Orders
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Orders are given to your ships and planets to cause them to carry out actions. They are your directives that the ship must follow. A ship can be given a long list of orders which it will attempt to carry out over multiple turns. Once its orders have been completed, it will sit idle in space waiting for you to give it new commands. Orders are given to ships and planets in the Command Panel of the Main Window. In a Turn-Based game, the ship will immediately attempt to execute these orders. For example, if you give a ship the "Move To" order, they ship will immediately move towards its destination spending its movement points. Once its movement points are expended, it will not be able to move any more this turn. On the next turn, the ship will regain its movement points, and it will continue to execute its orders. Once the ship reaches its destination, it will remove the "Move To" order from its list of orders as it has completed it. In a Simultaneous Game, things work a little differently. On your turn, you may only give your ships orders, but they will not execute them. When the turn is processed by the host, all movement takes places simultaneously. While this movement is going on, your ships will execute the orders you have given them. |
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| Repeat orders |
One option for your orders is to turn on the "Repeat Orders" option. What this does is that when a ship completes a given order, it will not remove the order from its order list. The ship will merely move down to the next order in the list. When it finishes the order at the bottom of the list, it will start again at the top. This option is very useful if you want to setup orders for a ship that will repeat indefinitely. For example, if you wanted to have a cargo ship load population from one planet, then drop it on another, and then keep doing this for a long time, you would use this option. In the Main Window, you would select your ship, then give it orders to move to the first planet, then give it orders to load population, then move to the second planet, then drop population. After that, you would turn on the repeat orders option. The ship would continually execute this loop of orders. Be careful that you don't accidentally turn on this option when the ship has only one single order. This will cause the ship to sit and do nothing. You can, at any time, turn off the repeat orders option or clear the orders of your ship. |
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| Orders which take no time | Orders can really be classified into 2 different categories, those that take movement to execute, and those that don't. Orders like "Move To" and "Warp" require that your ship expend movement points to execute them. Other orders such as "Transfer Cargo" and " Launch Units" do not require any movement points. These orders that don't require movement points can effectively be done as many times as you want in a turn without restriction. | |
| Viewing orders | You can, at any time, view the orders of any ship, planet, or fleet. Use the "View Orders" order in the Main Window. This will display a window which will allow you to view all of the orders that this ship currently has outstanding. | |
| Changing orders | Its very easy to change a ship's orders. If the ship has no orders, then you can merely give it new orders. If it has existing orders, then you will want to clear those orders using the "Clear Orders" order in the Main Window. | |
| Things to watch out for | One of the biggest problems that players run into is when they try to give a ship orders when it already has some. This will most often look like you trying to give a ship orders, and then it won't execute those orders. You need to use the "View Orders" command to see if it currently has a list of orders, and then clear those before you issues new orders. |
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