Note: this content applies to 1.x versions of Avorion. For 2.0, see Captain (2.0).
About[ | ]
A Captain is a special type of crew member which allows you to give our ships commands and orders like any other RTS or 4X strategy game. While the initial cost of captains is relatively high for new players (over one hundred thousand credits), a captain can be used to generate income for the player while the player does more interesting things. By building multiple ships with captains, players can form a fleet of many ships with varying scale, role and configuration. These fleets are needed to progress into the more advanced stages of the game, when large Xsotan and pirate attacks as well as mounting operational costs require the use of multiple ships, working independently to achieve game objectives.
Hiring[ | ]
Captains can be hired at stations as normal crew members, and cost $120,000 to hire. To find a captain, first travel to a sector with multiple stations aligned "good" or greater with you. Then, select a station, and ask to hire crew. Captains have a winged symbol for their icon, and always appear at the bottom of the list. If one station in a given sector does not have captains available, it is likely that another one will so keep looking.
Giving Commands[ | ]
You can give a variety of commands to captains, and the way the captain executes a given order sometimes depends on how the order was given. Orders can also be chained together by holding the shift key while assigning tasks.
- Move/warp: The captain will move the ship to the location on the tactical map, or warp to a given sector. They will not use wormholes or warp gates and will instead rely solely on hyperspace engines. This is not available on the right navigation bar it is accessed by right clicking the chosen destination.
- Undo: Cancels the most recent chained commands (visible only when there is more than one command queued up.
- Attack Enemies: The captain will wait at their current position until an enemy shows up on scanners, and then attack.
- Patrol Sector: The same as Attack Enemies, except that the captain will fly around the sector while searching for targets.
- Escort: (Galaxy map only) A dialogue box will pop up allowing you to select one of the ships in the Captain's current sector to escort. The captain will try to maintain a distance of about 1.5km-3.5km and will only break off to attack enemies that attack the craft the captain is escorting.
- Repair: <someone please explain this - scherpenzeel>
- Repair Target:<someone please explain this - scherpenzeel>
- Mine: From the galaxy map, creates a simple mine order which causes the AI to mine asteroids nearby its current position and then stop. If the player queues up a refine command afterwards, the AI will mine until its cargo is full and then refine ores. If Mine is assigned from the tactical map, the AI will mine indefinitely and cannot have a new order chained after the "persistent" mine order. To get around this, you can use Galaxy Map mine command instead. Since the Tactical Map mine command is more "sticky" it's good for ships without a mining system on board who might lose sight of an asteroid if one with a mining system is not nearby
- Salvage: The captain will fly around the sector, salvaging wreckages. Recommend using salvaging fighters and a transport block + software and a tractor beam upgrade so that more of the loot will be picked up after wreckage deconstruction.
- Refine: The captain will fly to a resource depot in the sector and refine ores, if any. Otherwise it will give an error and proceed to the next order.
- Buy Goods: Opens a popup which allows you to buy goods from stations in a given sector. You need to determine what you want to buy beforehand, and the ship needs a trading system on board to complete the trade.
- Sell Goods: Works the same as Buy Goods but you must specify a quantity you want to remain on-board the ship. Put 0 in this field to sell everything.
- Stop: Cancels all commands
- Loop: When chaining commands, a "Loop" option appears at the end of the list. If you chain together a set of commands that can be executed in-order repeatedly, click the "loop" button to make the AI continue to try the loop until one of the steps fails. If you want to add more commands after creating a loop you can cancel the looping without losing the entire list of commands by using the "Cancel" command.
Orders and Persistent Orders[ | ]
Captains can receive two types of orders in Avorion: Orders and Persistent Orders. Orders are given via the galaxy map, and differ in that new orders can be chained after them using the galaxy map. Persistent Orders are given via the tactical map, or in the Give Orders menu when selecting a ship., and can only enchain with other Persistent Orders. In other words, the two do not mix. Furthermore, you cannot enchain anything after a Persistent Salvage or Persistent Mine command, and the ships must be instructed manually when they are finished their task. To check for this state, open the Player Menu (default key is [ i ] ) and you will see units that are on a mine or salvage order but have a " - cannot find X..." message after the listed order for that ship, so that you can see which ships are waiting for new commands.
Usage Guide[ | ]
Early on in the game, before the transition to Naonite or perhaps even Titanium, it is advantageous to have a second ship with a captain and mining lasers. The early stages of the game are marked by lots of mining, especially for new players, and most of this manual labor on the part of the player is unnecessary, and can be avoided by having a separate ship mining automatically while you, the player, pursue more interesting endeavors.
It is important to note that Captains cannot be hired from any faction that does not at least have "good" standing with the player. If you find yourself in an area of the galaxy where such factions are hard to come by, it may be worthwhile (even faster than travelling back, perhaps) to wait in a faction system you wish to ally, wait for pirates or Xsotan to show up, and kill the attackers. After just a few rounds of this activity, you should be in "good" standing with the faction (assuming they started "neutral"), at which point you can hire new captains.
To get the most out for your captains, it is important to check the Fleet screen ([i] by default) often for "idle" ships. When a ship is idle, click the green map location icon on the right hand side of that ship's row, to see it on the map. From here you can issue orders from the map.
In addition to giving orders to the captains directly, you can also enchain orders by holding the [SHIFT] key (by default). This way, you can set up a captain to work for some time, completing various tasks and reducing the need for micromanagement. If the tasks you enchain create a valid loop, then while holding the [SHIFT] key the "Stop" icon will turn into a "Loop" icon which can be used to tell the captain to carry out this set of tasks indefinitely.