why is auto-colonization so - dumb?!

[nik718]

I have empire mainly consisting Humans and Darloks. It is ~50 turns game and I have plenty of outpost all over the place, with each having "set migration turned on. Overall empire ratio of human-darklok population is about 60-40.

Questions:

Why does my high gravity worlds get populated with Humans instead of Darloks?! Itn't that just plain dumb thing to do?!

Is there a way to make "clean words"?! Meaning - one world having inhabitans of one and only one race?!

I would like to be able to allow what kind of a races should be permited to auto-colonize each world. Why is that not implemented?! Is there any alternative way to do things described above?!

Why cant I decide which race is going to get aboard constructed colony ship (on multi-racial planets)?!

Why is gameplay so damn messy, considering this racial issues!?

Hopefull I will get some answers, suggestions etc. ..

[Ron_Lugge]

Auto-colonization will send ships to planets most needed; selecting by race for that.

In short, if you are short on minerals it will colonize that ultra rich red2 planet.

Also, if you have a good t-ring, it can often overcome the push of a bad grav-ring.

[Wainamoinen]

Pretty much what Ron-Lugge said. But I'll try and give some more detail - or blather on, as you prefer.

There are four ways to get new colonies.

1) Send a colony ship or ships sufficient to get a colony straight out.
2) Set up an outpost (maybe with a colony ship on a yellow or red world), and migrate people there.
3) Invade someone else's colony.
4) Trade for a colony, or demand one in negotiation.

Sounds like you're doing number 2. Because using "Set migration" attracts colonists from all over your empire regardless of race, this tactic WILL give you mixed planets.

When a colony builds a new colony ship (either system or starship), any colonists produced when it lands will be of the same race as the dominant population on the planet that built it. When a colony ship is in the reserves you can see (if you have the patch) which race it is, and if you deploy it you can send it somewhere suitable (by checking in the planets tab for unowned planets suitable for that race).

Alternatively, if you turn auto-colonisation on in the Empire tab, the AI will automatically launch any newly built colony ships at the unowned planet most suitable for its race. This is very handy once you're churning out the colony ships.

If you have only one or two planets where a particular race is dominant, it's worthwhile keeping them building colony ships for a bit, just so that you can establish a few more colonies of this handy variation on your main race.

[LazyViking]

Or you could just do like me: Send out so many colonyships that you get all the planets! :D

[nik718]

Thanks, Wainamoinen!!

[Iskabis]

note that if you actually mark planets for colonization ('send colony' or 'send outpost'), the AI will send a colony ship from your reserves without regard to race or planet preferences. if you want your races suited to your planets, you either have to let the AI do everything w.r.t. colonization, or else you have to both turn it off and not use the 'send colony' button. that means you have to send them yourself, not forget about them once they arrive, choose your planet targets whenever you get a new colony ship built, etc....

there's no in-between...

-rhyssan

[Da_Blade]

Yes there is, tag a whole lot of planets. When a colony ship is built, it uses the autocolonization feature to select the best planet of the tagged planets, wether autocolonize AI is used or not. If you simply tag a ****load of planets the AI does usually send out the best race to a planet, except for that occasional very rich planet of course, but hey, i can tolerate a mistake when not having to colonize myself. This also gives you the power to "untag" any worlds that get a colony ship sent too. This is a temp workaround untill the "massive amount of col ships send to one planet"-bug is fixed n next patch. I think after patch i'll just leave the AI on and not worry about back filling myself i think.

[Iskabis]

Originally posted by Da_Blade
Yes there is, tag a whole lot of planets. When a colony ship is built, it uses the autocolonization feature to select the best planet of the tagged planets, wether autocolonize AI is used or not. If you simply tag a ****load of planets the AI does usually send out the best race to a planet, except for that occasional very rich planet of course, but hey, i can tolerate a mistake when not having to colonize myself. This also gives you the power to "untag" any worlds that get a colony ship sent too. This is a temp workaround untill the "massive amount of col ships send to one planet"-bug is fixed n next patch. I think after patch i'll just leave the AI on and not worry about back filling myself i think.
i'm glad if that worked for you, but it doesn't for me. i tend(ed) to have around 40-50 marked, and it never bothered to check race or anything... i was playing with always setting migration on as soon as i landed a ship, but that doesn't always overcome the wrong race starting out there... :(

oh well.

-rhyssan

[Da_Blade]

If you think multiple races on a planet is a bad thing (which you said in another post) then you certainly do not want to use the migration setting. Since this draws any pop to that planet.

[herknav]

Originally posted by Iskabis
i'm glad if that worked for you, but it doesn't for me. i tend(ed) to have around 40-50 marked, and it never bothered to check race or anything... i was playing with always setting migration on as soon as i landed a ship, but that doesn't always overcome the wrong race starting out there... :(

oh well.

-rhyssan

It only works that way if you have a bunch of different colony ships in the reserves and you taga bunch of planets on one turn, otherwise the AI will just mobilise some colony ships, THEN assign them.

[Iskabis]

Originally posted by herknav
It only works that way if you have a bunch of different colony ships in the reserves and you taga bunch of planets on one turn, otherwise the AI will just mobilise some colony ships, THEN assign them.
your description doesn't match my situation at all, yet i got the behavior i said.

i didn't have any colony ships in the reserves - they were sent out as they were produced. i didn't mark lots of planets on any one turn - i tagged anywhere from 2-4 on each turn. the AI would sometimes split the ships produced in a single turn to multiple planets, and sometimes send them all to a single planet. irrespective of species or planet prefs. i either had to reroute it all the way across the galaxy (since it formed the TF out of the single mob way across the galaxy and assigned it to the only planet on that side that was tagged), or disband it and face the same thing (likely) happening again when it came out of the delay box.

-rhyssan

[herknav]

Originally posted by Iskabis
your description doesn't match my situation at all, yet i got the behavior i said.

i didn't have any colony ships in the reserves - they were sent out as they were produced. i didn't mark lots of planets on any one turn - i tagged anywhere from 2-4 on each turn. the AI would sometimes split the ships produced in a single turn to multiple planets, and sometimes send them all to a single planet. irrespective of species or planet prefs. i either had to reroute it all the way across the galaxy (since it formed the TF out of the single mob way across the galaxy and assigned it to the only planet on that side that was tagged), or disband it and face the same thing (likely) happening again when it came out of the delay box.

-rhyssan

I believe you misunderstood me. I get the previous behavior, (the AI sends the best race for the best candidate world) when I tag a bunchinone turn, (and Ihave a bunch in reserve). If you piecemeal it, it won't work that way. The AI doesn't look at the race before it mobilizes, itonly looks after it has done so and sends the best free mobilized colony TF available. So if you nickle and dime it, it won't work the same way...

[Iskabis]

Originally posted by herknav
I believe you misunderstood me. I get the previous behavior, (the AI sends the best race for the best candidate world) when I tag a bunchinone turn, (and Ihave a bunch in reserve). If you piecemeal it, it won't work that way. The AI doesn't look at the race before it mobilizes, itonly looks after it has done so and sends the best free mobilized colony TF available. So if you nickle and dime it, it won't work the same way...
ah - sorry. thought you were saying i should've seen "correct" (at least more reasonable) behavior. thanks for the clarification! :)

hmm. but if it only looks after it's mobilized, the place the TF will appear on the map is already determined. it's too late by then - the only really good world for that race might be across the galaxy. still, that's better than i thought it was doing. now if it could just check first, so that it can mobilize at the right place...

-rhyssan

[Okrahl]

why is auto-colonization so - dumb?!

Bad programers.

[herknav]

Originally posted by Okrahl
Bad programers.

Thanks for the well thought-out input. You are a credit to yourself and the human race. Seldom have I heard someone state so eloquently in so few words the heart of the problem with this game. I am awed by your obvious intelect and superior intelegence.

What a waste of bandwidth

[Orionator]

Okay, here's one for you:

How many colony pods are required to cover EVERY REGION of a Green-2 or better planet?

I've tried cranking up the number of colony pods, but that has a bad habit of cramming more people into one region, allowing the others to fill up with the wrong species, instead of giving me more claimed regions.

Surely there's some threshold at which additional colony pods result in additional regions being claimed?

[Iskabis]

Originally posted by Orionator
Okay, here's one for you:

How many colony pods are required to cover EVERY REGION of a Green-2 or better planet?

I've tried cranking up the number of colony pods, but that has a bad habit of cramming more people into one region, allowing the others to fill up with the wrong species, instead of giving me more claimed regions.

Surely there's some threshold at which additional colony pods result in additional regions being claimed?
try separate ships. i think when i send multiple colony ships, they land in different regions of the planet. not completely positive, but last time i was in late-game and sending multiple ships to every colony, i'm pretty sure i got multiple regions populated immediately...

-rhyssan