Printable View
Probably already suggested, but it would be nice if you could select ships from the sector view. This would make exploring with probes or just general ship management a little bit quicker.
I also noticed a few mentions of giving waypoints to probes. Or just some way to automate their exploration. I don't think they should have a total "Auto-Explore" mode like automated workers in Civ, but at least a way to queue up 5-10 sectors at a time.
+1 to this
If you're going to do this, it would be good to also add a "patrol" function to ships you have in orbit, but that you also want to stay put. I often leave ships in orbit as a deterrent to would-be attackers and I want them to stay there. Similar to the way you can currently see harvesting and trade ships in autopilot, but can't select them, these patrol ships would not be selectable from the proposed sector view. That way you could, while in sector view, distinguish between ships you want to move around and ships you want to stay put.
Related: Does a ship's location in planetary orbit relay any sort of information? I haven't seen much but if I had to guess orbitals sit north, your ships sit east, and other players ships sit south. If there is something goin on there cool, if not may I suggest:
North - Orbitals
East - Your automated ships (havesters making rounds, combat ships on patrol as AntiHaze suggested)
South - Your idle ships (those available and waiting for an action)
West - Ships controlled by others
This might also be applied to the sector view for those ships which aren't in planetary orbit, but are just in the sector in general. That way you could tell if your probe is in the middle of its queued exploration or it is awaiting further instructions.
There are six spots:Quote:
Originally Posted by Cazargar
North, orbitals
North East: Your fleets
South East: Your ships
South: Ships controlled by others
South West: Fleets controlled by others
North West: AI Ships whose origin or destination is this planet
Ah, yeah I figured there was already a system in place. Oh well :)
*Post Removed*
Alternatively, you could add an Advanced Probe ship (requires skill training and is more expensive) which DOES in fact auto-explore the galaxy you send it to... the kicker of course is that you can't send the probe outside of the galaxy it was created in, requiring you to expand via colonies if you want to auto-explore using the Advanced Probe ship.
Thoughts?