Need help with ship movement...very confused!

Hey all,

Go easy on me, Galciv newbie here. Getting a little frustrated.

I'm wondering if there is a more efficient way of finding and moving my ships. Currently I open the planet/ship window and 1 by 1, click on each frame and manually move my craft, and I do this every single turn. Gets a little tedious...isn't there a checkpoint system where you simply click on the final destination where you'd like your ship to end up and it automatically moves toward it every turn?

The 'Find' button doesn't seem to do anything, don't know what it's for.

Supposedly 'TAB' cycles to your next ship right? Well, sometimes it does and sometimes it leaves a ship or 3 out, and sometimes nothing at all happens.
I'm not sure why it's so unreliable.

I don't understand the 'Auto-survey' option on your ships. When I select the ship and enable the survey option, it doesn't do anything! It doesn't go out and collect space junk on its own like it should, it'll sit there and I have to manually move it.

What does the 'Autopilot' button on the bottom of the mini-map really do? I click on it and again, my ships aren't auto-anything!

In the game options I messed with some settings that appear to have a direct influence over ship movement, but I can't seem to understand what precisely they do.

"Skip moves left over from auto-pilot'
What does that mean? And why would I not want to move the full range I can for my turn?
And what auto-pilot dammit!? Nothing is auto here!

"Allow game to select next ship left with moves"
Sometimes the game will auto center on a ship with moves and sometimes not. Unclear here as well.

"Follow auto-pilot ships"
I guess this is a camera option right? Don't know if it really works as no ships pilot themselves.

I would love someone to tell me what ship options should be enabled or what. As well as why in gods good name none of these auto-options seem to be doing anything! I skimmed the pdf manual and couldn't mind anything beside the basics for movement explanation. I hope I don't come off as stupid, I have the uncanny ability to figure out game mechanics quickly, but I'm so lost here. . .

Thanks in advance for any help.

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Use the right mouse button to select a destination. The ship will move automatically every turn until it reaches there. If you have 'skip moves left over from auto pilto" enabled, it will end its turn when it reaches the destination.

I use TAB to cycle. I have never, ever experienced it skipping a ship.

I turn off "Allow game to select next ship left with moves" and "Follow auto-pilot ships" as I find them irritating.

Cheers

h

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Whitecloak,

...isn't there a checkpoint system where you simply click on the final destination where you'd like your ship to end up and it automatically moves toward it every turn?

Horatio is correct, when the ship is lauched or at the start of the turn, move the mouse to the desired sector and right click, that will engage the auto pilot. If you chose a destination and still have moves leftover you can then right click again for a new destination. If you run out of moves auto pilot will remain engaged, all those ships move automatically at the end of your turn.

I don't understand the 'Auto-survey' option on your ships. When I select the ship and enable the survey option, it doesn't do anything! It doesn't go out and collect space junk on its own like it should, it'll sit there and I have to manually move it.

First, "Auto-survey" only works for ships that have a survey module.
Second, ships will only auto survey when there are anomolies in range. Once they are gone it no longer works because there is nothing to survey.

What does the 'Autopilot' button on the bottom of the mini-map really do? I click on it and again, my ships aren't auto-anything!

The "Autopilot" button will show lines on the mini map of your ships on auto pilot. Since none of your ships have been doing this, you haven't seen a difference. Enable this option and once you have the auto pilot engaged on a few ships you will see lines from current position to the destination.

"Skip moves left over from auto-pilot'
What does that mean? And why would I not want to move the full range I can for my turn?
And what auto-pilot dammit!? Nothing is auto here!

If enabled, when a ship reaches it's destination, it stops and skips the remaining moves. I also disable this option, I want to chose if I will skip the remaining moves. There are lots of reasons why you might want to turn/leave this option on. For example: You are prepositioning ships before an attack, or simply placing them in a location to observe. I will place constructors near resources that the AI is using, that way if it becomes available, I am close by and can grab it. Another reason, maybe you don't want your transports to attack an undefended planet and start an inter-glacatic war. <- I hate when I start those by accident!

Hope that helps you out.

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You may also want to investigate rally points at some later date as well. Towards the bottom left of the GUI you should see a little half circle arrow thingy. Click on it once and then drop it on the screen somewhere. This lets you set a rally point at that location. From then on, if you have a ship selected hit the 't' key. You will get a list of rally points and can just select the one you want your ship to head towards. It will stay on autopilot until it reaches the rally point.

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You can also use rally points to have planets send their recently constructed ships directly to a location on the map. Two ways to do this, on the normal galaxy view, click on a planet, near the planet picture at the bottom, there's a yellow/blue button, you can manage the rally point on the particular planet there. You can also use governors (click the button at the bottom of your screen left to your shipyards button) and set any planet with no rally point (or a rally ponit you previously used) to send them to a new one.

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Voqar

Join Date 03/2003

+21

Also remember that ships with destinations set, ie those on autopilot, move at the end of your turn. So when you are cycling thru ships that aren't on autopilot, or otheriwse managing your turn to turn affairs, that you will have ships around that DO have movement available, but they won't move til you advance the turn.

It gets further wierd if you don't select to waste extra movement leftover from autopilot, as the game will pause after you end your turn for each autopiloting ship that ends it's route with movement leftover, so you can use up that extra movement.

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You can also use governors (click the button at the bottom of your screen left to your shipyards button) and set any planet with no rally point (or a rally ponit you previously used) to send them to a new one.

you can also use the starship rally point tab to re-direct ships already en route to a rally point, to a new one. also, the governor screen is its own tab in the F6 menu (which i think is called empire management or something).

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Thanks for all the replies guys. Gonna go load up my game and test out everything I've just read here. You've answered all my questions and it makes a lot more sense now. Lol, I was getting very frustrated when I posted this last night, can't wait to play and put everything into practice!

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