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LOL, that's awesome.
I guess Steve doesn't move around his shipyards too often.

Do you have a backup of the database file just in case this ends up corrupting the game?
The game copies the current save into an "old save" file before over-writing it, but that only gives one generation of backups.

Maybe not enough to get around the bug. However, the shipyard reverted to mine as I carried it back through the Sol jump point.

So the bug may have resolved itself already.
 
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... so we've developed a technique whereby we can jump into a contested system and... without even moving our scout off the jump point... start checking planets more than a billion km away for orbiting ships or STO.

These RADAR probes are going to see a lot of use, I suspect.

EDIT:

Perhaps I should prioritize research that will give us better probes?
 
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Maybe, but it depends. Is this tech good enough for now? What are we likely to do next?

I suspect the answer to the first one is 'yes'.
As for the second, that's really up to you.
 
Since a scout ship can carry two of these probes, one possible tactic is to fire the first one directly at the planet. If it doesn't get shot down, then great... we have a RADAR satellite scanning the planet at zero km distance. If it does get shot down, then we launch the second probe to drop the satellite just outside PD range.
 
You have to change the colour of the other Emu to a red and he has to have a goatee. to complete the reference.
Excellent idea!

Unfortunately, my image editing skills have collapsed into rust years ago.
 
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ESN Mata Hari watches on Passives while the ESN James Bond's probe heads in to deploy the RADAR Buoy one million km from the planet with the wrecks.

sb-861.jpg
 
Oh ho!

sb-863.jpg


sb-862.jpg


Big, isn't he?

But I limit my ground units to 5,000 tons in order to make them easily transportable by Troop-ship.

These dudes don't have ships. So they can ignore that constraint.
 
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So let's see if we can reconstruct what happened in this star system...

The Goons had STO troops present both on the innermost planet and on the second planet. The Jerx raided the star system and successfully destroyed the STO on the innermost planet, losing one ship (the Achernar) immobilized in the battle. The surviving Jerx warships then attacked the second planet, and lost.

Sound reasonable?
 
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And there you have it...

sb-864.jpg


Two targets caught in active sensors, from a scout ship nearly a billion kilometers away. The effective range is a bit over 1.8 billion kilometers.

I like our new scouting capability.

Now let's move in closer and test our Agent's active sensor. We can always run away if the Achernar suddenly repairs an engine.
 
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Suggestion:

We could add a few of these Probes to our regular (non-cloaked) Exploration ships. So when they find a new star system they can check out suspicious-looking planets with a probe before approaching them.

... or we could design a new class of Exploration ships that contains Geological sensors and Jump-Point sensors instead of the Espionage vessel's Actives or Passives, also carries Probes, and is cloaked like an Espionage vessel.
 
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Before we leave the Lalande 21185 star system, we might as well try out our new Active Sensor. The Probes worked so well that we hardly need the sensor itself, but I'd like to get an idea of its capabilities.

Turn it on, and move in...

sb-865.jpg


AS-101/R11. That means it has a range of 101 million km, and is tuned to pick up any target that's 550 tons or larger.

So a cloaked 6,000-ton ship would be spotted immediately, for example.

Let's move in closer.
 
Yup... BBWags swanned around both planets, staying outside PD range but scanning both planets with RADAR from short range.

We found nothing in the star system except the immobilized Achernar near the inner planet, and the nasty STO on the second planet.

We'll pack it in and call it a successful test of both systems, Agent and Probe.
 
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We could add a few of these Probes to our regular (non-cloaked) Exploration ships. So when they find a new star system they can check out suspicious-looking planets

Sounds like an excellent retrofit to the existing ships.

... or we could design a new class of Exploration ships that contains Geological sensors and Jump-Point sensors instead of the Espionage vessel's Actives or Passives, also carries Probes, and is cloaked like an Espionage vessel.
.. regardless of this.

Honestly, given the probes I'm not sure what the role of the active sensor spies is any more. Probes can do this job.

If it's easy to have a new multi-role recon vessel tasked with exploration by simply adding probes and stealth to explorers then I'm all for it.


As for the system we just scouted - if it's just 10k tons of ground troops on those planets I would be in favor of conquering them to deny the pirates an easy source of slaves.
 
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.. also, maybe we should kill that disabled pirate.
 
As for the system we just scouted - if it's just 10k tons of ground troops on those planets I would be in favor of conquering them to deny the pirates an easy source of slaves.

I would love to see this, as well. It would be a great opportunity to see planetary invasion in action.

But a question, as well. Since these are one of those special races/enemies, can they be conquered and assimilated, or will they always be hostile and so exterminatus is the only option?
 
We don't really have the equipment we would need for a planetary invasion.

Drop pods. Drop ships. Lots of Space Marines.

It all takes time to build.

We would have to knock out that STO anyway... we can't drop space marines on a planet that's firing 150 Point Defense rounds every impulse.
 
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I would love to see this, as well. It would be a great opportunity to see planetary invasion in action.

But a question, as well. Since these are one of those special races/enemies, can they be conquered and assimilated, or will they always be hostile and so exterminatus is the only option?
I don't know if they even have the concept of "civilians". They might all fight to the death.