Question about warp manipulation sequence

[CaptainAL]

Can't find this one in the FAQ posts:

I have warp opener and closer ships together on sectors with 10 WPs. The needed trick is to close a warp first and then to open another in the same (first) movement turn. In past games I just gave the two types the orders and the closing order happened first, so the new warp then opened. To my horror, this did not happen in one of my present games. The warp opening ships attempted to execute their orders before the closers, so no warps opened - but warps did close exposing my system. I purposely designed my openers with one less movement point than my closers, thinking that the faster ship would execute its order before the slower one. Apparently this does not work. The only other thing I see is that my opener design name comes alphabetically before my closer name.

So my question is: do SM ship commands on day one execute in order of ship class name, for example would the order execution for ship class "A Opener" come before that of ship class "B Closer"? Can't think of what else it could be except that is just random.

Anyone know?

[Alneyan]

I normally make the opener move once before doing the opening, while moving the "originating" system as much as possible. SM orders are a little bit risky, and seem to involve some randomness: Slynky had noticed a very fishy behaviour in Star Destroyers, which sometimes blew up on day 1, and sometimes blew up later on in the turn (speed seemed to be irrelevant).

On another note, be very careful with warp point manipulation and movement orders in the same turn. The AI pathfinding can get confused every once in a while, and pick a very bad path. I know I used this sort of thing a *lot* in one game, but it eventually backfired on me (it isn't fun to lose a Star Destroyer because of poor pathfinding). You can alievate for this somewhat by giving system-by-system move orders, since the way is obvious then (there's only one way to go from system X to system Y when the two are connected by a wormhole).

[douglas]

In general the order of order execution by ships that move on the same day is done in order by internal ship ID numbers, which are not directly visible to the player. If two ships are in the same location, however, you can determine which has a lower ship ID and will move first by checking the Fleet Transfer screen. Ships are listed in order by ship ID in the Fleet Transfer screen, provided that they are either both not in fleets or are both in the same fleet. If the warp opener is above the warp closer in the list, then it will attempt to open the warp point before the closer has had a chance to do anything. If the warp closer in higher up the list, then it will act first and the opener will be able to operate.

Every ship in a fleet moves at the same time as the first ship in the fleet, so only the ship at the very top of the list for each fleet in the fleet transfer screen is relevant for determining movement order. If your warp opener goes at the very top of the list when you put it in the fleet, then you can have it open a warp point and have the fleet go through simultaneously because the open warp point order will be executed before the fleet gets to move. Otherwise, the fleet will have to delay its transit.

Ship ID numbers are set when the ship finishes construction and cannot be changed by any means. Numbers are assigned in order with reuse. For instance, if you have four ships, numbered 1-4, the next ship will be number 5. If ship 2 is destroyed, however, the next ship you build will be number 2. The list is not separate for each player, so enemy losses can affect what ID's your new ships will get.

You can determine whether ships will move on the same day by checking the chart in the FAQ (search for "movement days").

[CaptainAL]

THANKS to both! I would have never figured this one out without knowing about the ship ID. I checked the game in question and my openers are listed higher than the closers present. Does retro-fitting change the ID? When I can retrofit my ships I will put a warp closer and opener in each so I can do both with one ship's command set.

When I have had the luxury of time I have always ordered the openers to move first so as to open on a later day than the closers, as you Alneyan, but at times the loss of even a few days means 45 baseships just escaped my system unscathed after they glassed most of my planets That seems to be the typical situation right now - every time I just miss nailing a big fleet due to some SM screw up (mostly of my own doing). One thing that helps is I use the "system to avoid" feature to make sure my ships don't go someplace disastrous as a result of my SM screw-ups. Then at least I only waste a movement turn or two instead of losing an entire fleet.

Didn't know that star destroyers may detonate later than day one. With the way my luck has been going mine will pop late and another large fleet will get away. Oh well, some games drag out too long anyway. That's a good thing to know - only now that adds one more thing to have to plan around. If I didn't love this game so much I sure would hate it!

Thanks again.

[douglas]

Ship ID cannot be changed by any means, including retrofitting. If you retrofit your opener and closer to switch each to the other design, they will keep the same ID's and a repeat of the simultaneous close/open exercise would then work.

I'm not completely sure, but I think this is how the timing of star destruction orders works: every time a ship gets to move (each day in the movement days chart in the FAQ for its speed), it will execute as many orders as possible, ending only when the next order requires spending a movement point and it's already spent one that day or it has executed a maximum number of orders already that day (21, I think). I don't think star destruction spends a movement point, so it will be executed as soon as it reaches the top of the list. If it is already the first order in the queue at the beginning of the turn, then it will be executed when the ship gets its first move, following the usual execution order by ship ID. Thus, if an enemy fleet moves on the same day as your star destroyer and includes a ship with a lower ID than the star destroyer's, that fleet will be able to warp back out before the star explodes (assuming it's already on a warp point). If your star destroyer has the lower ID, however, the fleet will just have to sit there and get blown to bits by the shockwave.

[Slick]

...every time a ship gets to move ... it will execute as many orders as possible...

Too true. A subtle point here also is that if the last movement resulted in a battle, then non-movement orders won't be performed that turn. Example: a "capture planet" fleet captures a planet on its last movement point in that turn. If the fleet had further orders to load troops and continue capturing other planets, it won't load troops until the next turn.

[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.