving, unless you click a possible attack target). Where you right click is the key, don't right click on your own stuff unless you want to move to it (or certain other stuff like repair it).

(in reply to Von Roon)

Post #: 11

RE: Total Noob needs help on moving ships and fleets - 10/4/2014 6:08:02 PM

Blackanvil

Posts: 7
Joined: 8/10/2014
Status: offline

Von, are you playing on a laptop? from how you have described your problems that's what it sounds like to me. I could see how trying to move around with the touch pad would make things harder. If that's the case a simple 3 button mouse would very helpful otherwise you should look harder at the various keyboard shortcuts. Assign all your fleets to a shortcut then you will be able to select them from anywhere on the map and issue orders. There are also shortcuts for cycling thru idle ships and fleets that would work the same way. Just remember the ship or fleet that is displayed in the lower left hand pane is the one that will receive the orders. Hope you get it straightened out.

(in reply to Bingeling)

Post #: 12

RE: Total Noob needs help on moving ships and fleets - 10/4/2014 6:54:58 PM

johanwanderer

Posts: 209
Joined: 6/28/2014
Status: offline

Also, if you happen to lose the slection of a ship, just use the left back arrow (top most icon on the lower-left set of controls) and it will go back to the previously selected ship / ships / fleet.

(in reply to Blackanvil)

Post #: 13

RE: Total Noob needs help on moving ships and fleets - 11/1/2014 12:40:15 PM

Von Roon

Posts: 28
Joined: 1/6/2013
Status: offline

Thanks, guys. I stuck with it, tried the tips here, and can move around much better.

(in reply to Von Roon)

Post #: 14