Ships on Sentry - Bad Implementation or Bug |
Has anyone asked Malfador to take a look at how Ship Sentry works?
Right about now, I'd rather keep all the bugs in the game if they would just change how Sentry works. Let me give you an example.
I place a ship on Sentry. Then, I decide I want to move that ship somewhere else. Personally, I would think a Move order would override the Sentry order. Nope. Instead, the game thinks that I want the ship to stay on Sentry. Then, when it sees an alien ship and wakes up, maybe then it will execute my Move Order?
Or, get this one. I have a ship on Sentry in orbit around a planet with a Space Yard. I decide to Retrofit this Ship. So, I issue that order. How does the game interpret that order? Yep. You guessed it. When the ship detects an enemy ship, it will wake up. Then, it will be retrofitted.
Maybe someone can tell me a better way to do this. I had been using Sentry as a way to remove my ships from the list of ships thae game will iterate through when you press the 'spacebar'. Is there a different way (short of mothballing the ship) that will let me do this? (And yes, I am thinking about mothballing just so I don't have so many ships to control.)
Thanks for any and all ideas.
move orders should not
move orders should not remove the sentury order.
similt games need to have ships move if an enemy ship/ships enter a system.
-----
an se5a is a ww1 fighter, it is also a car.
I'm a Backspace man myself...
My big problem with retrofitting is having to use the ships tab in order to retrofit ships in fleets.
You could out these ships in
You could out these ships in a fleet an then under one of the options select the one that has the next ships cycle skip fleets. However, with the ordnance bug you risk them losing their ordnance. Maybe after patch you can try this.
Queue orders
I'm used to queue several orders in a row; it is very helpful, especially when you use the "repeat order" command.
Sentry? More like you want sleep
I use the sentry order alot to remove the message at the end of the turn too, and I muse agree, it does seem a little weird. But the end of turn message is new to space empires, and the sentry order was never meant to be used that way: It is an order after all, and it gets queued like the rest of them.
I think it would be best if there was a sleep 'status effect' that you could toggle on or off, that will just remove the end of turn reminder and do nothing else. Kind of like how 3DO did for heroes of might & magic 3; If you ever played that game, you'd know exactly what im talking about. It couldn't be created as an 'order', because orders get queued up. Mabe I should e-mail malfador for a feature request...
No sentry with low supplies!
I've also noticed that you can't sentry ships that are low on supplies. 
-----
Use the Ships List report?
While this bothered me at first myself, I now just use the Ships List and check their status. I will admit it would help if I could sort or filter by status though.
Press Esc?
The problem isn't so much that the ship is staying on sentry, just that it continues until the order ends. The easiest thing to try and remember to do is hit Esc before issuing new orders to a ship. At least until they can patch it...
Dragagon
Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.
-- Robert Heinlein