legal orders in a convoy route

[Locklyn]

DOH! :lol:

 

Why, in 38 turns, haven't I thought of that! Good catch Doug, blimey, I've been having exactly that problem with colonies that I also do XEXPL/XOC/XEXPL/XOC on and having to manually go in and transfer out the stuff I found. Sometimes its hard to think outside the box, anyways kudos to Dwillard!

 

 

/Locklyn

[DWillard]

I still think your idea for the new order is great and could definately be used to save some time, orders, hassles, etc. in a lot situations. Again, adding flexibility can only be a good thing.

 

However, I don't think it would always be a complete fix to the situation you describe. Anytime you start building new installations on a colony that take something new to build (cm, imp. cm, adv. cm, imp. pharmacuticals, adv. pharm. new items for new and improved power sources, etc. etc. including stuff we don't even know about yet), you would have to amend the convoy route to exclude the new item you want left in the pop group.

 

 

(I know I keep slipping this in, but lets get the combat stuff first . Not that we can't talk about our wishes but I want Pete to remain focused till the combat stuff is improved)

[octagon999]

No, what I mean is use one pop group for your colony. You would have convoy routes going to this pop group to bring over cm, colonists, etc. and bring back the goodies. Set up a separate pop group on the same planet for dumping explore finds into (xexpl/xoc to separate pop group) Have a separate convoy route with its own cargo ship to run back and forth from the HW to the expl. pop group doing LC all and OC all.

Oh... ok, that IS a great idea. It costs you another colony beacon, but who cares?

 

Still, we agree that the more flexibility in orders, the better, esp when you don't want to go back out and set up another colony beacon at each colony.

 

So far I haven't set up convoy routes for picking up finds, but that might be a good idea also.

[DWillard]

Still, we agree that the more flexibility in orders, the better...

Absolutely.

[Krelnett_of_Kraan]

The best way is to design a ship expressly for the purpose. Many APs, enough cargo for one or two EXPL loads. Write your convoy (it takes a lot of orders, but it's worth it) to hit every in-system colony in one turn and dump the results on your HW. It'll be running mostly empty every once in a while, but it'll save you from having to build Science Outposts on your colonies to ANZ the goodies.

You can do something similar for the systems next door.

[DWillard]

Yeah, that's basically the idea. Though depending on the number of pick up points involved, the type of engines, etc., there can be better ways to maximize ship design, # of engines, AP, cargo holds, etc. to get the best use out of your resourses.

[Pig Skin]

Hisser, hey I spotted what you were saying about some of the orders (especially CON). Thanks for pointing that out. I'm still not sure about if DISM works though since some say it does and others say not.

 

Dwillard, great idea on the cargo transfer thing, and good point to let the GMs focus on getting combat running smooth before all other requests.

 

Octagon999 (or is that Pentagram666+triangle333 ?), neat order idea there, code time permitting.

 

Pig Skin

[RTGPete]

I like the idea of exclusions, but listing the "except" items every time requires detail work to make sure you list them correctly - just like what you have to do now when issuing LC orders (and want to avoid listing certain items, like Processed Radioactives).

 

How about this: an exclude list that is checked whenever an LC, ALL order is encountered. If you specify particular items, the exclude list is ignored, allowing you to load whatever you like, whatever your exclude settings. If an LC, ALL order is in process, for each item about to be loaded, your exclude list is checked and items that match are skipped, moving to the next item in stockpile as if the exclude item was not there.

 

In theory I could add a table with pop group #'s so that you could specify different exclude items by pop group, and give you an option to use an ALL keyword when setting up the excludes so that the excluded item would be off limits for all of your pop groups. The only catch would be that you'd need a new report to show you those exclude items (much like standing orders), and you'd need a way to modify it from time to time.

 

Easiest of all, by far, would simply be a list of excluded items that are never loaded during execution of an LC, ALL order on any of your pop groups. Just a list, not broken down by pop group. You add or subtract items from that global list and that's it. Do you think separation by pop group # would be necessary?

[hobknob]

The biggest deal I have is leaving enough resources for power production and CM's for construction since I don't use convoy routes to CON anything.

[octagon999]

My preference would be a master list that would cover all LC ALL orders. I think its simpler to write, easier to maintain, harder to screw up. Having the ability to override any exclusion list by manually loading items covers all the bases, I believe. This makes it easy to add item pickups to convoy routes without having to have a separate colony beacon for EXPL drop offs.

 

Thanks Pete! This would be a very nice addition.

 

Tom

[Laserwolf]

I concur. And if that simple list were to have the items current on the list appear on the drop list, then we would know what was there and what would need removed.

[PhaseDragon]

If you do it by pop group you could limit it to 24 items so that things don't get out of hand. I say 24 since that seems to be the limit on most of the orders where listing items are part of the order.

 

Actually, that brings up another question that I had forgot to ask:

 

Can you do an LC and list 24 items to carry on a fleet then do another LC with another 24 items then move the fleet carrying 48 items? Or, is the limit 24 items in the fleet?

[Paradigm]

I would be happy with simply an order like "LC, 22407, 302, ALLEXCEPT, Construction Materials, Refined Radioactives, Mk I Relativistic Heavy Ion Accelerator, . . .".

 

There should be a mirror OC ALLEXCEPT order as well.

 

The other ideas sound kind of cumbersome and add yet another page to reference in the status report each turn. We would need an exclude list for every population group and orders to add, delete, and edit entries in the exclude lists. And I can't see a global exclude list being of much use in practice except for empires that did minimal colonization.

[RTGPete]

I would be happy with simply an order like "LC, 22407, 302, ALLEXCEPT, Construction Materials, Refined Radioactives, Mk I Relativistic Heavy Ion Accelerator, . . .".

 

There should be a mirror OC ALLEXCEPT order as well.

 

The other ideas sound kind of cumbersome and add yet another page to reference in the status report each turn. We would need an exclude list for every population group and orders to add, delete, and edit entries in the exclude lists. And I can't see a global exclude list being of much use in practice except for empires that did minimal colonization.

The reason that I mentioned the global exclude list idea is that for the most part what items do you really want to exclude? I'm guessing Power items, like Processed Radioactives and possibly Fuel from a dedicated forward-based Fuel production facility (you could always LC Fuel directly to override that exclusion). Would you need fine control over each pop group individually? I can't think of very many items that you would want to to exclude, but in any event it's worth discussing.

 

I could put a global exclusion list at the same place your fleet summary shows up, after industrial production etc - a few or even a dozen items wouldn't take up much space if placed on one or two lines.

[Clan Elder 'Keen]

Please add "Imperial Flag" to the default exclusion list. I use my colony stockpile list as a quickie reference for colony identity #s. Having all colonies listed there is preferable, even if they only have an Imperial Flag.