Scout Auto-Explore flight paths not spread out enough

from GalCiv2 Forums
A bunch of scouts set to Auto-Explore from the same source planet take the same path to explore, and what you end up with is a conga line of scouts flying around the galaxy. It would be much more useful if ships set to auto-explore were aware of the search patterns and sensor radii of their brethren and were more aware of which areas were unexplored and would spread out their searches more.
3,680 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
yea it's something thats known for a while, has something to do with the AI pathing since they kind of end up following each other trying to go to the same unexplored area. I just make sure that I send the scouts to a far away area and have it explore from there and if two scouts are ending up on the same path, I send one off some ways in another direction towards an unexplored area.

Also, to kind of help fix that when you first send them out, when you make your first scout ship just set it on autoexplore from the start and when you get your second one, send it off a distance in whatever direction (away from the other scout helps) and set it to autoexplore from there. Do the same for the rest of your scouts. Also check the autopilot path on the minimap once in a while to make sure your scouts aren't ending up in a conga line as you say.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
"known bug" is a code phrase for voting that it shouldn't be fixed. And it won't be. So we muck about with work-arounds instead.

You're right about the pathing; the ship goes from left to right, sector by sector, row by row. Then it travels all the way across the map to start the next row. An efficient path would be a spiral, starting from where you are, and skipping a sector if there's already a sooner scout arrival slated for that sector.

But that requires, you know, math n stuff.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In my games I don't usually build many scouts, but the ones that I do, they seem to try to explore as little space as possible. Lazy Columbus wannabes!  
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Can't they use whatever code the AI scouts use? I don't see the computer scouts in the 'conga line'.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think the AI does it manually because if they were on autoexplore, you'd see the same notice below the ship as it does for the human player's ships.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Just something else that wasn't developed/implemented right. I used to get annoyed by this, but anymore it's just oh well.

What kills me is they spend time getting the lights on a planet at night to look pretty, but don't address something basic like this. (or auto-survey)

Generally I find it's easier to build survey scouts early and set them to auto-survey. That will get a decent coverage of your local area. (2 or 3 ships early on)

Then later I build faster long range scouts, send each one out somewhere and then use auto-explore. They in-evitably form the "conga" line, but it gets the job done. What gets really annoying is when you miss a resource that's close to you because of the stupidity of the auto-explore.