Interesting thing I learned about waypoints...
 

This is probably one of those things that everybody knew but me, but I find it a very interesting and useful feature and I just only discovered it over the weekend.

If you have a way point assigned and ships with orders to move to that way point, resetting that way point will automatically redirect the ships to the new location.

Huh? What's that mean? Well let me give you a couple of examples.

One thing I will often do with way points is set my space yards to send ships to that way point and then as soon as a ship finishes it will be given orders to go there. This cuts down on micromanagment some and is usefull for sending the output of several systems worth of yards to one central location for fleeting up. As territory is won and lost you may find it neccesary to move that collection point. By resetting the way point you don't have to change the construction bases, they will send ships to the new base automatically.

Second point is similer. Say you are moving a bunch of ships to fill a gap in the front lines in the middle of a war. You have ships enroute coming from all over your empire. If the enemy overruns the system your rally point was in, your ships would be destroyed in ones and twos as they straggeled into the rondevous location piecemeal. You'd have to tediously go through all the ships orders that were heading for that location and chnage them to the new point. But if you just reset the waypoint they all automatically are redirected to the new safer location.

Geoschmo

Re: Interesting thing I learned about waypoints...
 

I've known that for like a year. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Interesting thing I learned about waypoints...
 

i didn't know that. good to know! i'm still a newbie wrestling with the ministers to even get them to launch satelittes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Interesting thing I learned about waypoints...
 

yes, many newbies think that the ministers might do usefull things. in time, you too will give up on them.

Re: Interesting thing I learned about waypoints...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">LOL I have not used them at all, Thanks Geo will try the waypoints

Re: Interesting thing I learned about waypoints...
 

How do set a space yard to send ships automatically to a waypoint without using a minister?

Re: Interesting thing I learned about waypoints...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">In the build queue screen for that particular planet or ship space yard click on teh "Set Move to" buttom on the right side. That will bring up a list of way points to assign. You can only chose one way point for each yard. All the ships will go to that way point. If you don't have any waypoints you have to go assign some before you can set the move to for the yard. That is done from the Empire status creen (The crown button) and then hit the Waypoints button ont he right hand side.

Geoschmo

Re: Interesting thing I learned about waypoints...
 

Huh, never worked for me! I tried setting a waypoint to a new location and all that happened to the ships that were going there was they got orders to move to the old location of the waypoint!

Re: Interesting thing I learned about waypoints...
 

Yes Ed, I was not totally clear on that point. The confusion comes about because of the way the game gives newly constructed ships their move too orders. If you have a space yard with a "move too" assigned, any ships constructed at that base will be given orders to move to that spot, not to the way point. If you move the way point, any later ships built will be sent to the new location, but ships already built and on their way will continue to the original destination.

However, ships given orders by using the "move to waypoint" button will have their orders listed as "Move to waypoint x" instead of "move to N system(x,y)". Those ships will actually be redirected if you change the location of the waypoint.

Sorry I was unclear.

Geoschmo

Re: Interesting thing I learned about waypoints...
 

I use the office of Fleet movements commanded by The 2nd Lord of the Admrality.

Re: Interesting thing I learned about waypoints...
 

There are also hotkeys for waypoints: alt-&lt;number 0-9&gt; sets a waypoint; ctrl-&lt;0-9&gt; moves to that specific waypoint; ctrl-W moves to a waypoint chosen from a pop-up list.

Re: Interesting thing I learned about waypoints...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'd call that a bug and ask MM ot fix it. Ships should always be given the move to waypoint order when built by a spaceyard so you can make just such a change in mid-transit.

Re: Interesting thing I learned about waypoints...
 

Geo thanks,
That explains something. In a recent game vs AI my #3 waypoint (on the western edge of my empire) bcame obsolete. I had already created one further west of there, (#5). So I reassigned the #3 Waypoint to a location on toward the South Eastern edge of my empire....
Guess what..
Thanks for clearing up the mystery.

[ September 03, 2002, 12:36: Message edited by: Gryphin ]

Re: Interesting thing I learned about waypoints...
 

As for the launching of satelites:
The first time a sat is built at a planet I
Click on the planet
Tell it to launch the Satelites
Tell it to Repeat Order
Even if there are no sats to launch it will keep the order active.