The Protect Position Sphere - I wish it was flatter

[Scoob]

Hey all,

I use the Protect Position standing order a LOT, I find it much more useful than Patrol. With Patrol ships will invariably be no where near where they're actually needed. That said, this occurs a lot with Protect Position too. Often, when view from above (default view) the area I set for a Protect Position order looks perfect. However, that's not taking into account the verticality of the sphere. Many a time, my ships appear to be in the right area when viewed from above but have actually travelled to the extremes of the vertical range of that Protect Position sphere, meaning targets can cruise on by and my ships cannot catch them. Sure, I can reduce the radius of that sphere but that reduces all ranges.

I'd LOVE to be able to set a Protect Position sphere and be able to squash it down, similar to how we move waypoints vertically. This would be so very powerful and ensure just the correct area of space is patrolled.

Ideally, we'd be able to combine this with a multi-point patrol route. I.e. patrol "Protect Position" area 1, then move on to are 2 etc. etc. But that's really another topic in its self.

For some context, I have ships delivering wares to the Trading Station in Ianamus Zura IV, which is regularly invaded by the Xenon. My ships - just M-Class - use the Highway most of the way into the sector, then exit it to fly to the station. It's this area - about 50km - that I want my ships to guard, so my Traders can get to and from the Highway and the Trading Station. I've set some Destroyers to "Protect Position" here, however, they often fly way above / below the elliptic - within that 45km radius - so can sometimes be slow getting to an enemy ship. I have various other setups like this, patrolling key trade lanes. I have a similar one in Hatikvah's Choice I, guarding the area between the Xenon-infested Tharka's Cascade XC sector Gate and the rest of the sector. This works really well, but I have to station extra assets there just to ensure Xenons can be reliably intercepted.

What do people think? Would the ability to change the shape of the area patrolled with a "Protect Position" order be useful to you? It'd help me no end.

Scoob.

[Solomon Short]

I would love for us to just be able to resize all the spheres, though being able to change their x, y, & z ranges separately would be even better.

But then I don't understand why, even though pretty much every X game has had mods for such functionality, we still can't give orders where we actually type in the target co-ordinates.

And while I'm whining, why do so many of the interface sliders have an area you can click on to type the exact number you want to set, but not the ware or inventory trade menus (or if there is one, why is it hidden so I haven't found it yet)?

[Raevyan]

And while I'm whining, why do so many of the interface sliders have an area you can click on to type the exact number you want to set, but not the ware or inventory trade menus (or if there is one, why is it hidden so I haven't found it yet)?

You can type in the exact number for ware trading. Just move the slider a bit and then click on the number.

[Solomon Short]

And while I'm whining, why do so many of the interface sliders have an area you can click on to type the exact number you want to set, but not the ware or inventory trade menus (or if there is one, why is it hidden so I haven't found it yet)?

You can type in the exact number for ware trading. Just move the slider a bit and then click on the number.

Thank you.

[GCU Grey Area]

I would love for us to just be able to resize all the spheres, though being able to change their x, y, & z ranges separately would be even better.

You can. There's a slider to adjust the radius of Protect Position orders. Personally find the default 40km radius far too big & rarely go above 15-20km. As for patrolling flatter volumes, often do. My warships tend to be organised in multiple small battle groups, rather than a single big fleet (commonly such groups consist of 5 destroyers + 1 carrier with the fighter support). If I want to guard, say, a gate I'll assign 3 such battle groups to Protect Position, generally with a 10km radius & intersecting volumes, arranged in an arc in front of the gate:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yuskqg757xtjt ... 1.jpg?dl=0

[jlehtone]

Sphere - I wish it was flatter

I wish the opposite; I wish the space were less 2D.

The space is very 2D. Almost no traffic leaves the eplictic plane. As such, almost no-one need to be hunted above/below the plane. What draws your ships out?

[pref]

I just don't get why they move to the outer parts of the sphere - they should stay near the centre so they need to move the least possible amount of distance to intercept any enemies on average. Plus any kind of non zero velocity will just increase interception time with a high chance.

All this random movement is so unnecessary anyway, and with traders/miners it even messes up the sector maps.