Can't figure out what is meant by a ship's "range"

I have just started playing GC II Twilight of the Arnor, a normal scenario, tiny map.

Regarding ships' statistics, the speed figure seems to be perfectly right. A ship with a 3 pc/wk speed actually moves 3 parsecs per week, diagonally as well as horizontally or vertically. But the range statistic seems inaccurate. For example, a colony ship and my flagship each shows a range of 1.5 sct. Presumably sct means sector. But each of these ships can actually travel 32 parsecs from my homeworld, horizontally or vertically. Since a sector is 15 parsecs wide, 32 parsecs is more than 1.5 sectors. (I have not yet been able to count how far they can travel diagonally.)

I have noticed that each of my ships has a gray line on the main map, indicating its range limit. A cargo-hull ship that I built shows a range of 0.1 sct. It can travel no more than one parsec beyond that gray line. So I thought maybe range refers only to the distance a ship can travel beyond that gray line, because 0.1 sector equals 1.5 parsec. Rounded off that equals 1 parsec. But my colony ship and flagship also cannot move more than one parsec beyond their gray lines. Furthermore, that cargo-hull ship travels 12 parsecs horizontally or vertically from my homeworld, but it can travel only 9 parsecs diagonally. And both 12 parsecs and 9 parsecs are equal to much more than 0.1 sector. So what does a range of 0.1 sct refer to?

I am playing the Yor, and as far as I know, they don't have any special bonuses or penalties for range. I don't yet have any starbases, except the one on my homeworld, nor have I researched any techs giving me a range bonus or penalty.

Will someone please clarify exactly what is meant by "range" ?

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whismerhill

Join Date 03/2006

+19

Having (moderatly successfully) modded range, I can tell you that the whole range system seems quite borked to me. My purpose was to reduce range so that your initial ships and first ships you build just can't reach the whole galaxy in an immense/gigantic galaxy size.

But it seems there's quite a few hidden modifiers (like map size) and minimum/maximum range, plus sort of a ... minimum interval... That is if there's not enough difference between two range characteristics, you might find out that they actually allow to go equally far ...

That's only my humble opinion though...

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Somewhere I picked up the impression that the range was scaled to the map-size, but I've never heard what the 'default' scale 1 unit=1 unit map was.

I tend to agree it has always felt odd to me that range is as high as it is. Although I never felt like you could just reach 'across the galaxy' all that fast, I've never noticed the range techs were grabbing me as something I absolutely needed to grab all that fast either - get a few colonies out and you were fine,

Jonnan

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Thank you both for the replies. It seems that I am going to have to reconcile myself to looking at a ship's range statistic as an approximation, at least until a ship ventures out far enough for me to see the gray line that shows its range limit. Every ship with the same range statistic, however, does have the same actual range. So maybe being precise is not so important.

At this point, I think the range-statistic's inaccuracy constitutes a game defect. That is, a bug. Even if it's a relatively unimportant bug, the game should be patched so that regardless of the map size you are playing, the range statistic that you read for any ship should be precisely the range that it can travel on the map.

I intend to take a look at whismerhill's range mod, though I doubt if I'll use it right now. I'm just beginning the game, and I want more experience before I decide to handicap my ships.

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I've been playing around with reduced range myself. I've found it effective to modify the raceconfig to give each race a penalty to range. -200 works nicely on a large map, -150 is ok on huge, and I'm using -100 on a gigantic map right now. Well, I should say -200 gave a nice range that was short enough to be limiting and long enough to allow exloration, but I don't think the AI adapted very well. Unless you are direct neighbors, the AI will never figure out how to get to you. You are never under threat of invasion. -150 was alright, but -100 gives enough extra range that the AI can reach you without actually parking a vulnerable starbase right next to you where it will be destroyed in a couple turns.

Just don't forget to modify the minors like I did! You'll end up with these galaxy travelling minors while everyone else is stuck in a little bubble.

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Like many things, range is the sum of several components as is speed. Each race has a base speed and range before addons. These can be augmented through the race abilities screen at startup. For range, add bonus from special projects that extend range if any(e.g. hyperion resupply). Add a base amount for each life support tech researched (the largest component of the researched tech is added whether or not you put any life support units on the ship). Finally there is a small addon for each life support unit placed in the ship itself. Note that range is from the nearest planet or starbase under your control. Pay attention to the research screen. The research tree shows the bonus seperately from the item. For instance, regarding speed, all ships gain an extra 1 move/turn on hitting impulse drive I, Warp Drive I and Hyperwarp I. This is true even if no engines are added to the ship.

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