For me, if my ship is at A and I direct it to B and there is a connection between them, in all cases the ship should use the connection. Even if there is a shorter route.



This is brought up by the current wormhole pathing bug, but after that gets fixed there is still the possibility of a multi-connected trip that is shorter than the direct route.



i.e., A->B three turns; A->C one turn (WH); C->B one turn (WH)



As a player, I may be trying to avoid system C.

This should probably have gone in the Design Discussion forum instead of here. I also think that if implemented it should be an option instead of a mandatory thing. Maybe set this to ALT-Click or some other key combo.

How about Shift + Click sets waypoints along the path so that the player can set their own routes (long-distance even) instead of relying solely on the pathing system.

Ghost73 wrote:
How about Shift + Click sets waypoints along the path so that the player can set their own routes (long-distance even) instead of relying solely on the pathing system.

I like that idea better than mine. Thank you for posting it.

Thanks for liking it I am here to help.

That is definitely needed.

Not sure it hasn't been suggested yet but it surely would be an important addition.

Ghost73 wrote:
How about Shift + Click sets waypoints along the path so that the player can set their own routes (long-distance even) instead of relying solely on the pathing system.

A waypoint system doesn't really address my concern. You're still relying on the current "shortest path" algorithm to get between two points.



To further expand, once you've researched the off-road, "Warp Drive" tech; there's no way to use it to it's full potential. I'd love to be able to send an armada or two through the great-dark to assault an enemy's soft chewy center while avoiding the well defended frontier systems.



Right now there is a limit on how much of that you can do since the pathing algorithm forces you to travel through choke points (depending on galaxy connectedness). A good example is the galactic center in a large spiral map.



Having a meta key (shift, alt, etc...) for this would be good so I can choose to send individual ships/fleets along a straight line path. It would work even better if there was a way to preview the route picked by the pathing algorithm prior to committing my ships to movement.



edit: I should say that waypoints would work brilliantly if you had control over how movement is routed between individual points.

uhm.. how is the waypoint system not adressing your problem.. just set enough waypoints and the ship will follow your course perfectly

Setting waypoints and using warp drive to make epic surprise attacks would be welcome additions. The free use of warp would also help in avoiding blockades. I'm not sure the current AI handles blockades very well, at least I've seen it send lone colony ships against full armadas.

StK wrote:
uhm.. how is the waypoint system not adressing your problem.. just set enough waypoints and the ship will follow your course perfectly

It's due to the game having multiple movement types; string, wormhole and warp. The straight-line path between two systems may not be the "shortest" in movement points.



The simplest example I can come up with is in the first post. I'll try describe it more exactly.



Imagine a map/galaxy with only three systems, A, B and C. A and B are connected by a string (normal travel). C is connected to both A and B via wormholes. My ship is at A and I want to move it to B, avoiding the enemy fleet at C.

It takes exactly two turns of movement to travel A->C->B via wormholes. If, at my current level of tech, it takes more that two turns of movement for my ship to travel along the A -> B string, the game will make my ship travel A->C->B along the "shorter" path. Right now, there is no way I can get that ship to travel along the string.



Waypoints essentially automate the process of hand-flying a ship between systems. What I'm saying is that there are cases where you cannot hand-fly a ship along a given path.



Another way to do this would be to flag systems to avoid.