AP how does it work?

[El Capitan]

How about those 100-200 AP skimmer ships that SKIM, OC, 100-200 times per turn. Multipy that by about 20 ships........ and you have 6- 8000 orders on skims alone. At, lets say 10 orders per page, you have 600-800 pages of a turn, that is doing nothing but supplying fuel dumps.

 

and people wonder why turns are so long......

 

 

This is why I've always been surprised that there are not upgrades to the Fuel Shuttle technology. An Advanced Fuel Shuttle that skimmed 2000 fuel per skim would cut down drastically on the AP needed for a skimming operation as described by Kurassier.

 

It might not be appropriate early in the game, but as engine technology increases to ridiculously high levels allowing for insane amounts of fuel to be skimmed, it would at least cut down on turn length and therefore I would imagine it would cut down on processing time as well.

 

And, its build requirements could be advanced electronics and advanced steel allowing for further weaning from regular components as an empire advances. Streamlined production queues is always a good thing.

[Breoghan]

...or a higher tech level orbiting fuel production station, towed into position, that can produce significantly more fuel per production run than the inefficient skimmers, not using APs (no engines!) and with a cap on skimmer APs generally.

[hobknob]

Current high AP is 857. Yes it is a skimmer and it does skim 12M a turn. It also adds some 100+ pages to a turn printout.

 

Fuel was not that big of a deal early in the game, but it is critical now. 80% of my problems stem from fuel shortages of one kind or another.

 

Maybe in the next game there will be a cap or some other mechanism. Changing the current version would kill it.

 

And the idea of 8 AP as a cap is really short sighted. I have routine convoy routes that are 40+ hops in one direction. Large empire management would be impossible without convoy routes as they are.

 

[ali-t-akua]

I don't know why there would need to even be a cap.

 

I have never heard Pete say, "Sorry your turns are late because of all of these high AP convoy routes." Rather I hear him say these really big battles are slowing down the processing and then Locklyn admits he attacked another empire. Of course lately the delay has been because of Pete's health or lack thereof but that is due to flu season rather than software or hardware performance when running the turns.

 

Stay healthy Pete.

[Jodookus]

Ali,

 

Good point. I wonder why Locklyn keeps launching so many battles. I though that the old PA was supposed to be the agressive ones. Hmmmm.

[Octus Imperium]

Ali,

 

Good point. I wonder why Locklyn keeps launching so many battles. I though that the old PA was supposed to be the agressive ones. Hmmmm.

 

He's bored.....

 

Or, he's really a pacifist and just talks like a war monger....

 

[Jodookus]

Or just a warmonger

[Kurassier]

Current high AP is 857. Yes it is a skimmer and it does skim 12M a turn. It also adds some 100+ pages to a turn printout.

 

 

Maybe in the next game there will be a cap or some other mechanism. Changing the current version would kill it.

 

And the idea of 8 AP as a cap is really short sighted. I have routine convoy routes that are 40+ hops in one direction. Large empire management would be impossible without convoy routes as they are.

8 is too low, I agree, just thought there would be a cap. And a cap would have to be in future versions as I also agree that installing a cap now would be vastly unfair.

As far as the high AP skim convoys, what would be nice to have instead of 100+ pages, would be a report that simply said ' Fleet X successfully skimmmed X fuel and deposited into pop group #.' or something to that effect.

[ShadowKitsune]

Current high AP is 857. Yes it is a skimmer and it does skim 12M a turn. It also adds some 100+ pages to a turn printout.

 

 

Maybe in the next game there will be a cap or some other mechanism. Changing the current version would kill it.

 

And the idea of 8 AP as a cap is really short sighted. I have routine convoy routes that are 40+ hops in one direction. Large empire management would be impossible without convoy routes as they are.

8 is too low, I agree, just thought there would be a cap. And a cap would have to be in future versions as I also agree that installing a cap now would be vastly unfair.

As far as the high AP skim convoys, what would be nice to have instead of 100+ pages, would be a report that simply said ' Fleet X successfully skimmmed X fuel and deposited into pop group #.' or something to that effect.

 

That would be nice, but it would probably be a nightmare to code into the program based on the step execution nature of order processing. Thinking a bit outside of the box, you might be able to code in a workaround if you added a new order (e.g. CSKIM, <Fleet ID>, <Pop Group ID>) that temporarily "converted" your skimming Fleet into structure akin a Fuel Distillation Center. All of your skimming fleets would execute their skims during the Mine Production phase of the turn and give you a total fuel skim for the turn as a single line report.

 

The psuedo code would be something like this ...

 

Total_Skim = 0;

Fuel_Offloaded = 0;

 

DO WHILE (<Fleet ID> AP) > 0

 

SKIM, <Fleet ID> ; Fuel_Skimmed = (<Number of Fuel Shuttles> * 200 * <Fuel Source Modifiers>)

 

If (Fuel_Stored + Fuel_Skimmed) > Fuel_Tankage THEN

Total_Skim = Total_Skim + (Fuel_Tankage - Fuel_Stored);

Fuel_Stored = Fuel_Tankage;

ELSE

Fuel_Stored = Fuel_Stored + Fuel_Skimmed;

Total_Skim = Total_Skim + Fuel_Skimmed;

END IF;

 

If (<Pop Group ID>) > 0 THEN

OC, <Fleet ID>, <Pop Group ID>, "Fuel", Fuel_Stored;

Fuel_Offloaded = Fuel_Offloaded + Fuel_Stored;

Fuel_Stored = 0;

END IF;

 

(<Fleet ID> AP) = (<Fleet ID> AP) - 1;

 

END DO;

 

If (<Pop Group ID>) > 0 THEN

PRINT: Fleet <Fleet ID> skimmed <Total_Skim> Fuel and offloaded <Fuel_Offloaded> Fuel to Pop Group <Pop Group ID>. The rest was jettisoned.

ELSE

PRINT: Fleet <Fleet ID> skimmed <Total_Skim> Fuel. The rest was jettisoned.

END IF;

 

... or something similar.

 

-SK