Donated ships idle

A minor race contacted me requesting aid. I donated a couple of old ships to it. The ships popped out of my planets' orbit and remained there, the minor race never moved its new ships. Later on in the game the other minor race also requested aid. I again donated ships and they have yet to budge from next to the planets they used to orbit.
14,382 views 21 replies
Reply #1 Top
1 or two things are going on, the race does not have range to make it back, or move the ships. Or the one planet they have is FULL. Or it might be a combination of both.
Reply #2 Top
1 - if your flagship explores a wormhole and is transported out of range, the ship goes into a suspended state and you have to move the ship in range. The same should happen with minor races (not sure if major races have the same problem.)

2 - Neither of the minor races had full orbits.
Reply #3 Top
I had the same thing happen. From the location on the star map I donated the ships from I can only assume that they were WELL out of range.
Reply #4 Top
I've had this problem too. I was trying to prop up the Altairans against the Terrans and donated some of my obsolete ships from a corner of the map. However, they just sat there. I think the problem is they're out of their operating range so they can't move.
Reply #5 Top
Maybe it's a general problem when donating ships.
Reply #6 Top
i wonder if technology effects ship trading/donations/selling. Like if you try to give a warp capable ship to a civ that hasn't discovered warp drive.....can they use that ship? Or if you sell a ship with lasers and shields to a civ that uses missile weapons and hasn't studied beam wepons, is this ship useless to them?

If I remember correctly in Gal Civ I when you transferred ships to weaker civs the ships would lose some of their capabilities because the weaker civ was behind technologically.
Reply #7 Top
I tried donating ships to one of my neighbour empires. They were perfectly within range of their nearest base and yet they didn't move exept to form a fleet.
Reply #8 Top
I sell lots of ships. I generally try to move them to WHERE I want the race to have them before I sell them. About 40% of the time they sit there, and 60% of the time they use them to raise hell.

I am playing on Sub Normal, so I expect a lot has to do with the AI intelligence level

Dano
Reply #9 Top
Pokerface, I read somewhere that that doesn't happen in GC2. The receiving empire gets full use of the ship no matter what you have on it.
Reply #10 Top
Thanks stranger, that's good to know.
Reply #11 Top
Ive had same thig happen donated ships sit there doing nothing.
Definately not right im sure the minor race was within range too.
When ai has given me ships i can always move them back to my part of the galaxy no matter how far away.

Reply #12 Top
If I remember correctly in Gal Civ I when you transferred ships to weaker civs the ships would lose some of their capabilities because the weaker civ was behind technologically.


The receiver will be able to use the ships even if he has not yet researched the required techs to reproduce them. Any bonuses the ships received under your control (from race abilities, trade goods, mining military resources, military starbases, etc.) are lost and bonuses from the new owner gained.

If you play at level Tough like me the AI are at level Intelligent which means all algorithms are turned but the AI does not get any cheat bonuses. I'm about to beat the Drengin for the second time on level Tough in the second mission of the campain. I can't wait to play against the Dread Loard on level Tough!
Reply #13 Top
I too have had ships in and out of range of the receiving civilization not utilize ships I gave them. I've given to major, and minor civs, and play with the AI on normal, and the ships just sit there half the time.


I don't know if it's a bug in the AI, but I had a minor race, that wasn't even under attack from a major power, (but might have been at war.. I destroyed the attacking fleet since the minor race was right next to one of my planets), About every 10 or so turns, the damn squirrel would come back begging for more tech and ships, claiming they were on the verge of elimination, with nary an enemy ship in sight. I got annoyed, and took them down myself. Hey, a class 15 planet is a class 15 planet. (Besides, I didn't want the attacking civ to capture any of the techs I gave to the squirrels when they finally went under.)
Reply #14 Top
Me too. I gave the Dark Yor enough carefully crafted units that they could have taken out one of my "friends" that they were at war with and they just sat there.
Reply #15 Top
I have had the same problem. I gifted the ship right next to their planet, and they still did nothing with it. (What sucked was that I could have used it the next turn, but oh well...)
Reply #16 Top
Particularlly frustrating when you give them a few ships that outclass anything anyone but you has, and they turn up a few turns later still whining about being crushed.
Reply #17 Top
Weird thing happened yesterday. It was me vs Drengin, and there was a minor race sitting around (I think it was the Carinoids.) caught up in the crossfire. Well, I had a significant tech lead over the Drengin, but my economy wasn't doing very well (It was negative, in fact.), so I built a hugely powerful ship, one which could handle itself against pretty much anything they had, and traded it to the minor race. Now, they did make use of it, but at first they just had it going along a couple of tiles on my border. It was almost like they had a destination, but couldn't figure out the pathing and got stuck in a loop. I suspect, though, that they were patrolling, because a few turns later they stuck the thing in a fleet and proceeded to kick the crap out of half the Drengin navy.

I've had the thing where they don't move the ships happen a few times, too, which I would figure is to do with range. Hopefully that'll get fixed so they can head back into usable range.
Reply #18 Top
Interesting, because on a gigantic map, when my survey ship got thrown to the other side of the galaxy, I could still get him home.

I think it's silly you can't operate a ship if it is out of "range." You should at the very least have the ability to pilot the ship to home waters, regardless of range/life support restrictions.
Reply #19 Top
Ditto - saw this in my last game as well. Had donated with hopes that the minor would have a chance against a major they were at war with that I wanted to destroy but was gearing up for war against, and wasn't quite ready to attack myself. This definitely seems to be some type of bug.

On that note, I also see the majors often having large stacks of ships (I saw one stack that was probably 20+ ships, some in fleets, some not) that just sit there even when they are at war. Perhaps they are 'defending' or 'projecting power' to the AI they are at war with, but it seems like this might be a related bug of ship underutilization by the AI.

Both of these were on the 'Tough' setting, so AI should be fully enabled.
Reply #20 Top
think it's silly you can't operate a ship if it is out of "range." You should at the very least have the ability to pilot the ship to home waters, regardless of range/life support restrictions.


How so? When your ship is out of life support, the crew dies. Hence, they are unwilling to travel further than life support allows. Ever seen Apollo 13?
Reply #21 Top
The game says it all... the crew goes into cyrogenic storage