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Perhaps this is old news for some, but I only realized this yesterday on the tutorial server. You can send a probe out in a long straight line, and it does indeed explore every sector it passes through. For a few days, I was manually exploring each sector one by one. Gah! :p
Ouch.........
Oh god.. I'm sorry, that's just painful to even think about. Ok, I guess we'll need to clarify that a bit more.
That is the reason so many were asking for waypoints though still would like tosee them added. I was going one sector at a time also.
I would at least like to be able to use probes with less clicking. Have to go to sector hit probe ship, then select the arrow icon, hit the map icon then select the sector want to send the probe to. A lot of work.
We'll be looking into ways that we can reduce the number of touches for sending out probes in the future. Other than a queuing system we've been discussing options for allowing ship selection from the sector and galaxy levels but that's probably off in the distance a ways yet.
Glad there is a discussion going on about it.
Thank you!
I also started out doing one system at a time until I realized you could send them off in a straight line! Live and learn!
How about a touch system on the map.
First touch to the screen causes a small red dot over the area with a pulsing line that connects back to current location. (The pulse shows direction much like most update bars in Mac OS, I'll have to grab a visual to show better my idea).
This way user can see if they've clicked the wrong sector/square as well as see distance and direction of travel.
Furthermore you could have it that the first touch is red, the second touch is yellow. Second touch sets a waypoint.
I understand the devs don't want to automate units too much. So perhaps limit the amount of way points a ship can be set. Pehaps just 1, so you can do something like set probes for a little while longer. Perhaps make it a skill to level up? This will force an interesting trade off if someone wants a more automated system.
Third touch sets the dot to blue and user can now accept the decision by pressing check or cancel.
Regardless of waypoints this idea would certainly help as a feature. It would save me from constantly sending probes into the wrong square/line.
Adding a visual representation for travel destinations is on the list of things we're looking into adding, way points are also consideration but that's a separate issue that will take a while to get to.
This thread has saved my life.