A few questions

[bbenham]

- When viewing an abandoned ship, the only available command when selecting it is "Queue Attack against ...". Is there a way (like in DWU) to Queue a construction ship to come "build it" (repair it)? It's very awkward to go find a construction ship and then find the abandoned ship and do this manually.

- After "topping off" a fleet, you have fleet members scattered all over the place. There is no "regroup" command or even a "go home" command for a fleet. No way to get them together! This causes all sorts of problems, and especially when you send them to attack something they come in piece-meal.

- What is "auto salvage" for a construction ship?

Thanks.

[Gilmer]

Well, I can answer one question at least.

Auto-Salvage. - If you notice after you destroy a ship or a base, there will be a lot of debris floating around. I usually send a ship to salvage at least one of these items, then when it gets there, I change it to auto-salvage and it will salvage all the usable things. I have destroyed two pirate bases that were just lone star bases with no ships and I got a ton of credits, galaxy maps, and other stuff and also pirate leaders and other type characters will be picked up while they are floating around in escape pods.

[OrnluWolfjarl]

1) Go to the exploration tab and the 3rd subtab (the one with the cross) contains a list of all derelicts. You can queue a construction ship to go investigate and repair it from there. If there's a red lightning bolt next to the listing, it's telling you there's some sort of hostile threat nearby (like a monster or an enemy). If the button is greyed out it means someone is already on the way to investigate or is already repairing it. The list also contains abandoned ships and stations that don't require repairs but need investigating to claim. You can use the same button to send an explorer to investigate.

2) There are ways to overcome this issue, until it gets fixed:

- In Fleet Tactics, set Formation to Tight or Very Tight. It makes other ships to make it a priority to be nearby the Lead Ship. This also helps with fighters strolling out of the hangar and delaying their ship to jump.

- Putting any strugglers on Automated will make them seek to get near the lead ship. Unfortunately, they will go back to Manual when you issue an order to the fleet. Also, if they are low on fuel, they will stop still and wait for a fuel tanker, so use with care.

- When attacking, have your fleet move to the interstellar space just outside the target system. When they all assemble you can order them to attack, and they will generally arrive together.

3) Gilmer's answer is correct. But another tip to salvage dropped loot is to put your warships on Automated when near any such debris. They will gather it all up by themselves.

[bbenham]

Thanks. That helps.

If there are 10 derelicts, you now have to match up what you see on the view screen with what's in the exploration list and it's not so easy compared to just right clicking a derelict and saying "queue..." Seems like a negative compared to DWU.

I think in general the Right-click menu for things in the game is very limited compared to DWU and I hope they can improve on that. Much more should be available through right clicking, rather than having to go to one of the detail screens.

I like the idea about moving ships just outside of a target and letting them slowly gather there first, but in reality... by the time they actually all arrive, it can be easy to forget what the heck they were even attacking. Generally I let the A.I. offer suggestions on what to hit, and I just say "sure", but this method means I have to remember way back to figure out what this fleet was even headed towards.

Simple truth is that NO fleet would ever arrive piecemeal and that seems to be the norm here. I've actually had my fuel tankers arrive first on many occasions and the limited A.I. sends them right in to get slaughtered without even a whim of concern. This is a fundamental flaw that makes the Automation in the game near useless for fleets for me at least. There needs to be some other form of fleet management that helps here, as I am often caught off guard when several of my fleet ships run out of fuel and should never have.