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feelotraveller -> Freighter pathing (1.7.0.7) (1/19/2012 9:21:15 AM)
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After playing 1.7.0.7 for a month I have to say, well done. [sm=Cool-049.gif] There's lots to love in Legends, new weapons, characters, racial victory conditions... OK enough buttering you up, now the gripe. [:D]
[image]http://i1122.photobucket.com/albums/l531/feelotraveller/freighters-1.jpg[/image]
This is a screen of early in one of my games. I use it as an example but have seen similar things over several games. Aggravating circumstance might be that I am playing 15x15 irregular, so things are pretty spaced out.
At this point in the game I have 34 active freighters. The problem is that 12 of them are collecting Tyderios. Many of these can be seen in the line on the left between the upper colony (my homeworld) and the lower system a discovered independent.
(In itself this is a bit unbalanced. I have no real need for Tyderios. I do not yet have any technology to allow me to use it in any components and none of my population require it. There is an artificial demand because I have new colonies and no source of the stuff... which would not be a problem except that I discovered these space dinosaurs who do have it.)
Two things make this vastly worse. Firstly (and crucially), I am in a Steel crisis brought on by adding two new colonies simultaneously, one settled, one invaded. All of my colonies currently have no Steel and decent amounts reserved - they are all stalled in building - this has been static for a couple of years. Now I have plenty of Steel mines (11 to be exact) and they each have several thousand units of Steel available. But of my 34 freighters only 2 are collecting Steel. As I build new freighters (I have small amounts of Steel incoming from retiring found/pirate ships and from my mining ships) they are assigned to collect... Tyderios. Secondly, when my freighters finally get to the Tyderios source they collect... 1 unit (ship highlighted), or 8 units, etc. Maximum I have loaded has been 12 units! This makes what might be a temporary squeeze into a gamebreaker since with the demand not being fulfilled they turn around and go to collect another unit or two of Tyderios.
Something definitely needs changing in the freighter pathing/decision making. As I said I have repeatedly seen similar situations, although often the missing resource is a luxury (and hence there is some real demand). One game it was Ekarus Meat, another Caguar Fur. But always each freighter would only get maybe 20 units on a journey which is over a years return. Doing the sums they will not be able to keep up with consumption rates! Yes they are private and can be a bit recalcitrant, sure, but this is beyond the pale.
In the game shown: Firstly, I have an ongoing high need for Steel (sufficient for my demand alone to have pushed the galactic price from 0.8 to 1.1) and plenty available and yet freighters are not being assigned. Secondly, after making the many month trip for Tyderios my freighters should get more than a whiff of it. If they can get so little they should not be going for it to begin with.
So the discovery of the Naxxilian independent has pushed my early game from a rosy expansion to a decade long artificial stall. I abandon after a couple more years of this problem persisting and not getting any better.
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