#1 Request to improve the AI: Fix Automated Explorers

[Tanaka]

They go flying off willy nilly to the far reaches of the galaxy! What good does this do at all? They should start as close to the home planet and continue exploring from there. Why? Because freighters and constructors and colony ships can actually reach these explored systems. The AI can then actually colonize and mine reachable systems. Its what we players do and one reason we get so much farther ahead. Please fix this I never automate my explorers because of this.

[CyclopsSlayer]

I usually build more than the requested number of explorers. As well I leave a couple on Manual control always as they seem to skip systems.
As well the game seems to get stuck frequently and generates new finds in the same sector. Four different Data cores directed me to sector C5, I ran explorers through the indicated systems and found the indicated ships. Then a 5th core sent me back to C5, the same system, and same world I just found a ship at not minutes before, now had a second one.

[Cheet4h]

Do your explorers fly from your homeworld directly to far off systems? If yes, that's a bug.

Since I don't have such a bug, playing with the latest version, I guess your explorers behave the same as mine: Flying to a system, exploring it and then checking for the closest unexplored system to explore next.

You can fix this in two ways:
1) Manually control your explorers and tell them to "Explore All Systems In Sector". This way they still fly to the closest unexplored systems and use the inferior* manual exploring AI, but they stick to the designated sector and will not leave it.

2) Send retrofit orders to your explorers more often and/or reduce their fuel holds. This way they will return to your empire more often and search for the closest unexplored planets next to your empire, although it will reduce their effective exploring time.


*) Why do I say inferior? Automated explorers don't search for unexplored systems, but for unexplored objects, while the manual explore commands checks for unexplored objects in systems. If there's a system which has a planet with unknown resources, an automated explorer will directly go for the planet, while the explorer manually ordered to explore a sector or system always warps to the sun first and from there warps to the next unexplored object in the system.

[Tampa_Gamer]

On a related (bug) note, I have noticed with several games in Shadows that after telling an explorer to explore a system it will chime that it is done exploring - but when I look at the system, not all of the planets are explored. It happens frequently enough that I now feel the need to check each system to ensure they are truly explored before re-assigning it to a new system. Anyone else encounter this bug?

[CyclopsSlayer]

ORIGINAL: Tampa_Gamer

On a related (bug) note, I have noticed with several games in Shadows that after telling an explorer to explore a system it will chime that it is done exploring - but when I look at the system, not all of the planets are explored. It happens frequently enough that I now feel the need to check each system to ensure they are truly explored before re-assigning it to a new system. Anyone else encounter this bug?

I have seen this as well, both with automated and manual Explorers. Sometimes they move to every single asteroid, sometimes just a fraction of the major objects, and WHAM they are off to the next system.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: CyclopsSlayer

ORIGINAL: Tampa_Gamer

On a related (bug) note, I have noticed with several games in Shadows that after telling an explorer to explore a system it will chime that it is done exploring - but when I look at the system, not all of the planets are explored. It happens frequently enough that I now feel the need to check each system to ensure they are truly explored before re-assigning it to a new system. Anyone else encounter this bug?

I have seen this as well, both with automated and manual Explorers. Sometimes they move to every single asteroid, sometimes just a fraction of the major objects, and WHAM they are off to the next system.

Sometimes they get chased off by monsters or pirates, and that is when they tend to not finish the scans. This becomes less of a problem later in the game when you have higher tech resource scanners that don't have to move right up on every single object.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Tampa_Gamer

On a related (bug) note, I have noticed with several games in Shadows that after telling an explorer to explore a system it will chime that it is done exploring - but when I look at the system, not all of the planets are explored. It happens frequently enough that I now feel the need to check each system to ensure they are truly explored before re-assigning it to a new system. Anyone else encounter this bug?

Me.

1. Explorers do not always investigate ruins even when configuration dictates that they do.
2. Some debris fields are never tagged. It may be a combination of -
a. the debris field cannot be tagged - it has no label, or...
b. the explorer legs it after exploring the object the field is locked to, and never returns
3. explorer prioritization is for whatever is nearest to it, not relative to your empire. Once it wanders off, it continues to explore the far reaches, whilst ignoring systems close to one's controlled planets.

This is nothing new. These behaviour problems have irked me (and others) for quite a while now.

[Lucian]

I don't have any serious issues with the exact way that explorers explore. But it does annoy me greatly to have 60+ explorers sitting around doing absolutely nothing once the galaxy has been fully explored. That can't possibly be WAD can it?

[Canute0]

Yep, you can retrofit them with Ultra-Long range scanners and park them along the galaxy as mobile Pirate detectors.

[sbach2o]

ORIGINAL: Lucian

I don't have any serious issues with the exact way that explorers explore. But it does annoy me greatly to have 60+ explorers sitting around doing absolutely nothing once the galaxy has been fully explored. That can't possibly be WAD can it?

WAD means working as designed and it is doing exactly that. There is no mission of 'keeping tabs on explored systems outside the range of long range scanners' (looking for pirates and such). I'd love them doing this automatically. When the galaxy is explored, I am busy enough with other things and shepherding explorers becomes onerous.

All that automated explorers in an explored galaxy are 'useful' for is peeking into enemy systems in times of war. Not that it is really useful, but more than nothing, anyway. The rest must be done manually.

[Lucian]

Canute: I like your idea of fitting previously useless explorers with long range sensors and positioning them around the galaxy as sensor platforms. That's not a bad work around and I'm definitely going to try it.

It would be nice if the devs could figure a way of making explorers continue to explore or re-explore, once the galaxy is fully mapped rather than just throw in the towel and do absolutely nothing. It may be currently WAD, but to be brutally honest it's a pretty crap design.

[sbach2o]

I can feel with you Lucian, and I can also feel with the developer. What we are asking for is actually pretty hard to implement in an elegant, performance friendly way. More importantly, it has likely been always lower in priority than other urgent tasks regarding the game. But an entire class of ships becoming mostly obsolete at a certain stage of the game doesn't look good.

The "Mobile Long Range Scanner" approach that Canute suggests is what I have been always doing. Not with 60 explorers, though. I significantly reduce the size of the fleet at that stage.

[Canute0]

Believe me, they allready improved the explorer.
In the past the explored swarmed together to explore, it happen that you got 2-5 explorer at one system.
But it isn't satiesfied at moment. I watched auto. explorer who cross 2 sectors to explore a system, but a half sector away was still an unexplored system and no explorer close by who got that maybe as target.
Thats why i send my explorer out with just Explore sector commands and only later when i allready explored the most of the map i put them on auto.

[Tampa_Gamer]

The issue of "not fully exploring a system" does effect both manual "explore system" and automated explorers.

I am sure I am over-simplifying the potential solution, but when the player hovers over an object to see if it still says unknown/unexplored, that is a label tag that exists somewhere in the game's data tied to that particular system/object. Before sending the player a message that the explorer is in fact done exploring that system/without orders, it should do a simple game data check to ensure that no object within that system has that particular label tag. If it finds that tag, it should do as the player would do in that situation and issue another "explore system" command on that system to finish up.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Lucian

I don't have any serious issues with the exact way that explorers explore. But it does annoy me greatly to have 60+ explorers sitting around doing absolutely nothing once the galaxy has been fully explored. That can't possibly be WAD can it?

At that point they will go into work as scouts when you are at war. Personally I only build 24 scouts, as that is plenty to get the exploration done and I don't feel the urgent need to scrap them later on. I also put a Long Range Scanner on them, so they work more like an AWACS later in game.

[Tampa_Gamer]

ORIGINAL: Shark7
I also put a Long Range Scanner on them, so they work more like an AWACS later in game.

Same here. My entire fleet of 12-15x Surveyors get an upgrade to either a JSTAR/AWAC designation. Captured enemy surveyors don't get the LR scanner upgrade, but do get an "Expendable XX" designation and sent to an enemy system that we want "eyes on" information at.

[Erik Rutins]

Explorers actually got a lot of attention for Shadows. Are the issues reported still happening for you all in the latest Shadows version?

Regards,

- Erik

[ASHBERY76]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Explorers actually got a lot of attention for Shadows. Are the issues reported still happening for you all in the latest Shadows version?

Regards,

- Erik

They do not explore all the ruins when automated!!! They keep missing them here and there.

[Lucian]

After they have explored the galaxy, explorers on auto, just stop and do nothing en-masse so I generally just end up with 60 or more sitting at my homeworld doing absolutely nothing. Is that intended behavior as many people seem to think? If so, its pretty sub-optimal.

It would be better if they continued to explore, particularly since several people have reported that it's possible to miss some ruins and therefore fail to ever trigger the Shakturi. If the explorers kept re-exploring, then they would eventually find those ruins. Not to mention that having them idle is a complete waste of an entire ship class.

Edit: We suspect that some ruins are not explored because of map trading and events that reveal system maps. Since those systems are then flagged as "explored", explorers never go there and thus never explore the ruins contained in those systems. If explorers were set to re-explore again and again once they have done the entire galaxy, they would eventually come back and find anything that was missed.

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: Lucian

After they have explored the galaxy, explorers on auto, just stop and do nothing en-masse so I generally just end up with 60 or more sitting at my homeworld doing absolutely nothing. Is that intended behavior as many people seem to think? If so, its pretty sub-optimal.

It would be better if they continued to explore, particularly since several people have reported that it's possible to miss some ruins and therefore fail to ever trigger the Shakturi. If the explorers kept re-exploring, then they would eventually find those ruins. Not to mention that having them idle is a complete waste of an entire ship class.

Edit: We suspect that some ruins are not explored because of map trading and events that reveal system maps. Since those systems are then flagged as "explored", explorers never go there and thus never explore the ruins contained in those systems. If explorers were set to re-explore again and again once they have done the entire galaxy, they would eventually come back and find anything that was missed.

+1

Darkspire