Antaran Expedition

[jfdoyon]

Greetings everyone,

I just started to play MOO3, and I'm still at the newbie level...

Now, things seem to work pretty fine (I'm a diplomatic terror, my spies come out with some nice stuff and my fleets are kicking butts ) and I figured the next step would be to set out an Antaran expedition.

So did I, but it's been a dozen of turns, now, and all it says is that my task force is outbound and on right colomn it says 1 ship remaining...

So here's the question: Do I mss something, or must I create a task force with a specific mission? Anyway, anyone can tell me how to make that expedition press the Ignate button?

Thanks,

JF

[TheGreyWanderer]

There are a lot of random elements in the antarian X search & I don't claim to be an expert on the subject. But - here is what I know and conjecture.

What I know:

1) there is a random attrition rate to your expeditions, so larger fleets have a better chance. Size and weaponry are irrelevant - loss is purely a lottery thing;

2) as discussed elsewhere, the TF type formed is based on what type of ship you have the most of in your reserves (not specific design, but LR, SR, IF, Carrier, Recon). For this stage, ships marked obsolete are counted, ships marked "scrap" are not) & are formed following the same rules used for TF auto-generating (so you can experiment at a mobilization point - note that when actually forming a TF, ships marked for scrap can actually be taken & will not be scrapped);

3) once you have finished the out-bound phase & are looking for a destination/at one, your chances of geting to the next step/finding anything are random (ship-labs are supposed to help);

4) once all the X's have been found by someone, any expeditions you have out there will be stuck at the current phase they are on until all of the ships are eventially lost.

5) once sent on it's way, the expedition is out of your hands, there is nothing you can do to help it along. No special orders, nothing. You can't even recall them / abort them.

6) sending lots of expeditions helps you find X's quicker, since finding "partial discoveries" is a random event for each expedition (I can't remember how many partial discoveries a given expedtion needs to find to get an X - but the more looking, the quicker one will find the required number & start on it's wqy home).

What I personally don't know for sure, but have heard/conjectured:

1) there is an out-bound distance, so warp-speed will help you get there faster. the distance seems to vary game-to-game, but not X-to-X;

2) conjecture: perhaps the X's are located at a random spot on the map (but not in "real-space", so you can't stumble on them), but that the "distance" mentioned above is related to how close you have a mob center to the location of the X's. I only guess at this, since the only game I played close attention to an expedition was when I was far enough along to have mob centers all over the place & my out-bound travel time was only a couple of turns whereas others have reported dozens of turns (of course, I may have just been lucky).

[triller]

TGW is on spec. I did however have a slightly different experience as regards item 2 above.

AI will poll from all available ships in reserves, but seems to prefer the Recon Mission. If you don't have enough Recon vessels to field the size TF you're requesting, AI will pick enough of something to create the TF.

AI DOESN'T however necessarily opt for Recon ships with Labs on board. In my game I had ~100 Lab Recon ships, but when I requested an X mission, AI pulled from my regular picket ring Recon ships. TGW is right, obsoleting the pickets didn't stop AI from using them. Also, SCRAPPING didn't stop AI from using them (this was with the 1.2 patch). I ended up stopping picket production while I continued Lab Ships until I could place all of my picket recons into combat TFs. AI then happily used my Lab Recon ships to field the X armadas (I had a bunch of LRs and PDs in reserves but AI took the Recons).

My first time sending X missions, I fielded 8 or 9 flotilla (I think, 7 ships ea.) TFs. Only 1 ever found a destination, and attrition claimed that and the other expeditions without success. Next try was with 8 or 9 Armada sized missions, and after 50 or 60 turns, found all 5 Xs. Three armadas just hung out wherever out there is and finally went away by attrition.

I haven't looked at the readme from 1.2.5 yet, so preference for X missions may have changed with the latest patch. BTW the movie for finding all 5 Xs is pretty cool (a bit jerky on my machine).

[silentrogue30]

In my recent game i tried to send out some armada sized expeditions and only one was at full streght with 18 ships all the rest were only 4 and 7 ship armadas. I know it is not because I don't have enough ships( I have over 100 lancer set up for if0. I was wondering if anyone can help me with this slight problem it would be big help. thanx in advance.

[The Wagster]

The eXpedition armadas have to comply with the normal task force rules so there needs to be enough PD and recon ships to fill the escort and picket rings of the TF. If you had enough of those then I'm afraid I don't know why you got such small eXpedition fleets

[silentrogue30]

That sheds light on the situation. I only had if ships I thought it didn't mater as long as you had enough ships. Well i just wasted a bunch of ships then. I don't think those 4 ship armadas a going to find anything but I could be wrong. Thanx for the help wag2003

[JosEPh]

Depends on the Tech level of those 4 ship armadas/squadrons. Later tech ships find the Xs faster and last longer than early game ships. I.E. Better Space Drives, Armor, and Shields--flies fast, last longer, takes more of a lickin' and keeps on tickin' sort of thing.

JosEPh

[silentrogue30]

JosEph I don't think those 4 ship armadas are going to amount to anything not very advanced at all only at turn 70 of this game when I sent them out. Maybe the 1 full streght armada will get me something, ok not likely but it has happened once before so I can dream.

[Lennier]

1) I think jfdoyon may have sent out a detachment (1 ship) to find an X. There is a scroll-down menu on the victory screen to choose what size of a TF to send.

2) It does s*ck that you can't choose your ships in an eXpedition yourself.

3) The computer will try to send out a full-sized TF, but will gladly ignore the TF creation rules. If you only have 3 ships in your reserves and tell the computer to send and armada on an eXpedition, it will send a 3-ship armada rather than telling you "I'm sorry jfdoyon, I can't do that."

4) @Wag2003: The default rules for a recon armada do not require any PD ships.

[The Wagster]

Originally posted by Lennier
4) @Wag2003: The default rules for a recon armada do not require any PD ships.

If you say so Silentrogue30 says he has loads of IF ships and you do need PD ships for an IF armada...

[silentrogue30]

@ lennier now is that for a recon armada or for any armada when doing the expeditions? I have a whole bunch of 4 ship armadas that are IF, but I had lots more of themto put in there. It would make sence if I still need to put ships in the picket line and the escort line if not I am completely lost then.

[Lennier]

Assuming you haven't modded the task force rules, recon armadas don't require escort (PD, LR, SR ships), just pickets (recon) and mission (in the case of a recon TF, recon) ships. LR and SR armadas don require escort ships, just pickets and mission (LR or SR) ships.

I think you have a bunch of 4-ship IF squadrons; IIRC the minimum size for an armada is 15 ships (for any armada-sized TF with no mods.) In the task-force cration screen, you first choose the mission of the TF, then the size (detachement, squadron, flotilla, wave, or armada) and the requirements for that TF will be shown on the upper left-hand side of the screen. You can then either "autobild" and let the computer fill the TF, or you can pick and choose from your ships at the right side of the screen.

[silentrogue30]

Okay, that is how you build normal task forces. I know how to do that my problem is with sending out ships to find the antaran discoverys. In a unmoded game for these task forces do normal rules apply or do you just need the 18 ships to fill the force. Just in case it makes a difference it is 1.2.5 version of the game with only the encyclopedia mod. Thanx in advance.

[Strifeguard]

There doesn't appear to be any "rule" governing the assembling of Antaran eXpeditions. Basically, you choose the size, and that number of ships will automatically be removed from your reserves. There's been speculation that the AI builds a Recon TF, because eXpeditions usually take most of their ships from your Recon pool, but if you don't have any Recon ships available, if will still grab whatever number it needs from other ship classes and send off the eXpedition.

[silentrogue30]

Okay, that is what i thought till I tried to send out some armadas on the antarian expeditions with the IF ships I built that didn't work the way I planned. I had the task force size set at armada and all I got were 4 ship armadas on the expeditions. So this leads me to believe that you have to follow all the rules on task force creation no matter if you are sending them on the expedition or useing them to fight, ei if all you have is IF ships you won't get more then 4 ships per armada because you have no ships for the picket or escort rings. This is the only thing I can think of that makes any kind of sense.

[Strifeguard]

Admittedly, I've never had an utter lack of reacon ships, so I don't know for certain, *however* I'm certain that I've seen the AI take 18 reacon ships, even though a Reacon Armada would require ships in the escort ring.

On the other hand, I know it's possible to put non-PD ships in the escort ring, so I suppose the AI could have put reacon ships into the escort ring in order to complete the armada. Either way, it's quirky.

[Lennier]

If you don't have 18 ships in your reserves, the AI will put whatever you have in your reserves into your "Armada." (If you accidentally chose "Squadron" rather than "Armada," the AI will only put 4 ships in the eXpedition.)

[silentrogue30]

Thats just it I had more then 100 ships in my reserves and I made sure had size set for armada.

[Lennier]

All I can say is that I've never seen this behavior.

It would have been really nice if when you hit the "send eXpedition" button you were brought to a TF-creation screen so you could actually see which ships the AI wanted to send and be able to choose which ships you wanted to send. QSI wouldn't even need to build an additional UI screen. But it won't happen.

[silentrogue30]

I thought it was strange to.