                           Concept : Autonavigation

  In a very short while after acquiring ships the effort of moving ships after
every update gets very boring.  And the more ships you have, the more work  it
is.   Hence the concept of autonavigation.  Like any self-respecting dictator,
you don't personally drive you ships around (except when you want to), instead
you  command  you  ship captains to take their vessels to a specified destina-
tion.  This is done via the order command.

Each ship can be ordered to proceed to a destination.  During each update, the
ship  will  move  as  far as possible toward its destination, stopping when it
runs out of mobility or when it is unable to proceed because it has  run  into
previously  unknown  obstructions.   Note  that  this  movement is done before
mobility is accumlated, so that after the update is  complete  the  ship  will
have some mobility remaining.

The  autonavigation  capability is dependent upon the per country map database
accessed via the bmap command.  If you order a vessel to  a  destination  that
causes  it  to  cross  a  previously unexplored area, the ship will attempt to
cross that area as if it were water.  One of the features of  the  bmap  func-
tionality is that when a ship is navigated, it automatically uses its radar to
see the local sectors (much like real life).  This sector information is added

                           Concept : Autonavigation

to  the per country map database.  Thus upon running into a previously unknown
obstruction, that information is added to the map database  and  on  the  next
update,  a  new  path  to  the destination will be calculated which avoids the
obstruction.  This process applied iteratively means that a ships will eventu-
ally  find  its  way  around any obstruction, provided that a path exists.  In
reality, this is a limit to this process.  In order to  limit  the  processing
that  is  done  to find a path to the destination, the internal path string is
limited to XX characters.

NOTE: The following feature is not available yet.

The other capability of the autonav function is  autotrading.   By  specifying
two  destinations and two commodities, s ship will move back and forth between
the two destination loading and unloading the appropriate commodities.

See also : navigate, order

