Several Questions, suggestions, ect.

[Ranakastrasz]

I have noticed several interesting things about the game, That I thought either could be improved, and/or better explained

Building Placement:
- When I try to place a building on top of a mobile ship, it doesnt let me, and turns red. I think it should let you place it, and move the mobile ship out of the way.
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Ship Creation.
From what I can tell. Ship creation, like from a factory, as in time taken, works like this
Ship build point cost (BP)= Max(crystal cost,metal cost)
Ship build time (BP)= ((Ship build point cost)/20)/total engineering rate

So, this means that a fighter, that costs 100 metal and 100 crystal, has a ship build point cost of 100, and being that all factories have a engineering rate of 1 (Should be displayed in tooltip) will take ((100)/20)/1 = 5 seconds. Now If we were to add an engineer to assist the factory, it would instead take ((100)/20)/2) = 2.5 seconds, since the engineer adds 1 engineering rate to the factory. This is also not explained anywhere. Now lets move to a light starship that takes 10k metal and 6k crystal. Metal is higher, so that will be the ship build point cost. So We have. ((10000)/20)/1 = 500 seconds (or 8:20). If we have 4 Mark 2 engineers assisting, which each have a bonus of 2 engineering, that gives a rate of 9, so it takes ((10000)/20)/9 = ~56 seconds.

The thing I noticed about that, is that This means that being that all factories use 10k power, and engineers use (4k,3k,2k) power. And factorys have 1 engineering rate, while engineers have (1,2,3) engineering rate, and the ratio is 10k per rate for the factory, and (4k, 1.5k, 0.667k) per rate for the engineer, you realize that haveing engineers assist is far more effient than building a second factory. This seems to have been confused in a post somewhere, http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,5642.msg41051.html#msg41051, where they got the conclusion that there were diminishing returns, by looking at build time going down, rather than unit produced in x time.

This also holds true, I think, for construction of buildings, though build points are not displayed, I expect it is the same. At least, for the ones I tested, the build rate is always one, so one M1 engineer doubles the rate of construction.
Edit: The construction of buildings does not use this equation. I dont know what it does use. I'm doing more experimentation, to try and figure it out.

My new theory for building construction, is that The game has a base time built in for each structure, such as 8:00 for mobile repair station. This seems to be divided by the number of engineers assisting it, including the building itself. The build rate of the assisters are not included, as in, I tried 3 Mark 3 enginners, and it reduced the build time to 2:00, and the same thing happened with 3 Mark 1. This may be a glitch, or it may be caused by the fact that most buildings have no build rate, and because they build themselves, they need to have a build rate of 1 regardless. I would suggest that structures under construction being assisted should use the engineers build rate, or 1 if it doesnt have a build rate.
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Repair:
I have no idea how this works, and would like to know. Also, What does the "Repair Cost: X/s Metal X/s Crystal" Indecate. Also How does engine damage, engineering rate, etc factor into it?
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Questions.
-Is there any way to easily control a mobile repair station and it's tugs, to go through a wormhole or otherwise without having to manually select all of them?
-Eyebots act as scouts, and if you drag select, they are considered support. scout starships have some nice support abilities, but on offense, they run away when going through a wormhole.. I was thinking to have eyebots, scout starships, scouts, and any other similar thing, to be able to switch between two modes, scout mode, where they do not attack, and evade after exiting a wormhole. and combat mode, where they attack and do not evade. This way, you can easily prevent some micromanagement.
-Smart scout behavior. Some special key modifier, where you hold it or something, and indicate a queue of planets, the group would go to each planet, and drop off a scout, the lowest level possible, and move to the next one in the queue. Would also reduce microing.

[keith.lamothe]

Welcome to the forums

The thing I noticed about that, is that This means that being that all factories use 10k power, and engineers use (4k,3k,2k) power. And factorys have 1 engineering rate, while engineers have (1,2,3) engineering rate, and the ratio is 10k per rate for the factory, and (4k, 1.5k, 0.667k) per rate for the engineer, you realize that haveing engineers assist is far more effient than building a second factory. This seems to have been confused in a post somewhere, http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,5642.msg41051.html#msg41051, where they got the conclusion that there were diminishing returns, by looking at build time going down, rather than unit produced in x time.

Winter Born's point in the original post in that topic was that if you have at least around 10 engineers to devote to starship constructor assistance, the marginal benefit of having two starship constructors instead of one is very small.  Which is basically a specific example of what your general statement, if I am properly understanding you both.

The later statements by Chris (briefly) and by Signata (in greater depth) about space docks having diminishing returns is a completely separate topic since that's a matter of "Space Dock" structures producing Fleet Ships, rather than "Starship Constructor" structures producing starships.  The basic principle at work is that a constructor cannot produce more than 1 ship per X cycles (there are 20 cycles in a second, and X is some small number, I'm almost certain it's 4), absolutely regardless of the build point cost of the build queue item and the effective construction rate.

I gotta run, but I imagine other folks can respond to your other questions

[Spikey00]

Hey, welcome to our community!

Building Placement:
- When I try to place a building on top of a mobile ship, it doesnt let me, and turns red. I think it should let you place it, and move the mobile ship out of the way.

The building will usually be placed nearby (contrary to moving the unit).

Repair:
I have no idea how this works, and would like to know. Also, What does the "Repair Cost: X/s Metal X/s Crystal" Indecate. Also How does engine damage, engineering rate, etc factor into it?

I don't know the specifics of how repairing works, so I shall just say this:  it is almost always more cheaper to repair units than to create them; how much, I will have to leave that for someone else to answer.

-Is there any way to easily control a mobile repair station and it's tugs, to go through a wormhole or otherwise without having to manually select all of them?

I'm afraid I don't know, I've had the same problem with them too.

-Eyebots act as scouts, and if you drag select, they are considered support. scout starships have some nice support abilities, but on offense, they run away when going through a wormhole.. I was thinking to have eyebots, scout starships, scouts, and any other similar thing, to be able to switch between two modes, scout mode, where they do not attack, and evade after exiting a wormhole. and combat mode, where they attack and do not evade. This way, you can easily prevent some micromanagement.

Ditto in my recent game; I wish there was another node for these types of scout units to avoid evasion behavior in entirety.

-Smart scout behavior. Some special key modifier, where you hold it or something, and indicate a queue of planets, the group would go to each planet, and drop off a scout, the lowest level possible, and move to the next one in the queue. Would also reduce microing.

I believe this was suggested before, for them to automatically leave at least one scout per planet they travel to.  However, Chris (x4000) would like to find a balance between convenient micromanagement and doing everything for a player.  

Regarding the economy, I'm afraid I'll have to allow someone else to answer for that!  Heh, you sure are more curious than me about that!  

Thank you Keith! 

[Ranakastrasz]

The later statements by Chris (briefly) and by Signata (in greater depth) about space docks having diminishing returns is a completely separate topic since that's a matter of "Space Dock" structures producing Fleet Ships, rather than "Starship Constructor" structures producing starships.  The basic principle at work is that a constructor cannot produce more than 1 ship per X cycles (there are 20 cycles in a second, and X is some small number, I'm almost certain it's 4), absolutely regardless of the build point cost of the build queue item and the effective construction rate.

Its the same topic, since I'm talking about all ship constructors, not just a starship contructor. My example uses a fighter, and a light starship, And though I havent gotten a core fabricator, I imagine it is the same.

If I understand you correctly, that you can only create a max of 5 ships per second, per factory, (20/4) Then You would have to, if you are making a Mark 1 fighter, you would need to add 24 engineering rate to the Space Dock. At that point, more engineers will not add anything. That I didn't realize, Since I was just using the second display.

Winter Born's point in the original post in that topic was that if you have at least around 10 engineers to devote to starship constructor assistance, the marginal benefit of having two starship constructors instead of one is very small.  Which is basically a specific example of what your general statement, if I am properly understanding you both.

From what I can tell, There is no reason to have two starship constructors in the same system, engineers are far more efficient.

The second one will only add a total of 1 build rate. A engineer Mark one has the same effect. Also, For a starship constructor to hit the engineer limit, it would need to have a staggering 2500 engineering rate bonus (Assuming the limit is 4 cycles per ship) to build a light starship in 1/5 of a  second.

[Lancefighter]

as for repair - each repair unit (engineer, mrs, etc) has its own 'repair speed' that determines how fast they repair something. This is similar to engineering speed, except that its usually much faster. As far as I can tell, you divide the repair speed by the original buildtime to get how long it takes, then multiply that by the repair cost. Note: The repair cost is ALWAYS the repair cost per second, it is never modified. A mk1 engineer repairs at the same cost as a mk3 engineer, except that the mk3 engineer will repair faster (thus less cost)

And uh, I have no clue about the engine part.

[TheMachineIsSentient]

making Scouts easier-to-use would be great. I have giant systems that I am scouting all the time, and individually selecting each one of 20 or 30 Scouts is really irritating :-)

I should add that I don't see anything terribly game breaking or impinging upon strategy by making these easier to use. That doesn't make you less of a player if when you want to scout, the game makes clicking everything easier.

[keith.lamothe]

The auto-explore command is easy to use (particularly with swarms of scouts) but brute-force-style inefficient.  Though in a recent test it didn't seem to be properly trying for planets that were visible on the map but not scouted, need to look at that.

[Vinraith]

-Smart scout behavior. Some special key modifier, where you hold it or something, and indicate a queue of planets, the group would go to each planet, and drop off a scout, the lowest level possible, and move to the next one in the queue. Would also reduce microing.

I've often wished for something like that, but how would the game know how many scouts to split off in order to make sure one survived? Frequently, when I'm doing this manually, I underestimate it myself.

[Lancefighter]

-Smart scout behavior. Some special key modifier, where you hold it or something, and indicate a queue of planets, the group would go to each planet, and drop off a scout, the lowest level possible, and move to the next one in the queue. Would also reduce microing.

I've often wished for something like that, but how would the game know how many scouts to split off in order to make sure one survived? Frequently, when I'm doing this manually, I underestimate it myself.

well, it could send all scouts to a place, have them reach the edge, then send remaining-1 to the next place..

[Vinraith]

-Smart scout behavior. Some special key modifier, where you hold it or something, and indicate a queue of planets, the group would go to each planet, and drop off a scout, the lowest level possible, and move to the next one in the queue. Would also reduce microing.

I've often wished for something like that, but how would the game know how many scouts to split off in order to make sure one survived? Frequently, when I'm doing this manually, I underestimate it myself.

well, it could send all scouts to a place, have them reach the edge, then send remaining-1 to the next place..

Yes, I suppose that would work. Hell, it's what I end up doing about half the time in practice myself.

[Ranakastrasz]

The auto-explore command is easy to use (particularly with swarms of scouts) but brute-force-style inefficient.  Though in a recent test it didn't seem to be properly trying for planets that were visible on the map but not scouted, need to look at that.

Auto Explore? Is that similar to the Auto Knowledge Gather? I heard of them, But I cant figure out how to use them, is this only in the new experimental patch?

[Diazo]

I think it is only in the betas, although it has been around (in the betas) for a while.

There's a menu with these more infrequent commands that you can access by holding X and right-clicking, once the version you have installed supports it.

D.