A JUMP IN THE DARK!

[Nia]

My Turn Results show that 3 of my ships, when performing a Hyperjump emerged within 2 squares of a star, and were consequently destroyed.
Is there any way of preventing, or at least minimising the chance of this happening, or does it have to be down to pure chance when jumping to a previously unknown system?
Nia

[Eric Moreau]

You could map the system first. It is incredibly dangerous jumping into a system that you do not have a map of. You have no idea what is on the other side.

If you insist on jumping in without a map, at least make sure you are 2 squares away from the star. Single star systems the star is always at the same position (09/06). Binary and Trinary stars are trickier because their position is random throughout the system.

[Chris]

Yeah... I lost a ship jumping to my Homeworld this turn... which happens to be 2 squares away from the star. I guess I'm going to have to waste a SubLight move every time I wish to jump home.

Unfortunately, that ship was supposed to pick up necessary resources for a special project, and also left a large portion of her crew stranded on a foreign installation...

Sucks, but them's the breaks I guess.

Chris

[Ancaeus]

If I understand the manual correctly, you have been very lucky until now.
Cutout from manual page 10:
"...To use HyperDrive Engines give the HyperJump command and enter the name of the system followed by the coordinates inside the system where you want your ship to emerge from Hyperspace.
This cannot be a planet, star, asteroid field or nebula. You should also not exit Hyperspace within 2 squares of a star or at the edge of a system as you might get lost in Hyperspace...."

[Eric Moreau]

This cannot be a planet, star, asteroid field or nebula. You should also not exit Hyperspace within 2 squares of a star or at the edge of a system as you might get lost in Hyperspace...."

Just a note, I'm removing the planet square in the next Manual update...still doesn't help Chris though. Hopefully the special project will more than make up for it. :-)

[Rak Ash'ir]

What about hyper gates? Will the ship get destroyed if the gate is too close to the star?

[Eric Moreau]

No, HyperGates can still operate within 2 squares of a star as it is the HyperGate itself that opens the exit portal. It's like this, a ship can enter Hyperspace within 2 squares of a star because it is opening the gate from normal space. For some reason the star's gravity messes up the act of opening a portal when the ship is inside Hyperspace and trying to open a portal out to normal space. I hope that makes sense. ;D

[Chris]

Eric said:

Just a note, I'm removing the planet square in the next Manual update...still doesn't help Chris though. Hopefully the special project will more than make up for it. :-)

I hope so, too Those Inquisitor Class starships ain't cheap to build.
Also, my planet scan for Cathedral listed two additional Research Facilities sitting idle, but when I tried to research Thorium, the report said 'No Facility Available'.

Not sure if this is a misprint, because I don't recall how many RFs I've built to date. I know it's a bundle, though..

Chris

[Eric Moreau]

The research lab you tried to use to research Thorium did not have any staff. Therefore there was no free lab to do the research in.

[Chris]

Oh, man.... what a boob. How could I have missed something like that?

Guess it's time to hire some more Scientists. Boy, building those additional Universities sure did boost my Citizen Pools. I may just have to double them again..

Chris

[kalouma]

Can anyone enlighten me on the proper command to send a mapping probe???

I've sent one last turn and got no system map, what was wrong???

Can we jump to the void??? If a system is to far away and the only way to get there is a stop in the middle.

Thanks

[Eric Moreau]

You should have gotten a map. I forgot to include it.

Proper command is:

"Mapping Probe to Sample System"

Now onto the other question; no you can't jump to an empty square, the HyperDrive engines use the gravity signature of stars to navigate in Hyperspace. For the systems that are out of your range you either need to research more powerful HyperDrive engines or take the long way around by jumping from system to system to system.