Which way should a ship de-orbit a star?

Same here, they exit south on the map now.

Still going south on Alpha 5.

Jack

The ships used to arbitrarily choose North to exit, but that was causing problems because you could put a defender just north of an alien star and trap a colony ship underneath the planet. Now, the ships try to find an open direction before leaving orbit.

cool.

Any plans to give the player a choice of direction at a later build?

paul.

Umm...I don't know.

Cari,

I find it useful to be able to attack blockading ships from orbit. That is, if an enemy ship is sitting on the tile to which
I would be exiting I will de-orbit a ship with considerable attack ability and destroy it. If we had the ability to leave
orbit in a direction of our choice it would allow us more options in defending a system. Instead having to leave orbit and
work around the star in x moves (which could mean several turns) we (and the enemy) could attack directly regardless of which
tile next to our system the the threatening ship occupied.

I think this would be very nice.

Cheers,
Jack

True. Would you want to do it every time you had a ship leave orbit, or would you want to do it with a different action like right-click or something so that you wouldn't have to do it every time?

I am not sure which I would consider better.

A choice every time would ensure that I didn't choose one action by mistake when I wanted to do the other (i.e., if I am used to
double clicking to leave orbit, will I accidentally double click when I want to right click? However, this would make the user
interface more complicated.

Or,

Having to choose a direction every time would add to the steps a user had to make every time he/she wanted a ship to leave orbit.

I think the first choice would work best for me for a while, but I think I might begin resent it after a while.

Any one else have any comments?

Cheers,
Jack

Hmm not sure.

You could also have it to deorbit to a free spot and give free moves on all tiles surrounding the system until you take an action. Not always on those tiles tho, only the time you deorbit.

On the other hand, then if the enemy has ships on three tiles next to eachother you wont be able to attack the one in the middle in the first move. But perhaps it's good enough - I dont know.

Accually, I think what I would like to do is to specify that I want ship A in orbit to attack the ship X direction from the
star. I am not really looking for the ship to leave orbit.

Cheers,
Jack

Hmm okies. But on the other hand it's tough if the enemy ship has two moves. Then you cant attack until it's too late. And the reason of attacking is the difference in defence/attack-points, right?

True, but there is also the defense bonus (I think yet to be implemented) of being in orbit. The plan I heard (and as it was in the OS/2
version) is that a ship in orbit gains in defense rating by being in orbit plus what defensive social projects the planets have built.

Truth to be told, I am too direct to sit in orbit and wait for the enemy to come to attack me, but I have had some cases during testing
that I found my ship had a better chance of survival waiting in orbit than in attacking.

Cheers,
Jack

Hehe but it feels a little like you want to have the cake _and_ eat it too, if ya want to attack but keep the def-bonus

Yup. But of course, it makes my attacking an enemies defended star more difficult. But that is how I remember the OS/2 version.

Cheers,
Jack

Or rather, on OS/2 I remember attacking a defended star to be more difficult than attacking the same ship in open space.

Cheers,
Jack

Yep. Particularly if you have your planetary defenses built.

Cari,
would it be possible to instead of de-orbiting a ship, when you double click it on the solar system window, to make it appear over the star icon and force you to then move it. If for some reason you don't move it, it reverts to orbit at the end of the turn. I would prefer this (though it does involve an extra step) as it works for all ships, does not give extra movement, and gives maximum control.

Paul.

Depends on whether the code to keep ships from getting stuck under stars would let it stay there or not, I suppose...it seems as if it might be confusing to some people though...