Auto-explore bugs

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet...I couldn't seem to figure out how to use the search function for this forum.

The AI for ships using auto-explore has some problems. First of all, a ship on auto-explore will go back and forth across an explored area, exploring a small part on one side, then a small part on the other, and so on. Also, if two or more ships are on auto-explore, they will tend to all go to the same area, and so the galaxy isn't explored twice as quickly for two ships, as it should be.

On a slightly different subject, it would nice if a ship on auto-survey would explore gray areas if it can't see any anomolies.

Thanks.
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Reply #1 Top

Yeah, I know it's not perfect, but it's pretty good and making it more perfect would increase the complexity of the code and decrease performance.  If I have more than one ship on auto-explore, I keep an eye on them, and will change the destination of ships occasionally.

Also, the reason that it doesn't automatically switch to auto-explore after auto-survey is because we don't like to take too much control out of the hands of the players.  Sure, you might want the survey ship to start auto-exploring, but I often like to upgrade it to another kind of ship when it's done.

Reply #2 Top
I dislike the auto-explore routine, but it's better than having to explore manually. It's much much slower, but also much less effort.

Naturally you should explore manually if you're in a hurry to find something.