Escort Construction ship?

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ool
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Escort Construction ship?

Post by ool »

Just bought distant worlds universe. Am starting to learn the game with the recommended introductory game. It says warships can be assigned to escort the construction ships. How? I tried creating a fleet with the construction ship but it wouldn't work. Would appreciate some guidance in this matter. Thanks in advance for any responses.
Serenitis
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RE: Escort Construction ship?

Post by Serenitis »

You don't need to have ships in the same fleet as the constructor, or in any fleet at all for that matter.

To escort a ship do this:
- Select the ships you want to use as an escort force either by bandbox, one at a time, or by fleet.
- With the ships still selected hover your cursor over the ship you want them to protect, and the cursor will change to two grey ships next to each other.
- Right click once and the selected ships will now follow the target ship and attack anything that attacks it.

Be aware that the escorting ships being optimised for combat will likely run out of fuel long before the ship they are protecting. Unless you design them specifically for the job. [;)]
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RemoteLeg
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RE: Escort Construction ship?

Post by RemoteLeg »

Serenitis' method described above is the correct one.

However, I will sometimes set my fleet to patrol a particular system if I have a constructor doing lots of work in that system. The fleet will go off to refuel when required, but they will return and will not waste fuel escorting the constructor back & forth between a star-base and the construction site.
If you first build a gas mining station on a local Caslon-rich planet, the escorts don't need to leave the system to refuel.

That's the beauty of Distant Worlds - so many options.
See my Distant Worlds tutorial videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... VfLtaT9Y81
Bingeling
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RE: Escort Construction ship?

Post by Bingeling »

You can also just move the (manual) fleet to the system and have them sit there with their power use covered by the energy collectors. That way they won't have to refuel.

Of course, if there is a lot of action they will run out of fuel from moving/fighting, but then the construction ship won't be able to complete the task in any case.

As for orders, control and right click on targets give a nice menu of things to do. In case you are unsure what the default order is, or want another one. I mostly use this to refuel at a specific spot (by control right clicking the mine/spaceport).
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RemoteLeg
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RE: Escort Construction ship?

Post by RemoteLeg »

To get a fleet to patrol a certain area:

1) Set the fleet's home to a colony that is centrally located to the area you want guarded. You can do this in the Fleets screen.

2) Set the range of operations to either the solar system, nearby systems, or sector. This will define how close an enemy ship needs to be before the fleet will attack it. You do this in the information screen for the fleet.

3) With the fleet selected, click the Automate button (information screen) to set all ships in the fleet to automatic.

The ships will patrol the area you specified. When they need fuel they will go and refuel then return. I advise that you build a Caslon mining station close by so they don't have to go far.
It's good because now you can forget about this fleet for a while and concentrate on other parts of your empire.
See my Distant Worlds tutorial videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... VfLtaT9Y81
Aeson
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RE: Escort Construction ship?

Post by Aeson »

Be advised that RemoteLeg is using 'patrol' somewhat loosely. Setting a fleet to defend an area is more like posting a reaction force to the set home base. You will not normally see the fleet or parts thereof head off to areas under the notional protection of the fleet unless there is an attack in progress at that location ('attack in progress' possibly includes hostile ships detected inbound for that location, though I haven't paid enough attention to my defending fleets in areas covered by long-range scanners to see if that's the case), and it is possible for the attack to be resolved before the responding fleet arrives. If you want a fleet to protect something specific, station a fleet in the same system and keep that fleet there as long as you want that thing protected.

Also, be certain to turn OFF automatic fleet formation in the Empire Policies screen, or the computer can and most likely will rebase the fleet, change the fleet's composition (including dissolving the fleet entirely or removing some ships from the fleet without replacing them or adding them to other fleets), change the fleet's coverage zone, change the fleet stance from defend to attack, etc.
1) Set the fleet's home to a colony that is centrally located to the area you want guarded. You can do this in the Fleets screen.
Or you can set the home base with a button in the lower left corner of the screen (it's a button with a planet on it, near the automate, fleet stance, and operations area size buttons), which also allows you to choose a station to be the home base if you don't have a convenient colony or something like that. You'll need to be able to click on the desired home base on the main screen, which could be inconvenient if the desired base is a busy spaceport, but it's not really any more inconvenient than figuring out where exactly Ipsedui colony happens to be and whether or not the fleet stationed at Epsithi already protects the region.
2) Set the range of operations to either the solar system, nearby systems, or sector. This will define how close an enemy ship needs to be before the fleet will attack it. You do this in the information screen for the fleet.
As a side note, 'home base only' has more or less the same effect as 'system;' warships, even those in fleets which theoretically guard only the home base, will almost always move to engage hostile targets which are present in the same system as they are.

Also, unless you happen to have upgraded Equinox drives or better, I wouldn't suggest that you set an engagement range of anything beyond 'nearby systems' unless you already have local defense forces to delay attackers or unless the targets you intend to protect are very durable relative to the likely attacking force; it takes a long time for a ship to respond to something half a sector away (even with a fully-upgraded Gerax Hyperdrive, you're looking at about 67 seconds at normal game speed for a ship to reach a target that's only half a sector away, and even a ship with a fully-upgraded Torrent Drive is going to take roughly 32 seconds to get there; an attacker can do a lot of damage in that time if the target's defenses are not very strong relative to the attacker's offensive strength - if you have 1 unupgraded Corvidian Shield per unupgraded Maxos Blaster on the attacker, your shields will last roughly 40 seconds, and I rather suspect that an attacker is likely carrying more weapons than just 1 per shield on the target unless you've designed fortress mines or something like that).
NephilimNexus
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RE: Escort Construction ship?

Post by NephilimNexus »

I fit my construction ships with shields, weapons, and fighter bays. They don't need escorts.
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CyclopsSlayer
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RE: Escort Construction ship?

Post by CyclopsSlayer »

ORIGINAL: NephilimNexus

I fit my construction ships with shields, weapons, and fighter bays. They don't need escorts.
Be sure to also change their orders set or they will still fless before shooting back.
Serenitis
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RE: Escort Construction ship?

Post by Serenitis »

ORIGINAL: NephilimNexus

I fit my construction ships with shields, weapons, and fighter bays. They don't need escorts.

This is the correct thing to do.
The single best thing you can put on a constructor: Fighter bays.
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