[Request] 'Advanced Mimic' feature for GAS and MIN combo fleet

[user1679]

The mimic feature currently doesn't support fleets with miners of different types which makes it slightly more difficult to fleet together a GAS with a MIN miner. Having the
ability to create a combo fleet and place it in a sector can aleviate some of the micromanagement while allowing the player to take advantage of all available
resources in a sector.

In normal case with GAS+GAS or MIN+MIN, the mimic feature passes along the activity, sector, gate range and resource type to the subordinate. If the subordinate
is not the same type (GAS+MIN), the mimic feature causes the subordinate to do nothing. What advanced mimic would allow for is that in a fleet
containing different ship types, it woul only pass down the activity, sector and gate range to the subordinate but allow the subordinate to have a separate resource list.

So you could have a GAS commander set to mine Helium in Black Hole Sun IV with a gate limit of 1 (harvest) and 3 (sell) and a MIN subordinate who would
inherit everything except Helium and instead be able to define it's own resource. This way the player can easily move the fleet by changing the commander's parameters
instead of having two fleets (or more) of same-type miners to move around.

This could even be made dependent on pilot rank. Maybe when both commander and subordinate are rank 3 pilot this "advanced mimic" option becomes available.

[dark7np]

But then you would have to set the resource type manually for each subordinate of the differing type? What do you gain, then? That sounds like more effort than setting up a second fleet...?

[user1679]

But then you would have to set the resource type manually for each subordinate of the differing type? What do you gain, then? That sounds like more effort than setting up a second fleet...?

A solution for this is a new global order defining what ore or gas types to mine if nothing is specified.

The benefit is it allows for smaller fleets of mixed composition that you only have to change the commander's orders. I could set up a GAS
commander with a GAS and MIN subordinate using "advanced mimic" in Alpha and a few fighters in Defend Mode in Beta.

As a side note, there should also be a "defend fleet" option, not just "defend commander". Seems silly to have a fleet spread out around a sector
but the defense wing only protects the leader.

[dark7np]

When you say "change the commanders orders", what do you mean by that? Do you rotate them from sector to sector? I'm sorry, but I don't get what you're trying to do. Can you maybe give a concrete example of where you're using such a fleet, what commander settings you want to change and why?

[Fishille]

I don’t find this very intuitive or helpful. I make a fleet, I call it Ore Miner, I set all subordinates to mimic commander, I mine ore in the sector I want. It mines where I assign it, I want to move to another sector I order the fleet to a new sector. Very few sectors have all the same resources, having a massive fleet doing everything would make management harder. I also can easily dial in on how many miners are mining each time of resource in a given fleet at their assigned location.

[Raptor34]

I don’t find this very intuitive or helpful. I make a fleet, I call it Ore Miner, I set all subordinates to mimic commander, I mine ore in the sector I want. It mines where I assign it, I want to move to another sector I order the fleet to a new sector. Very few sectors have all the same resources, having a massive fleet doing everything would make management harder. I also can easily dial in on how many miners are mining each time of resource in a given fleet at their assigned location.

This essentially. It's simple and less likely to break in some weird way.
Although if they ever make civilian tasks actually give pilot xp, I would like a mimic type where you can have them auto upgrade their behavior, like from basic to adv to expert automine or distribute wares to autotrade.

[user1679]

I'll try to explain, again.

There are several sectors that contain fields that have both gas and ore (purple on the map). What I want to do is have a fleet with:

1 XL Gas Miner
1 XL Ore Miner
5 L Defenders

The Gas miner would be the commander. This commander would be set to "Advanced Audomine" with an anchor sector of whatever, a mining gate range of 0 and a sell gate range of 3. The ore miner would be the subordinate and use "advanced mimic" to follow the commander's settings for anchor sector and distances but would intuitively mine ore. Then the 5 defenders would be set to defend (ideally this should be fleet defence and not commander but that's another story).

Now for the confusion about "change commanders orders", this I thought was self explanatory. If I want to move the whole fleet to a different sector, I simply have to change the commander's (gas miner) anchor sector and the ore miner and 5 defenders would follow.

With the current mimic feature, you would need two separate fleets requiring you to move (change commander's anchor sector) two separate fleets individually because the ore miner cannot mimic a gas miner so it just sits doing nothing.

[dark7np]

Okay, got that part. What's the rationale for moving them frequently?

[user1679]

Okay, got that part. What's the rationale for moving them frequently?

I didn't say anything about frequency of moving them, but here are a few reasons when you might want to move them temporarily:

1. The sector runs out of resources (eg: all mined up by your ships and other NPCs)
2. The resources they're mining can't find buyers within the jump limit (eg: your pilot is low level and max 3 or 5 gate limit)
3. If they become overwhelmed by enemy NPCs (eg: If you go to war with a faction in the system they're mining)

To be honest, a new "advanced mimic" wouldn't really be necessary. The current mimic should be such that an ore miner should mimic the
mining order but mine what they actually can mine instead of just sitting.

[dark7np]

Hm... I guess it could come in handy, but I don't know if it's that important honestly. It can be done currently, it's just one more fleet since you need to split them into gas and solid miners... Which gives you more flexibility for the bit of extra work, since not all systems have all resources anyway...

Just my opinion, obviously, but i'd like to see other things first. Like my "set buy orders to buy the max amount as default" idea for manual trading, or even more qol things for crew management.

[user1679]

Hm... I guess it could come in handy, but I don't know if it's that important honestly. It can be done currently, it's just one more fleet since you need to split them into gas and solid miners... Which gives you more flexibility for the bit of extra work, since not all systems have all resources anyway...

Well it's slightly more due to needing separate defense ships. If I have one fleet with a GAS and MIN, I can put 3 defense ships in there too. But if I have to have a separate fleet of GAS + defense and MIN + defense then it's more money and time to set this up because a single defender isn't enough to handle a swarm. I was mainly looking at this from the perspective of an incomplete feature. IMO the 'mimic' feature should be smart enough to know "hey, you can't mine ice but you can mine ore".