Range behaior ---- Is this as planned or is it strange?

from GalCiv2 Forums
I have two cases here.

1) A standard transport that I sent to capture another race's planet could travel anywhere around the enemy's planet but could not capture it. The ship started from a planet in space I own and went to a star in space the enemy owns in which I have a colonized planet. I could not attack the enemy's planet but I could add population to my planet (in the same star system). Attacking the enemy's planet gets the "out of range" message.

2) I have a planet in an system owned by another race (they have two planets, I have one) where I built a standard colony ship. When I try to colonize another planet in the same system it gets the "out of range" message.
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think something has gone wrong with range. After reloading a game, I can't move my ships anywhere without getting an out-of-range message.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have seen this on the current build (0.12) as well, and have seen it reported in this forum by others.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Range is based on your INFLUENCE. This means that short ranged craft (ie, transports) can only travel near your controlled zones. So if those enemy worlds aren't near your influence, they will be out of range until you design a "long ranging" transport of your own.

Start a new game, build a sensor drone, and send it around. You will notice it has range 0 and can only go wherever you control.

When you reload, your influence is temporarily set to zero. But it should grow again, and as it grows, your normal ship range will return.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ah, that would explain it...

So if range now needs influence, and influence is still way too complicated to save & load easily, what's going to be done for Gal Civ 2?
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
When you reload, your influence is temporarily set to zero. But it should grow again, and as it grows, your normal ship range will return.

Tried reloading an autosave (can't save), played ~10 turns, still no influence.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

We're actually changing the way range is done.

Like StarPilot said...at the moment, ship Range is directly tied to your Empires Influence.

In GalCiv1, however, it was tied to the locations of friendly Systems, meening you could leap-frog to further Systems easier than in the current version of GC2.

For Beta2, we'll be changing the Range calculation back to the old method, but it sounds like the influence bug (when loading a saved game) still needs to be addressed.

Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have great difficulty rationalizing range based on influence. Certainly how far a ship can travel before needing fresh supplies is based on where you have friendly ports you can get those supplies, not on how much influence you have at that port. Sure, the costs may differ, but at least it is a port you can dock at.

Also, why would it affect only attempts to attack a planet? As I said earlier, I could sent my ship to any side of the planet I was trying to attack but I could not attack the planet.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Also, why would it affect only attempts to attack a planet? As I said earlier, I could sent my ship to any side of the planet I was trying to attack but I could not attack the planet.

Maybe because the planet isn't your influence zone (on the planet location, the planet has a greater influence than your, but not on surrounding space),but all space arround is in your influence zone.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Maybe because the planet isn't your influence zone (on the planet location, the planet has a greater influence than your, but not on surrounding space),but all space arround is in your influence zone


Actually, the entire space in the solar system is marked as being in the other race's influence zone, even though I own one of the planets (the other race's planets are bigger (larger PQ) than my one planet, and have been colonized much longer than mine). Yet my simple "range 1" transport can travel in it at will, except to attack that blinking planet.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have enountered this behavour as well - a system with 3 colonies belonging to another race. I Invade the first one but can never seem to get the range to invade the other two colonies - even after another 20 turns have past.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
When a ship is selected, Beta build 12 shows a small biege blocky line of how far it can go. I've had the problem where my transports could reach beside an enemy world (all around), but did not have the range to actually reach the world! it was outside the "range" box marker, but darned hard to see. I've had similar trouble with colony ships, often enough. Seems weird, but their you go.

Now, maybe there is a bug, but check next time, and see if your range box doesn't include that world.