i take it that there are no sort of sub patterns or ways i can have one pattern looping whilst other patterns are doing other stuff… e.g i have a bassline on one pattern that loops whilst i have drums and various rhythms on other ones…
so far it seems that if i want to have a pattern looping i just have to cut and paste it into every new pattern i make… i guess this is the case generally…???
rave on
ned 
Or clone it or repeat its number.
do you mean repeat the pattern number in the pattern arranger?
The concept of a pattern in renoise is that one is played at a time in a sequence. The tracks (that form the patterns) are played simultaneously, but still you have to copy/paste those you need to loop through patterns.
The method you have in mind is under discussion in Arranger thread to be implemented in the future though.
I may suggest to have a good browsing of renoise tutorials before posting your questions in the forums. You may find the answer to 95% of your questions there.
thats good advice. i’ll bear that in mind for the future 
you could always render the particular pattern into a new instrument, trigger that on one track, and continue with triggering other stuff.
eg if youve got a bassline with 4 notes, instead of copy/pasting the four notes, you render it into one bit of audio. so if that bassline goes for four or 8 bars you can either trigger it at the start of every pattern or trigger it and let it run continuosly between patterns.
the next note action is where you can tell renoise to keep the instrument looping or to stop it.
quite an ok work around until we get an arranger,… if we ever do get one.