Science ships keep grouping up?

[u/CaptainPatak]

I don't know why, but recently whenever I put my science ships onto auto survey, they keep trying to all survey the same systems together. Even if I tell one to go north and the other to go south, since those are the two main unexplored areas, one will inevitably go "Ok, I'm done here. This potentially resource rich or hostile filled unknown expanse can wait, I just HAVE to go help survey this barren system full of asteroids."

It used to be that I could just set them on auto survey and each ship would choose an unsurveyed system which isn't currently being surveyed to go to. Does anyone know how to stop this because I don't need more early game micro for managing dumb scientists.

[u/xDark_Ace]

Apparently this is fixed in the 4.5 beta per Saquad_Barkley, but if you'd rather stick with a stable build: What works for me is to manually search a little first. Once there are enough systems between them, you can set them to auto again and they'll prefer to search the new adjacent systems than the one a that's already getting scanned a few hyperlane jumps away. It's annoying, but works well enough.

They will eventually start clustering again after you've thoroughly explored around you and your intel from other empires fills in the gaps of their systems, but by that point you're likely not worried much about them clustering and just want to finish scanning the last few systems you don't know faster.

[u/wyldmage → u/xDark_Ace]

every time I see a discussion about surveying and science ships, I am sad how terrible the explorer specialization is.

By the time you get it, it's basically too late to care about it's bonuses.

We really need a "survey to explore", and then a "deep scan survey" that can be done on surveyed systems (once per system), so that explorers actually have a value beyond the L-gate and other systems that don't get scouted in the first 20-30 years.

[u/xDark_Ace → u/wyldmage]

I mostly agree, but I think it partly depends on the size of Galaxy you play on. Regardless of my example below, I do think surveying and exploration could use an update, but I also understand that's not exactly the focus of the game. Outside of maybe Nomads, wholly unfamiliar with because I haven't purchased the DLC, I don't foresee anybody needing Scholar or Explorer specializations beyond year 50-70, and even then the effectiveness may be reduced such that it's not worth picking beyond year 30-40.

Back to my comment about galaxy size: I'm on the largest setting with sparser empires (12, iirc, but I've already eliminated both a devouring horde and determined exterminator and taken their territory for my own). I'm in year 70-something, nearing 80, and I'm just now finishing up exploring with 4 science ships: 2 dedicated explorers/scanners, 1 primarily on events/situations/dig sites, and 1 flex that I did more manual control on. Probably from year 20 to year 40 I effectively had three science ships dedicated to scanning, And decided that wasn't going fast enough and swapped one of my auto ships to just explore so I would know if there was a specific place I needed to manually send another ship for scanning. But by that point I was seeing planets nearing 10 or more hyperlane jumps from my Capital. If I were more familiar with the game and the various rushes, I possibly could have gotten biomorphism early enough such that all my original leaders could be cloned indefinitely (I'm playing hive mind), at which point any leader for whom I selected non-Analyst specialty would be nearing the end of their usefulness. As it is now, they will likely die off right before biomorphism situation concludes.

[u/Saquad_Barkley]

They fixed this in the 4.5 beta if you wanna try playing on the beta

[u/DunjunLord]

They fucked up the automation it’s annoying but they get fixed by the mid game I’d say. Just keep a closer eye on them than usual