Question about warp manipulation sequence

[douglas]

No, I don't think combat matters for that. There is, however, a critical difference between the move and seek after orders.

Move to planet X, Load Troops, Move to Planet Y:
Moves to planet X, attempts to load troops from enemy planet and fails
Combat occurs at end of day, planet is captured.
Load troops order has already been cleared from the queue, so move to planet Y without loading troops.

Attack planet X, Load Troops, Attack planet Y:
"Seeks after" planet X. This order remains valid even after arrival, though it no longer takes movement points to execute. The attack order takes up the entire allotment of orders for that day as it is repeatedly executed to no effect.
Combat occurs at end of day, planet is captured.
Attack order is checked and found to no longer be valid because the target is owned by the same player. Attack order is cleared and Load Troops gets executed successfully from the newly conquered planet. Start seeking after planet Y.

Edit: hmm, I haven't tested this, but this might work for those cases when you can't see the target planet to give an attack order. Try giving the load troops order 11 or 12 times after the move to planet order and before moving to the next planet. If the number of orders a planet can execute on day 0 (21 orders) is the same as the max orders per day for a ship, the last 1 or 2 move/load troops order pairs won't be cleared on the turn combat starts and will still be in the queue the day after for when the planet has been captured. Just be sure you have enough force to capture the planet in one battle.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Hmm...Don't think I said hi yet.

Hi, yet.

Oh, yeah, right. Hi, CaptainAl.

[CaptainAL]

Hi back. First time I've been formally welcomed by a Toon. That much closer to the ultimate "having seen/heard/smelled/touched/thought/did it all! Thanks.

So, if I understand this correctly - if my ships are sitting on a warp and discovered is this nasty thing on the system star, the best hope I have is to collect them all into one fleet. That way, the fleet movement will be governed by the ship with the lowest ID and they all will be able to warp before the star destroyer acts if any ship in the fleet has a lower ID than the destroyer. Got it.

BTW - putting the SM ship in a fleet won't work because a SM order can not be issued to a fleet - unless there is some way to give an individual ship within a fleet an order that I am unaware of. Doesn't matter though because SM orders happen before ship movement - OHHH, that negates the idea above then - there is no way to escape a star destroyer because ship movement happens after SM. Is that right? Hmmm...

So how long is it that you need to stay addicted to this game before you REALLY understand it?! I think it's about three years for me now and here I am, asking questions, then answering them for myself, then there's Hmmm... There's always Hmmm...

[Suicide Junkie]

Also note that for any of that to matter, your fleet has to have a speed exactly equal to the speed of the sunbuster ship.

If your fleet is faster, you move a day or two before, if slower, you (would have) moved a day or more after the blast.

[douglas]

CaptainAL said:
So, if I understand this correctly - if my ships are sitting on a warp and discovered is this nasty thing on the system star, the best hope I have is to collect them all into one fleet. That way, the fleet movement will be governed by the ship with the lowest ID and they all will be able to warp before the star destroyer acts if any ship in the fleet has a lower ID than the destroyer. Got it.

Correct. Unless, of course, the star destroyer is sufficiently faster than your fleet that its first move comes on an earlier day than your fleet gets to move, in which case there's nothing you can do.

CaptainAL said:
BTW - putting the SM ship in a fleet won't work because a SM order can not be issued to a fleet - unless there is some way to give an individual ship within a fleet an order that I am unaware of. Doesn't matter though because SM orders happen before ship movement - OHHH, that negates the idea above then - there is no way to escape a star destroyer because ship movement happens after SM. Is that right? Hmmm...

There is nothing special about any kind of order, including SM. ALL orders go in the standard framework of execution on day of movement in order by ship ID within each day. The part of the FAQ that puts SM before movement is incorrect. It's been a while since the FAQ has been updated, and I think the last update was incomplete.

Immobile objects like planets, bases, and satellites execute their orders on day 0 and only on day 0, but I think SM does at least require that you have a movement point available even though it doesn't use it.

Suicide Junkie said:
Also note that for any of that to matter, your fleet has to have a speed exactly equal to the speed of the sunbuster ship.

Exact speed does not matter, only which day the fleet and sunbuster move on. Once you get into the really fast speeds, there's a fairly wide range that all move on the same day, at least for the first move.

[Suicide Junkie]

True. Stock speeds do get pretty crazy high.
Replace "exactly", with "really close"

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I don't think anybodies figured it all out, yet.