Problem with auto-investigating ruins....

[SeanThornton]

Not sure if auto-investigating is the right term, but I'm talking about when an exploration ship finds some ruins (the three dots in a triangle symbol on the map). I started the game following the New Guys Newbie Guide, which turns off ALL automation, except this one setting. However, I just noticed that there were three systems with ruins which had not been auto-investigated. "Were", because right after I noticed, the third one was investigated, since the exploration ship was still in that system. Strangely, even though I have seven exploration ships, the only ruins on my map are in systems all explored by this same ship. So, any idea why the other two were not auto-investigated?

Thanks

[Aeson]

Exploration ships have a tendency to ignore ruins on worlds whose resources have already been profiled in favor of surveying unexplored worlds. Upgrading your resource profile scanners and acquiring system maps by trading for or stealing galaxy maps, by purchasing system maps from pirates, or through the system maps ruin event will allow you to acquire survey data for a world without an exploration ship necessarily coming close enough to the world to explore any ruins which may be present. It is also possible that a bug or glitch prevented the investigation trigger from being tripped by your exploration ship.

[stuart3]

"Exploration ships chart unknown areas of the galaxy. As they explore they reveal colonizable planets, uncover valuable resources and make contact with other empires. These ships have powerful resource detection sensors for discovering valuable minerals." - The Galactopedia.

This sums up all that an automated exploration ship will attempt to find in a system. Occasionally it's path will pass close enough to something else of interest for it to be to noticed, and you will get a message to that effect, but more often it will simply identify the geological resources and move on. It's not just ruins that won't be reported in that case. It also won't report abandoned ships and bases, debris fields, and ships or mining stations belonging to known AI controlled factions or pirates. And unlike the ruins, these items will not be visible if you inspect the system after your ship has left it.

I usually send my explorers to an unknown system with orders to explore that system only, which means that it ends it's mission there and I then give the system a quick once over before ordering the exploration ship to explore another system. This also lets me send my explorers on a reasonably efficient pattern of exploration rather than let the AI send them out on an inefficient zigzag path which it does if the explorers are automated.

[SeanThornton]

OK, thanks for the help. In regards to Stuart's response, if that's the case, then why have the setting to tell it to investigate ruins and report? Is it just bugged?

[stuart3]

No, it's not bugged. It's just that explorers are designed to explore specifically for mineral and luxury resources. See the Galactopedia entry above. There is no mention of ruins in that. Explorers are not programmed to investigate ruins or ships. Any kind of ship will give you the same results as explorers with regard to ruins or ships. Or the same lack of results if they don't pass close enough to them. Even private sector ships will discover ruins occasionally, but you can't tell them where to go.

[Shark7]

One other thing to keep in mind is that Exploration ships run at the first sign of trouble. Meaning they may move into a system, find a pirate or space monster there and quickly leave the system. This opens the system so you can see everything there, but since the Exploration Ship left in a hurry, the stuff didn't actually get explored.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

One other thing to keep in mind is that Exploration ships run at the first sign of trouble. Meaning they may move into a system, find a pirate or space monster there and quickly leave the system. This opens the system so you can see everything there, but since the Exploration Ship left in a hurry, the stuff didn't actually get explored.

Actually, it sounds like a VERY old bug that had the explorers scan a planet for resources but leave before exploring ruins. iirc, Elliot reduced the radius of the ruins scanning collider. If it is the same bug, there's nothing the player can do to prevent it. And going back to those unexplored ruins is tedious in the extreme.

[Hattori Hanzo]

again, it's not a bug: the explorers are designed to explore specifically for mineral and luxury resources.

from Galactopedia:

"Exploration ships chart unknown areas of the galaxy. As they explore they reveal colonizable planets, uncover valuable resources and make contact with other empires. These ships have powerful resource detection sensors for discovering valuable minerals."

[stuart3]

The only thing that automated exploration ships do in a system that other ships don't do is to move around the system scanning the planets and asteroids with their resource sensors. If this results in them passing close enough to a ruin then you will be invited to investigate it. If they don't pass close to the ruin then that doesn't happen. As you research improvements to the Resource Profile Sensor, they identify the resources from further away. By the time you have researched Advance Resource Exploration (only the second improvement) the scanning range is so large that in all but the largest star systems explorers can identify resources from the middle of the system, which means that they don't pass close to any planet whether it has ruins or not.

The idea of explorers automatically closing in on planets with ruins may seem a good idea in the early game, but you won't want your explorers to automatically do it later in the game when some ruins are found to be patrolled by powerful pirate forces. In that situation it would become an automatic explorer suicide mission.

[SirHoraceHarkness]

Upgrading the scanner range will solve most of this as it will have a larger trigger radius so it can detect more stuff as it goes along its way. So if a planet has other items to detect they will usually fall into its detection range as it approaches. I think the default range is tiny so that might be the issue.

[Hattori Hanzo]

ORIGINAL: SirHoraceHarkness

Upgrading the scanner range will solve most of this as it will have a larger trigger radius so it can detect more stuff as it goes along its way. So if a planet has other items to detect they will usually fall into its detection range as it approaches. I think the default range is tiny so that might be the issue.

with the "scanner range" did you refer to the range of the "Proximity Arrays" of the explorating ships ?

[SeanThornton]

Since I can't rely on the ship to auto-investigate the ruins, I've stopped queuing up systems to explore, and just do them one at a time. Then, when I get prompted to go and give the ship a new mission, if I see a ruin in the current system, I make sure it's investigated before moving on.

[Hattori Hanzo]

exactly as I do [8D]