                              Concept : Autofish

NAME
   Autofish - How to exploit resources at sea automatically

Level: Expert

Fishing boats and oil derricks let you exploit sea resources.  Navigating them
back and forth between harbor and fishery  /  offshore  oil  field  is  rather
tedious.  Autonavigation lets you automate this.

It  is more commonly used for fishing boats than for oil derricks, because oil
fields are commonly configured to deplete quickly, and are often too far  from
harbors for the slow oil derricks to make autonavigation effective.

This is an example of how to set up a fleet of fishing boats so they will take
their food produced each update and drop it off at the harbor of your  choice.
Oil derricks work exactly the same.

See  info  "order"  for  a  complete description and example of syntax for the
"order" command.

   map #1
      00000000001111111
      01234567890123456
    -4. . . . . . . . .
    -3 ? ? . . . . . .
    -2? . . . . . . ) .
    -1 ? . . . . . f . .
     0. . . . . g m . .
     1 . . . . f * w h .
     2. . . . . c + + .

   You have ships 0,12 and 88 in the harbor at 15,1.
   Sector 16,0 has a very good fert of 93 so you want to use that
   as your fishing grounds.

   1) move your ships to sector 16,0
       "nav 0/12/88 16,0"

   2a) set up autonav using the 'order' command.
       "order 0 des 15,1 16,0"
       This will establish a circular trade route.

   2b) set up food levels for the ship
       "order 0 level 1 start food 30"
       "order 0 level 1 end   food 30"

       You can also use a global '*' or a fleet letter here.
       "order * level 1 start food 30"
       "order * level 1 end   food 30"

       "order F level 1 start food 30"
       "order F level 1 end   food 30"

       NOTE: You should set BOTH start and end fields to insure
             autofish will work correctly and set them at the
             same levels!

       NOTE: Fishing boats and oil derricks are a special case
             to the autonav code.  This setup will only work
             correctly with them.  If you want to use autonav
             with cargo ships please use the examples found in
             the "order" command.

   repeat 2a,2b for other ships in the area.

During the update your fishing boats will now  move  to  the  harbor  at  15,1
unload  food  until it reaches 30, then move back to 15,1 and STOP.  So unless
the ship gets sunk, or something happens to it, like the civs starve on  board
if  you  don't  leave  enough food on it, the ships will continue to feed your
country and you won't even need to think about them.

For oil derricks, step 2b becomes:
    "order 0 level 1 start food 30"
    "order 1 level 2 end   oil 1"

    Note: If food is not required, food cargo levels can be zeroed.

    Note: In this configuration, the end oil level is not important
          as it is not used.

If your ship can't be unloaded because the the harbor is overcrowded, it  will
continue along its route.

SEE ALSO
   Autonav, order, navigate, Ships, Populace, Updates

