In some missions you have to destroy several enemy robot ships. During the battle it may happen that you and the enemy ship (which is currently attacking you) both move far away from the sector's center.

At the time you have defeated this robot ship you will be so far away from every other ship that you cannot find them anymore.

Today I searched for nearly an hour for the missing ships. I stayed and waited. I moved around. I could not find them. Finally I had to give up the mission.

You may argue that I just should not have moved so far away from the other ships. But how should I have done this in the today's mission? These other ships did not appear until I had defeated every preceding ship.

You might further reply that I should have kept my eye on a fixed region in the sector, let's say an asteroid belt, and flown back to it. But there was no such thing, the sector was empty.

Or you could suggest the ruse I once did: leave the sector and come back immediately. I would have arrived in the sector's center, and everything would have been fine. But - in this mission I wasn't allowed to leave the sector; I would have lost right away.

Of course, I could have decided not to move at all during the battles. But that would have been a very unfortunate strategy too. :-)

Please help me with this issue... I really don't know what to do.

One thing that might make finding them easier is to turn off the background before searching so that it's just black. Then turn on mouselook and slowly scan the skies looking for any specks or glints (using mouselook makes looking around smoother and faster). If you think you see something, use the 'i' key to zoom in and check.

You may however find it hard to keep track of where you've looked with backgrounds turned off.

Also, if you can keep an eye on your orientation with respect to the local sun, you might be able to at least narrow down the region you have to examine. For example, if you run from a bot, try to only run towards and away from the sun, keeping track of which direction you've gone further in. If you look at the designs of the background near the sun, you can also keep track of left/right up/down, instead of just sunward/anti-sunward.

For example, if you have to make a long run from the bot, do it toward the sun. Then when you kill him, swivel so the sun is directly behind you and you can return to where you were. Or if you make several runs, alternate to and from the sun, so that overall you don't move so far.

Another technique you might try in an empty sector is this: Once you warp in, plot a course elsewhere (but don't jump out!). That should create a jumpoint marker nearby. Then when you wander far away, just fly back to the marker.

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I do agree there needs to be a better way to find the bots again. Currently, there is no way to make a mission spawn bots in any particular location, so making them spawn near the player would take a bit of work on the server side. I think that is something that should definitely be done.

Another thing they could do is create some kind of beacon system that could create a marker on the screen and radar like jump points and wormholes do, and add a way to the mission editor to have spawning bots create that marker at the spawnpoint. That could have other uses as well.

Pizzasgood, thanks for excellent hints!!

I think I will plot a new course elsewhere as soon as I arrive in such a sector, as you suggested. This should solve the problem.

It would not be bad to have a navpoint in the middle of the sector. I will make a suggestion at the suggestions board...

Thanks again, you helped a lot!