42C Explore Command

[Quickie]

I think the Explore Command is broken. I have started 3 new games and none of my starting crews will fulfill the explore request. When I try to cancel the request the icon just stays in place.

[dbaumgart]

This is intended: only naturalists will go to explore commands.

(To help with this, the Naturalist's Office should be cheaper to construct as of 42B.)

[Quickie]

How do we explore the immediate starting area? One of the maps populated the drop location in the middle of a dense forest of trees while another did not have much of a flat area to build. With not being able to use my workers or troops to explore I could not locate a suitable location to start building. This would mean that we have to keep starting a new game until we find a map where the original drop/start area has all the right setup.

[dbaumgart]

Originally posted by slquick:

How do we explore the immediate starting area? One of the maps populated the drop location in the middle of a dense forest of trees while another did not have much of a flat area to build. With not being able to use my workers or troops to explore I could not locate a suitable location to start building. This would mean that we have to keep starting a new game until we find a map where the original drop/start area has all the right setup.

You raise a fair point!

(In the short term, you can create spurious assignments out in the fog of war then cancel them to get people to go there - and/or use the military rally button, thought that's a bit awkward.)

Part of the problem with the explore tool is that it encourages micromanagement of individuals to the point of possible exploitability, which we definitely want to avoid. Will have to think about where to go with this. May roll back the requirement for a naturalist to do the explore job, but ... we're going to have to have a design discussion about how to meet both the needs to explore around your starting location to start the game off AND to give naturalists a unique and important role in exploration, somehow.

[Quickie]

I started a few maps until I found one that I could work with from the drop point then used your suggestion to "explore" the area and it seemed to work out. Thanks for the quick feed back! This is one of my favorite games and I am so happy to see an active dev team.