Guard/Sentry?

Make sure you are clicking within the square you think you are--the 'hotpoint' is actually at the top left of the cursor, not on the bullseye as you might expect.

There is no fortify command at this time. Sad, but true. The alternatives (sentry and guard) are canceled when the appropiate ship type gets into sensor range. Any ship for sentry, and enemy ships for guard.

One of those things I have been wondering ever since the GC2 was released, why on earth is there no "deep sleep" mode in the game? And btw, if you really want to do us a favor SD, add a little "shield" icon for fleets in guard mode while the game map is really zoomed out.

Speaking of adding things, what about patrol. Would love to see this in the game, especially with a command like "Patrol & Attack". Have your ship coast up and down your border and set it to attack anyone your at war with.

i'd like to have patrol too, would make it useful to take out pirates or unexpected enemey warships

Ditto on the patrol thing. There's alot of borders to cover in this game and being able to have a ship sweep an area on a regular basis would really help keep an eye on who's coming and going.

Yeah the planetary exit icon is just really misleading. We tried to get it changed in beta but I guess it wasn't enough of a concern to warrant the artist's time to fix .

No patrols. This is a game. You are supposed to play it. Too much automation and you might as well be watching a movie.

If you can't be bothered to move fleets around to uncover enemy ships then research Sensor IV and build Eyes of the Universe. Instant see every ship on the map. Problem solved.

I like Eyes of the Universe for the massive bonus to sensor range.

I build one cargo hull with big engines and enough range and the remainder sensors and I just park it somewhere on sentry and wait until it notices something. (I usually play gigantic maps and don't watch everywhere.)

But doesn't the Eyes of Universe give ALL ships max sensor range? If so, aren't you wasting space using sensors after you have "E of U"?

Yes it is a waste to put sensors on any ships after you have EoU. The max sensor range is 15 and you cannot go above that.

Thanks for the clarification.   

But then that would imply that you have 'borders' in space, an idea that seems to have a lot of opposition in here. "How can you have borders when you're in space?" seemed to be the prevailing thought. I of course am not against borders so I think it would be a great idea... but then I would have to actually be able to play a complete game to really enjoy the feature, ahem... sarcasm, hint, hint!

Yea calling it a border was a little risky, knowing that a lot of people would correct me and say "it's the extent of your influence", but they just look like borders don't they? I actually expected there to be a patrol feature the first time i played and was surprised when i found it is not so.



Your opinion, fine, but i ask, do you use Rally Points/Auto-Upgrade? I assume not since this would be "too much automation".

Just think about the possibilities, your at war with the Drengin, you have 3 resources which are way out of your influence/sensor range and more than 1 sector away from each other, and, your a little underpowered and can't spare the ships to guard them all. So you select the "Patrol & Attack" feature and have your ship/fleet run between these stations looking for enemy ships to attack. As apposed to having multiple ships out there guarding each station.



I take ES that you have found the great new feature that the devs put in called "crash machine randomly so no one can finish a game in a timely fashion".

Wow lucky you!

We already have an Auto-Attack option, what's the difference whether the ship is moving or standing still?

The Auto-Attack function, the last I checked has your ship run around trying to attack enemy ship, even running into enemy territory. It does not allow for percise strategic control.



True, this is a game, a strategy game. Ordering a ship to patrol a certain area is a strategic move. Do you insist that if we want to patrol an area, that we are required to baby sit the ships that are doing the patrolling?

The lack of a command doesn't prevent us from doing something, it merely makes it more difficult. Something as simple as patrolling is a bit complex. You have to instruct the ship where to go. You have to keep checking the sensor data every turn. If there is an enemy, you then have to order the ship to engadge. Suffice to say, its easy to screw this up if you forget to pay attention for a turn or so.

I personally don't care much for a patrol command, I want a fortify command. I want my ships, as the Original Poster put it:

so clarification... i now understand how the guard option works. your ship really does "stay put" till another ship comes into range, then it wants an order of what to do with the senser info... i can live with this, infact maybe even grow to like it. however what about the sentry? the name implyed somthing along the lines of a patrole. i assumed it was a patrol that would stop and ask for orders similar to guard every time it saw something... but i cant get it to go back and forth. What exactly does this option do?

ps i got the exit planet to work, i just had to zoom in enough so that the hot point of my curser was actually in the box

It's still a form of automation, which the previous poster was complaing about. If it works as you say, I've never used it myself, then there's no need to conduct a war on your own. Just put the ship on auto-pilot and it will take care of your enemy for you. And it would only require a bit of tweaking to get it to in conjunction with a patrol command.

It's basically the same a Guard except it will respond to any ships that come within range, not just enemy ships. And no it won't work if your ship is moving, it has to be standing still. Movement will cancel any Guard/Sentry command.

Yes, as you can see I am quite ecstatic about this! Nothing better than having one great game... that you can just look at, I guess, if I open the debug that is... and read senseless jargon which I know nothing about!
And if you read this Cari, I was merely injecting some humor amongst forum members.