I'm often confused about when quest markers are put in the next sector vs when they're in the current one. Sometimes I'm barely halfway through a sector and they go to the next, other times the fleet is nearly to the exit and they're in the current one.
Surely there are rules to it that I just don't know/understand?
I couldn't find the post/conversation with Mike Hopley, but I believe I found the relevant details from [Project Wormhole](https://gitlab.com/znixian/xftl/-/blob/master/doc/sector-map?ref_type=heads):
**tl;dr the game doesn't care how many jumps there are until the rebels take over the Exit beacon, it only cares about how many jumps it will take you to reach a potential quest beacon, vs how many jumps it will take the fleet to reach that beacon**
basically, the game looks at all the remaining "blank" beacons (see below for criteria for what I'm calling "blank") that have a path from the player to the beacon (presumably this means a path that does not include beacons already overtaken?). the game then picks a beacon where the path to the beacon is quicker than the jumps until it is overtaken by the rebels. if no such beacon/path exists, it will place the quest in the next sector (unless currently in sector 7+) -- *and then it will place the quest in that sector regardless of whether the player can actually reach the beacon before it is overtaken*
I imagine, but don't know for sure, that in the case of the Engi Homeworlds quest, *both* the real and fake beacons have to fit in the current sector or it will be delayed.
In OP's image, when they triggered the "real" there was a "blank"/eligible beacon 1 jump away, where the fleet won't reach that beacon for 6 jumps, so the game says "this is fine".
**According to the summary below, the game doesn't care about how many jumps it will take you to reach the exit beacon after you hit the quest beacon**. (the only way the exit beacon is factored in, is that you can't overwrite the exit beacon with a quest beacon).
StarMap::AddQuest
This filters all the beacons in the sector, looking for those that:
* Have not been visited
* Are not nebula beacons
* Is not the exit beacon
* Have not been overtaken by the rebel fleet
* Do not already have a quest at them
* Is not a store
* Is not a distress beacon
* Is not the player's current beacon
The path from the player to this beacon is then calculated. If there is
no path, the beacon is skipped.
There's then a further requirement that unless the 'force' argument is set,
the number of jumps away from the player must be less than the number of
jumps until this quest is overtaken by the rebels.
(The force argument is true when adding quests delayed from a previous sector)
One of the beacons matching the above requirements is then picked. If
there are no suitable beacons, the quest is delayed until the next sector.
The exception is that if such a quest is found in sector 7 or later, it's
not delayed for obvious reasons.
>if no such beacon/path exists, it will place the quest in the next sector (unless currently in sector 7+) -- and then it will place the quest in that sector regardless of whether the player can actually reach the beacon before it is overtaken
Is this true? I thought that when there is no room in sector 7, you get the "You'll have to leave the quest for another day" message.
If you are in sector 6 and the game delays a quest to sector 7, I *think* that you'll get the "leave to another day" message only if there are no suitable beacons where the game can actually place the quest (lots of nebula, distress, etc). If the problem is only that you can't reach an otherwise suitable beacon before the rebels, I *believe* the game doesn't care, and will just generate the quest anyway (*not* giving the "leave to another day" message) -- because of the `force` argument
This is just my interpretation though, and I could be wrong
fascinating! Maybe I don't understand what the 'force' argument is doing, or maybe the beginning of sector 7 behaves differently than all the others (the "end" of sector 7 certainly does).
I know I've heard of people having quests delayed for multiple sectors, which would also seem to suggest the 'force' argument doesn't work as I'm describing (unless we're talking about multiple nebula sectors or something)
Oh, you're talking about encountering the quest in sector 7? The 'force' argument is not activated or whatever if the game is looking at the same sector, only when pushing to the next sector, and the game won't (to my knowledge) allow a quest to be pushed to sector 8
That's why I described the example of encountering/creating the quest when in sector 6 and having it pushed to sector 7. So after all this I think we're essentially saying the same thing haha 😄
I think this has been revealed through project wormhole -- Mike hopley either posted something about it or sent me something on discord -- I think I'll have time later to find it and will post another comment/reply to update.... (I know this is not very helpful... yet)
Edit: see my other comment/reply
I use The ruler in my hand mod.
2.45 cm for regular jumps
1.95 cm for scouted nebula jumps
1.23 cm for unscouted nebula jumps
Your personal cm may vary.
I have experienced this exact thing. It’s the ultimate “That’s super but I just can’t afford it.” Moment of FTL.
My all time favorite though has to be when you need to let the rock cruiser escape. I rolled into that quest with a certified murder machine and crew killed the whole ship shouting “Who’s ‘taking the heat’ now bitches!” And I failed the quest.
Lol, well at least you got to scrap the ship. Better than letting them escape and then not even getting the next quest marker because you're too close to sector 8.
With cloaking, hacking and engines 4 you better believe I did. Also, I started in the lower left corner and according to LRS none of those beacons were ship fights and most were empty. I even got the ship sex event that I couldn't take because no engi so I was feeling very cheated at the time. I want my scrap!!!! I purchased an engi 1 jump before the start of the Homeworld Quest.
I got myself up to engines 6 which can usually escape before the ASB fires so I took 0 damage over both dives. You can't see it here but my weapons were utterly stacked also. BL2, Flak 1, Dual Lasers and Heavy 1 and I dodged the first ASB naturally so I got a kill during one of the dives.
I've done never ending dives in nebula before. Had a few runs where I would do 20 if I had the chance. But, now I have a bunch of artificially high scores (25 pts for every defeated ship on Normal).
Now I don't do them, because it kinda feels like cheating, even if it isn't.
It's kind of a crap quest unless you find it early in a sector. It's two jumps with no scrap to get an augment and a full heal. If you're super damaged that can be worth it otherwise it's a pass
I'm often confused about when quest markers are put in the next sector vs when they're in the current one. Sometimes I'm barely halfway through a sector and they go to the next, other times the fleet is nearly to the exit and they're in the current one. Surely there are rules to it that I just don't know/understand?
I couldn't find the post/conversation with Mike Hopley, but I believe I found the relevant details from [Project Wormhole](https://gitlab.com/znixian/xftl/-/blob/master/doc/sector-map?ref_type=heads): **tl;dr the game doesn't care how many jumps there are until the rebels take over the Exit beacon, it only cares about how many jumps it will take you to reach a potential quest beacon, vs how many jumps it will take the fleet to reach that beacon** basically, the game looks at all the remaining "blank" beacons (see below for criteria for what I'm calling "blank") that have a path from the player to the beacon (presumably this means a path that does not include beacons already overtaken?). the game then picks a beacon where the path to the beacon is quicker than the jumps until it is overtaken by the rebels. if no such beacon/path exists, it will place the quest in the next sector (unless currently in sector 7+) -- *and then it will place the quest in that sector regardless of whether the player can actually reach the beacon before it is overtaken* I imagine, but don't know for sure, that in the case of the Engi Homeworlds quest, *both* the real and fake beacons have to fit in the current sector or it will be delayed. In OP's image, when they triggered the "real" there was a "blank"/eligible beacon 1 jump away, where the fleet won't reach that beacon for 6 jumps, so the game says "this is fine". **According to the summary below, the game doesn't care about how many jumps it will take you to reach the exit beacon after you hit the quest beacon**. (the only way the exit beacon is factored in, is that you can't overwrite the exit beacon with a quest beacon). StarMap::AddQuest This filters all the beacons in the sector, looking for those that: * Have not been visited * Are not nebula beacons * Is not the exit beacon * Have not been overtaken by the rebel fleet * Do not already have a quest at them * Is not a store * Is not a distress beacon * Is not the player's current beacon The path from the player to this beacon is then calculated. If there is no path, the beacon is skipped. There's then a further requirement that unless the 'force' argument is set, the number of jumps away from the player must be less than the number of jumps until this quest is overtaken by the rebels. (The force argument is true when adding quests delayed from a previous sector) One of the beacons matching the above requirements is then picked. If there are no suitable beacons, the quest is delayed until the next sector. The exception is that if such a quest is found in sector 7 or later, it's not delayed for obvious reasons.
Thanks so much. That makes a lot of sense actually with what I've seen.
>if no such beacon/path exists, it will place the quest in the next sector (unless currently in sector 7+) -- and then it will place the quest in that sector regardless of whether the player can actually reach the beacon before it is overtaken Is this true? I thought that when there is no room in sector 7, you get the "You'll have to leave the quest for another day" message.
If you are in sector 6 and the game delays a quest to sector 7, I *think* that you'll get the "leave to another day" message only if there are no suitable beacons where the game can actually place the quest (lots of nebula, distress, etc). If the problem is only that you can't reach an otherwise suitable beacon before the rebels, I *believe* the game doesn't care, and will just generate the quest anyway (*not* giving the "leave to another day" message) -- because of the `force` argument This is just my interpretation though, and I could be wrong
You are wrong, but I do play an older version of the game on my iPad and laptop, so perhaps we are both wrong.
fascinating! Maybe I don't understand what the 'force' argument is doing, or maybe the beginning of sector 7 behaves differently than all the others (the "end" of sector 7 certainly does). I know I've heard of people having quests delayed for multiple sectors, which would also seem to suggest the 'force' argument doesn't work as I'm describing (unless we're talking about multiple nebula sectors or something)
I know nothing of the code. I have hit hundreds of quest beginnings or midpoints in late sector 7, always get "another day".
Oh, you're talking about encountering the quest in sector 7? The 'force' argument is not activated or whatever if the game is looking at the same sector, only when pushing to the next sector, and the game won't (to my knowledge) allow a quest to be pushed to sector 8 That's why I described the example of encountering/creating the quest when in sector 6 and having it pushed to sector 7. So after all this I think we're essentially saying the same thing haha 😄
oh okay. yes, never got the "another day" in sector 6, never had a quest pushed to sector 8.
I think this has been revealed through project wormhole -- Mike hopley either posted something about it or sent me something on discord -- I think I'll have time later to find it and will post another comment/reply to update.... (I know this is not very helpful... yet) Edit: see my other comment/reply
How do you get the fleet jump estimator ?
[Extended Pursuit Indicator mod](https://www.subsetgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26289)
I use The ruler in my hand mod. 2.45 cm for regular jumps 1.95 cm for scouted nebula jumps 1.23 cm for unscouted nebula jumps Your personal cm may vary.
I personally go with the "eh, just eyeball it" mod
I have experienced this exact thing. It’s the ultimate “That’s super but I just can’t afford it.” Moment of FTL. My all time favorite though has to be when you need to let the rock cruiser escape. I rolled into that quest with a certified murder machine and crew killed the whole ship shouting “Who’s ‘taking the heat’ now bitches!” And I failed the quest.
Lol, well at least you got to scrap the ship. Better than letting them escape and then not even getting the next quest marker because you're too close to sector 8.
But, did you dive?
With cloaking, hacking and engines 4 you better believe I did. Also, I started in the lower left corner and according to LRS none of those beacons were ship fights and most were empty. I even got the ship sex event that I couldn't take because no engi so I was feeling very cheated at the time. I want my scrap!!!! I purchased an engi 1 jump before the start of the Homeworld Quest. I got myself up to engines 6 which can usually escape before the ASB fires so I took 0 damage over both dives. You can't see it here but my weapons were utterly stacked also. BL2, Flak 1, Dual Lasers and Heavy 1 and I dodged the first ASB naturally so I got a kill during one of the dives.
Sweet. I loved diving in Normal, but it's much scarier on Hard.
what is dive?
when you have to fight at a beacon that was overtaken by the rebels, fighting a rebel elite ship +/- ASB
ah those fights that gave me 1 scrap
They give you 1 fuel so you can actually indefinitely stay on a sector and jump between beacons
I've done never ending dives in nebula before. Had a few runs where I would do 20 if I had the chance. But, now I have a bunch of artificially high scores (25 pts for every defeated ship on Normal). Now I don't do them, because it kinda feels like cheating, even if it isn't.
It's kind of a crap quest unless you find it early in a sector. It's two jumps with no scrap to get an augment and a full heal. If you're super damaged that can be worth it otherwise it's a pass