I like the fact that fleets were added. But there a thing that bothers me: You cannot give orders to ships under a flagship that you're not berthed at.

I had envisioned fleets in a slightly different way:

- You could create fleets and name them, e.g. First Fleet, Orion Sector Fleet or Battlegroup Gamma.

- Hailing in the Fleet channel would then open channels to all individual ships like before, aswell as open channels to all named fleets. Giving orders in the named channels would then give the order to all ships within that fleet. Also currently it seems to open 2 different channels to flagships (one from Fleet and one from Starforce)

The formations and travelling together I had not envisioned, but they do sound nice, so I'm ok with that. I however envisioned it to merely be a way of communicating with a select group of ships (instead of all ships in system/sector range). But grouped warps/jumps do sound cool.


This would be nice because you could give orders to fleets aswell as to all individual ships of every fleet at all times. . After completing individual orders ships could then return to the flagship. That way ships within a remote fleet can be sent to do errands.

And best of all, it could solve the Starforce naming conundrum because that channel would not be needed anymore

I realise that this might be nitpicking a bit and maybe asking to much for Hazeron but i got that from X4 foundations where individaul ships can be sent do orders, then automatically return to fleet orders after finishing the individual task.

Might just be fueled by resitance to change, dunno, we'll see what other people think. :D

Fleets
I don't always know what I'm going to work on next. Sometimes the current sweeps me away. This past two weeks I found myself unexpectedly delving into fleet formations of spacecraft. Here is the result.

A ship can be designated as a flagship of a fleet. Any number of ships can be joined to that flagship's fleet. An empire can have more than one flagship thus more than one fleet.

A new Fleet order was added to the Mission Orders list. Using a Fleet order, you can order a ship to become a flagship, to join a flagship, or to depart from their fleet. Ordering a fleet ship to become a flagship promotes it to the flagship and the previous flagship is demoted. Ordering a flagship to exit the fleet dissolves the fleet.

A new Fleet page was added to the Spacecraft window tabs. There are some fleet management controls to designate the ship as a flagship, to join a fleet, and to exit a fleet. Fleet ships check in with the flagship periodically. The flagship lists those ships in a table with information about them on the Fleet page. Right click them to manage them.

One handy action that is not obvious is that you can select multiple ships in your fleet and right click on the one that will be the new flagship. Then select the Make Fleet menu option and they will split off into a separate fleet with the new flagship.

The Fleet page also has a combo box to select the fleet formation. This determines where the ships in the fleet belong relative to the flagship. Formation changes happen instantly; locked ships immediately change positions rather than have a gaggle of ships trying to rearrange themselves.

At the helm, you see a box indicating your ship's position in the fleet when it is not locked into position. Once you are close enough to that spot, you can use a helm button to lock your ship into its formation position. At that point, your ship is slaved to the flagship and it will move in sync with the flagship until it is unlocked, which the pilot (or the flagship) can do at any time.

NPC pilots of fleet ships always try to reach their formation position so they can lock in to the fleet. They are more successful when the flagship is not moving. Some formations, such as column formation, make it easier for the ships to get locked into their positions.

I tried having NPCs fly in formation and I tried it myself. That was a fools errand with ships that accelerate or decelerate at hundreds of meters per second constantly and that lack the ability to achieve that fine of control. Airplanes and navy ships can easily move at the same speed as each other, making formations a bit easier. Not so with spacecraft trying to go the speed of light as fast as possible all the time.

The locking mechanism proved to be the answer. It might not be super realistic but it gets the job done and it looks pretty good. It also keeps the fleet together very well through wormholes and at warp speed. The NPC pilot of the flagship considers the radius of the entire fleet when avoiding obstacles.

The fleet ship checkin information shown in the Fleet table is used to limit the maximum warp and maximum acceleration of the fleet to the slowest ships. If anybody can't warp the flagship will not go to warp. Likewise, if anybody can't wormhole the flagship will not go through wormholes.

When flying to a space station, the flagship moves the fleet next to the station as if it were one huge ship. All the locked ships in the fleet are considered to be in range of the station for trade purposes.

Fleet ships are free to have their own individual missions. They just can't move if they are locked. There are a few mission orders that become the current order for the entire fleet when they are the current order for the flagship. They are: Attack, Plunder, Hide, and Stand Down.

I haven't tested every possible situation with fleets. Beware of "Land" orders. I'm not sure how that would go. If you have trouble with fleets, avoid using them until the next update. I'm sure there will be improvements between now and then.

Starforce
The addition of fleets introduced a nomenclature problem. Previously all government owned spacecraft were called fleet ships. Privately owned vessels are called company ships.

I struggle with this one. I almost went with Navy but that is just too nautical. Space Force? Not a chance. Space Fleet? Space Navy? Ho hum. Star Fleet? :/

Searching did not turn up any existing trademark on the term Starforce. There was a video game called Star Force, two words, but I figure that's no more of a problem than saying star fleet, instead of starfleet™. If anybody knows of a conflict please tell me and I will consider changing it.

I did in fact change the term Star Fleet Academy to Starforce Academy.

There is now a Starforce comm channel and a Fleet comm channel. The Starforce channel talks to all ships in your empire that are not fleet vessels under a flagship. In other words, only the flagships and ships not in fleets will answer on the Starforce channel. Of course, only ships with an officer will answer hails.

The Fleet channel communicates with other ships in the same fleet.

C4 Doors
Someone commented that explosives like C4 and dynamite do not open the doors of spacecraft.

The code for explosives required them to be very close to the door switch, not the door. I fixed that. This works well now. You can stick a bomb onto a door anywhere and it should blow open.

Incidentally, a door that is blown open becomes jammed open. A jammed door will not close itself and it cannot be closed with a remote door switch. It requires someone to physically touch the door to close it.

Shield Types
There are three kinds of energy shields but they all do the exact same thing.

This is finally done. Here is the result.

Cloaking shield was renamed to Stealth shield. The name is more indicative of what it does. Unlike the cloaking shield of popular scifi which acts more like an invisibility cloak.

• Kinetic Shield - Provides full protection against kinetic damage. Provides 20% less protection against energy damage.
  
• Energy Shield - Provides full protection against energy damage. Provides 20% less protection against kinetic damage.
  
• Stealth Shield - Provides 20% less protection against kinetic and energy damage. Reduces sensor detection range based on shield module quality. If sensor can't detect your ship, weapons cannot lock onto it.
  

When I try to order a ship in another system, sometimes it shows the correct planets, cities and stations from that system. Sometimes it however does not.

I noticed that when I do a tactical scan, the correct ones show up in the lists, and they seem to remain correct, even after opening and closing the Mission transmitter several times.

However, as soon as I click "report mission", and then close and re-open the Mission transmitter, it only shows planets and cities from the system my character is in. It doesn't matter if I do this 5 minute or 10 minutes after asking for a tactical scan.

After restarting the game, it also shows the correct planets, until I press "report mission".

This also seems to be on a per ship basis also: The carrier shows the wrong planets/cities/stations. A shuttle onboard that carrier however shows the correct planets/cities/stations. I have not given a tactical scan order to the shuttle.

Some other ships in the same system, that I've given no orders at all to, also show the wrong planets.



It would seem odd that the effect of tactical scan would be indefinite, unless u press "report mission", in which case it is immediately undone.


Edit: it might also just randomly alternate between showing the correct and wrong planets, not sure.

Overview 

I have designed an underground structure/habitat with a build zone at multiple levels. Currently there are multiple bugs associated with underground structures. I believe these should be fixed in order to allow players to design these types of buildings. Underground cities and bases are a staple in sci-fi and add a lot of character to a city.

Please take a look at these images of the the building I have designed. It has a large elevator and a massive underground habitat with a build zone. 

https://imgur.com/nsxcnVR - Overall diagram of the design 
https://imgur.com/eTfxx2p - Overall view
https://imgur.com/377ryS2 - Surface View of the Design (The elevated portion of the design is not finished)
https://imgur.com/yEyvbZX - Underground view
 
1. Building Zone Bug

There is a bug that does not allow for placement of buildings below the ground level. In my design there is a build zone on both the ground level and at the sub-surface level. Currently the game snaps new building at the surface level.

https://imgur.com/PVjMfap

Suggested Fix: Allow buildings to snap to underground or high above structures. Allow player to move between snapping via the scroll wheel or a key binding.

2. Environmental Void Bug

There is a bug which causes any player avatar entering an Environmental Void underground to immediately be transported to the surface of a planet. This does not occur with regular Room Voids. For this reason I was forced to construct hallways with room voids and large areas with environmental voids. Environmental voids are required for a design like this because they are the only void type that allows for build zones to be built within. To be clear this bug makes it impossible for an avatar to walk freely within an Environmental void underground. 

https://imgur.com/0NtQjio

Suggested Fix: Take a look at whatever is allowing players to move around freely underground in regular room voids and apply that to environmental voids as well. 

Final Thoughts

Ground Level: I would also ask you consider adding a way to "cut through" the ground level of a planet mesh. Currently there is no good way to place a stairway to an underground area because the ground texture will always appear in place. So a player avatar can pass through it with a room void, but will appear to walk through terrain. 

Planetary Environment Effects: Currently the environmental effects on a planet such as a gas giant appear even inside a biodome or environmental void. This should not be the case. Players should see a clear environment when inside a protected structure. 

-----

Thank you for your time. I have attached a version of my design for you to test or you can download on steam at any time.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f...3199190572

Attached Files

  AEC Undeground Habitat Published 1.SoH (Size: 899.99 KB / Downloads: 2)

Game crash occurs when mission order list includes travel direct to a specific named system and is activated.

This seems to only occur when ship is a far away enough from said system. When attempting to use the "travel direct" order, said system is not shown on the list of "named systems".

The name will eventually appear if close enough to the system. The exact distance hasn't been investigated. Carrying out the order then has not resulted in crashes.

Workaround so far has been to first travel to an intermediary system, then carry out the order. However, attempting to set a mission from a far away system with first a stop in the transitory system then to the target system has also resulted in crashes. As such, it seems to be triggered on initial mission calculation rather than when the travel order itself gets active.

This has only occurred with one system so far. I don't have so many systems so I can't tell if it's a one-off with that system.

Missiles
Missiles don't seem to hit their targets very often, if ever.

Fixed numerous issues with guided missiles and other projectiles.

Ordnance Window
Ordnance window doesn't work correctly on Gulliver when I access a weapon station from a captain's chair.

Fixed. This would have also been a problem at a weapon station when trying to operate a different weapon system than the default system for that station.

Sensor Lock Update Bug
Sensor lock reticle range does not update if I lock on to a target then switch to the captain's chair.

Fixed.

Sensor Lock Linger
Sensor lock reticle remains in space after destroying a target, when there are no other targets to lock onto. It just seems to drift away.

Fixed.

Salvage Order
Salvage order needs to be easier to issue instead of being way down the list of orders. I find myself frantically trying to issue the salvage order before the TEUs drift away.

Salvage order is now the first order on the list.

Pirates
Pirates got some minor improvements as a result of many battles with them.

Hello will blowing spaceship doors with c4 come back soon? Been discussing with people on discord and I'd love to try to hijack a pirate ship but that requires either a transporter or blowing locked door with c4.. they said blowing up doors doesnt work anymore, cheers.. Im new player love this game it's legendary thanks Haxus sir <3

Was using a ship for a while without any issues but at some point ship (or character?) and UI started lagging hard. My second character appears to be unaffected.

25s video
Save file

Pirate Encounter Frequency
It seems like pirates are pretty rare.

Pirate encounters should occur more often now.

Pirate Plunder Bug
Pirates showed up. I ordered my crew to stand down. The pirates parked in a nice line out in front of my ship but they never plundered my ship. They kept calling out to wait until they arrived.

Fixed several problems with this whole encounter.

Sensor Screen Bug
When the info pane is displayed for an object on the sensor screen, sometimes I can't scroll it back up to the topmost line.

Fixed obob (off by one bug).

Sensor Contact Long Lat
It would be nice if contacts on the sensor screen showed their longitude and latitude.

Sensor screen contacts now show their longitude and latitude on the info pane if the object is inside the atmosphere of a world.

Christen Ship Vehicles
After I christen my ship, its vehicles still identify themselves using the id only.

When a ship is christened, it now updates the mothership name info on all of its vehicles in the solar system.

TEU Containers
Deantwo suggested that exploding spacecraft should leave cargo containers behind.

When spacecraft explode their cargo is now disbursed in cargo containers. The algorithm for this insures that no ship will ever leave more than 100 containers behind when it explodes.

Access Containers
A TEU containers sitting on the ground begs for a way to access its contents.

A UI was added to access the contents of any container you are looking at. A Content button appears on the screen to do this.

TEU Containers on Sensors
TEU containers should show up on sensors.

Done.

TEU Containers on Helmet HUD Radar
TEU containers should show up on the radar display of my EV helmet.

Done.

Transport TEU Containers
Transporter should be able to beam up a TEU container.

Done. When beaming up a TEU container, the contents are placed directly into the hold. If the entire contents cannot fit, nothing happens. Messages report the various results.

When beaming to a TEU, nothing special happens. You just beam down somewhere near the container.

Salvage Order
A mission order is needed to salvage cargo from nearby TEUs.

Done. A Salvage Cargo order was added. Every TEU in range is collected one-by-one until no more will fit into the hold. Range is 500m. If the ship has a transporter, the range is the transporter range.

Messages report progress. This order is reported by the officer if there is one but the ship actually carries out the order; no officer or crew are required.

Pirate Crash
A crash happened when a pirate was encountered.

Fixed.

Pins at Site Vertices
Sites drawn in a building design respond to red glow at the vertices, to decide how much influence each vertex has on the terrain. This is impossible to see.

Added "pins" at the vertices that have a non-zero red glow. If a vertex has red glow, a cap is placed 1m above the vertex. A line is drawn from the vertex to the cap. The length of the line, from the vertex to the pin, is modulated by the amount of glow. A vertex with .75 red glow will have a line that is .75m tall, then there is .25m gap before the cap at 1m, to assist in visualizing the amount of red glow.

This revealed errors in the default coastal and agricultural sites. Those were fixed.

Buildings that used those sites were also fixed. This will not affect buildings that were already built.

Paths in Preview
There is a way in the code to show the paths in a design. Could this be useful in the designer preview?

Done, whether or not it is useful. Preview settings now has a check box to show the paths through the buildings or spacecraft.

Designer Repeat Command
It would be nice if there was an easy way to repeat the last command that was used in the designer.

Done. Esc key kills the current command. When there is no current command, Esc key now restarts the last command.

Designer Esc Key
Esc key in the designer kills all running commands. Could this step down by one command when they are stacked?

Done. For example, if you start drawing a mesh extrusion, then use the command to reposition the grid, the Esc key will kill only the grid movement command and fall back to where you were in the mesh extrusion command. Previously one hit on the Esc key would kill both commands.

Map Orbit Bug
Right-click menu on the world map shows two options to orbit low and no option to orbit high.

Fixed a copy constructor bug in the orbit at coordinates order.

Orbit Altitude on Every Order
The mission order UI shows the combo box to select orbit altitude on the options for every order, even those where it is not relevant.

Fixed control visibility bug.