Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Machaon

You two act like I just suggested auto-repair be completely removed from the game, which I did not. If I deployed a resupply ship and it was suddenly gone when I needed it, I'd be PISSED. The fact that this would be acceptable to anyone is unfathomable to me. Maybe if you're using them in some other capacity besides as forward refuel points, then I could see how having them move about willy-nilly wouldn't matter. I, however, cannot accept my forward refuel points moving around. It can go repair itself after I've undeployed it or I've set it back to auto.

You know, thinking about this as I type it out, this situation is one that probably won't come up terribly often. Hmmm....I stand by what I say though.

Now that I've played the game more, I'm finding the auto-attack function irritating too. I mean they went from one extreme to the other. I think I prefer how it was before. Attacking a single ship of many with a fleet and then setting the fleet to auto, as Erik once suggested, worked fairly well. Now my ships are all over the place! They literally chase enemy ships from one system to another, but never my whole fleet. Instead, like three ships will chase it and get vaporized when they run into a space port. Five ships may break off from a fleet of 20 to attack a space port in the same system, while the other 15 just sit there. It's really weird and I don't like it.

Anyway, I'm not even sure this is on topic with the thread anymore so I'll just shut up now.

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ORIGINAL: VarekRaith

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ORIGINAL: Machaon

You two act like I just suggested auto-repair be completely removed from the game, which I did not. If I deployed a resupply ship and it was suddenly gone when I needed it, I'd be PISSED. The fact that this would be acceptable to anyone is unfathomable to me. Maybe if you're using them in some other capacity besides as forward refuel points, then I could see how having them move about willy-nilly wouldn't matter. I, however, cannot accept my forward refuel points moving around. It can go repair itself after I've undeployed it or I've set it back to auto.

You know, thinking about this as I type it out, this situation is one that probably won't come up terribly often. Hmmm....I stand by what I say though.

Now that I've played the game more, I'm finding the auto-attack function irritating too. I mean they went from one extreme to the other. I think I prefer how it was before. Attacking a single ship of many with a fleet and then setting the fleet to auto, as Erik once suggested, worked fairly well. Now my ships are all over the place! They literally chase enemy ships from one system to another, but never my whole fleet. Instead, like three ships will chase it and get vaporized when they run into a space port. Five ships may break off from a fleet of 20 to attack a space port in the same system, while the other 15 just sit there. It's really weird and I don't like it.

Anyway, I'm not even sure this is on topic with the thread anymore so I'll just shut up now.

The auto-attack on manually controlled ships is, indeed, irritating. If I wanted them to roam about the system blasting every enemy in sight, I'd put them on auto! They should only engage targets that engage them, or are within a very short (<1000) distance of their location. They should also return to their assigned position! It just seems that now it's pointless to use manual control for ships, since they act nearly the same as an autoed ship.

As to your resupply ship, I agree. Manual means manual. It's more than annoying to have the AI override the orders of ships I want to control manually. We need options for us microers that don't like the AI overriding manually given orders.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Machaon

You two act like I just suggested auto-repair be completely removed from the game, which I did not. If I deployed a resupply ship and it was suddenly gone when I needed it, I'd be PISSED. The fact that this would be acceptable to anyone is unfathomable to me. Maybe if you're using them in some other capacity besides as forward refuel points, then I could see how having them move about willy-nilly wouldn't matter. I, however, cannot accept my forward refuel points moving around. It can go repair itself after I've undeployed it or I've set it back to auto.

You know, thinking about this as I type it out, this situation is one that probably won't come up terribly often. Hmmm....I stand by what I say though.

Now that I've played the game more, I'm finding the auto-attack function irritating too. I mean they went from one extreme to the other. I think I prefer how it was before. Attacking a single ship of many with a fleet and then setting the fleet to auto, as Erik once suggested, worked fairly well. Now my ships are all over the place! They literally chase enemy ships from one system to another, but never my whole fleet. Instead, like three ships will chase it and get vaporized when they run into a space port. Five ships may break off from a fleet of 20 to attack a space port in the same system, while the other 15 just sit there. It's really weird and I don't like it.

Anyway, I'm not even sure this is on topic with the thread anymore so I'll just shut up now.

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ORIGINAL: cmdrnarrain

I've just about had it with the game.  Sheez, war is just about impossible.  You got to fix the problem with half your empire rebeling everytime you use either bombardment or the planet destroyer.  I mean come on, I got a base on every planet, using the Way of Darkness, taxes are low, completely Human worlds, and still my empire splits in half after destroying one world and bombarding another.  I even waited 10 years inbetween and did it to different empires. 

This is just plain stupid.   Christ, even my capital rebeled.  The games got hundreds of world, if an alien pisses me off I want to exterminate them, not collect even more worlds by invasion.

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ORIGINAL: Shark7

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ORIGINAL: VarekRaith

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ORIGINAL: Machaon

You two act like I just suggested auto-repair be completely removed from the game, which I did not. If I deployed a resupply ship and it was suddenly gone when I needed it, I'd be PISSED. The fact that this would be acceptable to anyone is unfathomable to me. Maybe if you're using them in some other capacity besides as forward refuel points, then I could see how having them move about willy-nilly wouldn't matter. I, however, cannot accept my forward refuel points moving around. It can go repair itself after I've undeployed it or I've set it back to auto.

You know, thinking about this as I type it out, this situation is one that probably won't come up terribly often. Hmmm....I stand by what I say though.

Now that I've played the game more, I'm finding the auto-attack function irritating too. I mean they went from one extreme to the other. I think I prefer how it was before. Attacking a single ship of many with a fleet and then setting the fleet to auto, as Erik once suggested, worked fairly well. Now my ships are all over the place! They literally chase enemy ships from one system to another, but never my whole fleet. Instead, like three ships will chase it and get vaporized when they run into a space port. Five ships may break off from a fleet of 20 to attack a space port in the same system, while the other 15 just sit there. It's really weird and I don't like it.

Anyway, I'm not even sure this is on topic with the thread anymore so I'll just shut up now.

The auto-attack on manually controlled ships is, indeed, irritating. If I wanted them to roam about the system blasting every enemy in sight, I'd put them on auto! They should only engage targets that engage them, or are within a very short (<1000) distance of their location. They should also return to their assigned position! It just seems that now it's pointless to use manual control for ships, since they act nearly the same as an autoed ship.

As to your resupply ship, I agree. Manual means manual. It's more than annoying to have the AI override the orders of ships I want to control manually. We need options for us microers that don't like the AI overriding manually given orders.

You do realize leaving the war and attack decisions on manual prevents this, right? They will still attack anything that is threatening one of your ships/planets/bases, but they will not go on the offensive. Never let the AI handle diplomacy or war, its fine for the mundane, tedious stuff, but not for stuff that requires your attention.

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I have to agree with this. I much preferred the micromanagement hell to the way it is now. I was trying to invade a planet, the troop transports got to the system, I told them to invade, and they turned around and went off to be refueled. This was the first moment I truly felt frustrated with the game.

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ORIGINAL: VarekRaith

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ORIGINAL: Shark7

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ORIGINAL: VarekRaith

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ORIGINAL: Machaon

You two act like I just suggested auto-repair be completely removed from the game, which I did not. If I deployed a resupply ship and it was suddenly gone when I needed it, I'd be PISSED. The fact that this would be acceptable to anyone is unfathomable to me. Maybe if you're using them in some other capacity besides as forward refuel points, then I could see how having them move about willy-nilly wouldn't matter. I, however, cannot accept my forward refuel points moving around. It can go repair itself after I've undeployed it or I've set it back to auto.

You know, thinking about this as I type it out, this situation is one that probably won't come up terribly often. Hmmm....I stand by what I say though.

Now that I've played the game more, I'm finding the auto-attack function irritating too. I mean they went from one extreme to the other. I think I prefer how it was before. Attacking a single ship of many with a fleet and then setting the fleet to auto, as Erik once suggested, worked fairly well. Now my ships are all over the place! They literally chase enemy ships from one system to another, but never my whole fleet. Instead, like three ships will chase it and get vaporized when they run into a space port. Five ships may break off from a fleet of 20 to attack a space port in the same system, while the other 15 just sit there. It's really weird and I don't like it.

Anyway, I'm not even sure this is on topic with the thread anymore so I'll just shut up now.

The auto-attack on manually controlled ships is, indeed, irritating. If I wanted them to roam about the system blasting every enemy in sight, I'd put them on auto! They should only engage targets that engage them, or are within a very short (<1000) distance of their location. They should also return to their assigned position! It just seems that now it's pointless to use manual control for ships, since they act nearly the same as an autoed ship.

As to your resupply ship, I agree. Manual means manual. It's more than annoying to have the AI override the orders of ships I want to control manually. We need options for us microers that don't like the AI overriding manually given orders.

You do realize leaving the war and attack decisions on manual prevents this, right? They will still attack anything that is threatening one of your ships/planets/bases, but they will not go on the offensive. Never let the AI handle diplomacy or war, its fine for the mundane, tedious stuff, but not for stuff that requires your attention.

No, it doesn't. I've been playing with Automation set Expert since the game came out. Ships will auto-attack anything in the system they are in, regardless of the orders I give them. I don't want them to go after anything, they're on manual for that very reason!

I just tested this. I sent a lone destroyer, on manual, to a system with a pirate base. Said ship is on the other side of the system from the pirate base. Said ship attacks base, getting itself killed.

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ORIGINAL: Shark7

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ORIGINAL: VarekRaith

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ORIGINAL: Shark7

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ORIGINAL: VarekRaith

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ORIGINAL: Machaon

You two act like I just suggested auto-repair be completely removed from the game, which I did not. If I deployed a resupply ship and it was suddenly gone when I needed it, I'd be PISSED. The fact that this would be acceptable to anyone is unfathomable to me. Maybe if you're using them in some other capacity besides as forward refuel points, then I could see how having them move about willy-nilly wouldn't matter. I, however, cannot accept my forward refuel points moving around. It can go repair itself after I've undeployed it or I've set it back to auto.

You know, thinking about this as I type it out, this situation is one that probably won't come up terribly often. Hmmm....I stand by what I say though.

Now that I've played the game more, I'm finding the auto-attack function irritating too. I mean they went from one extreme to the other. I think I prefer how it was before. Attacking a single ship of many with a fleet and then setting the fleet to auto, as Erik once suggested, worked fairly well. Now my ships are all over the place! They literally chase enemy ships from one system to another, but never my whole fleet. Instead, like three ships will chase it and get vaporized when they run into a space port. Five ships may break off from a fleet of 20 to attack a space port in the same system, while the other 15 just sit there. It's really weird and I don't like it.

Anyway, I'm not even sure this is on topic with the thread anymore so I'll just shut up now.

The auto-attack on manually controlled ships is, indeed, irritating. If I wanted them to roam about the system blasting every enemy in sight, I'd put them on auto! They should only engage targets that engage them, or are within a very short (<1000) distance of their location. They should also return to their assigned position! It just seems that now it's pointless to use manual control for ships, since they act nearly the same as an autoed ship.

As to your resupply ship, I agree. Manual means manual. It's more than annoying to have the AI override the orders of ships I want to control manually. We need options for us microers that don't like the AI overriding manually given orders.

You do realize leaving the war and attack decisions on manual prevents this, right? They will still attack anything that is threatening one of your ships/planets/bases, but they will not go on the offensive. Never let the AI handle diplomacy or war, its fine for the mundane, tedious stuff, but not for stuff that requires your attention.

No, it doesn't. I've been playing with Automation set Expert since the game came out. Ships will auto-attack anything in the system they are in, regardless of the orders I give them. I don't want them to go after anything, they're on manual for that very reason!

I just tested this. I sent a lone destroyer, on manual, to a system with a pirate base. Said ship is on the other side of the system from the pirate base. Said ship attacks base, getting itself killed.

You set the ship to patrol the system and it attacked a PIRATE base. To me, it is behaving as it should. It spotted a pirate with is always considered hostile and attacked it. The real question is: If you send it to a neutral empire system, does it attack? If so, then that is a problem.

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Personally, I would love it, if after wiping out all of the AI's your empire automatically split in half until their was nothing left but dead irradiated worlds and smoking rubble. It would breath some life into the late game. Call it the Armageddon option.

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I like the auto-attack and auto-fuel. Yea, what you describe happens, but to get around it just add fuel tanks to all of the designs. I'm willing to put up with a little goofiness over having to refuel my manual ships. The other thing to do is set the re-fuel threshold lower to like 1/5 of the fuel remaining. Right now it seems a little high.

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ORIGINAL: Shark7

Oddly enough, I don't have that happen. If I send it close, it will attack, but mine when on manual will not actively go chasing after stuff. You may need to reset your options...sounds like they have not released full control to you when they should have.

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ORIGINAL: taltamir

you know, I think I have noticed that some options don't "take" in current version. you sometimes have to turn it on-off-on again (or off-on-off).
I think that is a pretty new bug.

Like, sometimes my expansion planner will list planets in other empire's systems. I go into settings and its on DO NOT allow... I need to allow it, close the option menu (so it saves), then disallow it again for it to disappear.

Try setting it to full manual, continue game, full auto, continue game, then back into options and set it to whatever you actually want it to be. I think it might be related to version mixing (aka, loading older save in newer version of the game). not too sure though

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ORIGINAL: gijas

How do we find our old save games when a new save game folder is created with this patch? I assume you select the folder in the load game window from your game directory?

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The simple solution to the "ships do dumb stuff when told to do something else" fix is to do the following.
1. Never interrupt a manually given order to refuel.
2. Never chase a enemy ship when on manual: Only fire on targets of opportunity as they enter range.
3. Never run off to refuel while currently being watched on the camera.

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ORIGINAL: Kruos

I am quite surprised by this debate about automation of fleet behavior.

Distant Worlds, is a game of automation.

I dont share your point of vue on the "dumb stuff when told to do something else" thing. I mean, once you are aware of that, you anticipate and you adapt your playing style. Distant World gaming style is the opposite of micromanagement gaming style, and it fit very fine with its huge epic scale. Accept it or not, but it is how the game is designed.

That being said, I agree that minor tweaks could be done to improve some automation things, but...

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The simple solution to the "ships do dumb stuff when told to do something else" fix is to do the following.
1. Never interrupt a manually given order to refuel.
2. Never chase a enemy ship when on manual: Only fire on targets of opportunity as they enter range.
3. Never run off to refuel while currently being watched on the camera.

... this, this is far too much, in my opinion.

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ORIGINAL: Fishman

The simple solution to the "ships do dumb stuff when told to do something else" fix is to do the following.
1. Never interrupt a manually given order to refuel.
2. Never chase a enemy ship when on manual: Only fire on targets of opportunity as they enter range.
3. Never run off to refuel while currently being watched on the camera.

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ORIGINAL: Spacecadet

Guys, how can the Devs give us what we want, when we don't even know ourselves 

The way it was before sucked - the enemy could take your Planet while you had idle (manual) ships sitting right by.

Now, they'll jump to any thing detected and even chase it into deep space (I actually prefer this to the old method of doing nothing).


What we need is a "D" option:
"A" - Automates as it is now.
"D" - Defends if a threat comes into range.
"M" or just "A" Off - Full manual control, sits idle until ordered to do something else.

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That's why you put your ships on auto. Why should I have to "deal with" my ships on manual being partially automated? Why even give us the choice of turning off automation in the first place? The dev is trying to cater to micro and macromanagers alike. As it stands now, I can't micro my ships. They'll do things all on their own. See where I'm going? Manual control really isn't. It's just partial automation. Kind of defeats the purpose of manual control, no? All I want is options. Options to make ships do what I want, not what the AI wants. That's all.

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ORIGINAL: taltamir

The knee jerk reaction of "OMFG auto sucks it should all be manual and micromanagement!" is entirely uncalled for. Automation is great, and it has been improving with each version. There are still some kinks to work out which can be done with specific solutions rather then broad strokes that would do more harm then good (disabling auto refuel entirely will do more harm then good... I remember the game before auto refuel, it wasn't as good as it is now)

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ORIGINAL: VarekRaith

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ORIGINAL: taltamir

The knee jerk reaction of "OMFG auto sucks it should all be manual and micromanagement!" is entirely uncalled for. Automation is great, and it has been improving with each version. There are still some kinks to work out which can be done with specific solutions rather then broad strokes that would do more harm then good (disabling auto refuel entirely will do more harm then good... I remember the game before auto refuel, it wasn't as good as it is now)

Sigh, that's not at all what I'm saying.

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ORIGINAL: taltamir

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ORIGINAL: VarekRaith

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ORIGINAL: taltamir

The knee jerk reaction of "OMFG auto sucks it should all be manual and micromanagement!" is entirely uncalled for. Automation is great, and it has been improving with each version. There are still some kinks to work out which can be done with specific solutions rather then broad strokes that would do more harm then good (disabling auto refuel entirely will do more harm then good... I remember the game before auto refuel, it wasn't as good as it is now)

Sigh, that's not at all what I'm saying.

That is exactly what you are saying. so is fishman.
I know, it SOUNDS great to say "why should I deal with auto-refuel doing something it shouldn't when I am on manual, manual should mean no auto-refuel (duh)". but that is wrong, manual without auto-refuel is a nightmare... Now you should have the ability to exclude ships, individually (and temporarily) from auto-refuel on manual. This is because fuel is so utterly and fundamentally important, and because you will have LOTS of ships and ALL of them need it. So manually refueling ALL ships is completely impossible for a human being... hence why it is on even in full auto. (which is due to an overwhelming and massive callout for it, this didn't exist in v1, and everyone clamored that it makes the game very unplayable, and they were right)

Programming exceptions to it is different than turning it off. You are right, you shouldn't have to get into a situation where auto-refuel is messing up your manual commands on manual control. But the solution is not to do away with auto-refuel... not a by a long shot. The solution is as I have described above. make specific exceptions and a puppet mode for cases not covered by those exceptions.