Break formation bug?
 

For warp point defense I use a strategy "static defense" where no ships should break formation. The leader of the fleet was a base and therefore I expected the entire fleet to stay immobile and fire as a massive group against the attacking enemy. The first combat turns that was indeed true, but after about 8-10 turns some ships left the formation and attacked the enemy individually, which lead to their destruction.
Any ideas why the "no break formation" order was ignored??

Re: Break formation bug?
 

Was the leader, the base eliminated?
Otherwise, there are a lot of bugs in the strategy execution unfortunately. A common bug is that ships stick to their stragety for some time, then forget it. Has happend numerous times to me that "Don't get hurt" planet blockade ships headed to the edge of the combat area for the first turns, then turned around and flew towards the planet to get shot down by the weapon platforms.
In crucial situations, I would never rely on any other strategy than "optimum firing range" to actually work, unless you like to gamble http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Break formation bug?
 

"Was the leader, the base eliminated?"

No.
Unfortunately against the vastly superior enemy in this case the optimum firing range with break formation was letal to the ships. If they had stayed together with the bases they would have survived and inflicted huge losses to the attacker. And tactical combat was not a reasonable alternative with a total of about 600 ships involved.
Strategy is defenitely something that should be improved for SE V.

Re: Break formation bug?
 

I thought immobile leaders automatically lost their leader status. Sounds like not.

Ships that get damaged to a certain degree will break formation - not sure what the criteria are.

Other than that, my only hunch is something might have changed with the combat AI in the Last patch.

PvK

Re: Break formation bug?
 

If a ship loses all weapons, it changes type to an unarmed ship and breaks formation. Unarmed ships always break formation, no matter what.

Re: Break formation bug?
 

"If a ship loses all weapons, it changes type to an unarmed ship and breaks formation. Unarmed ships always break formation, no matter what."

I think that could be the explanation Fyron. However it is not a reasonable thing IMO for an unarmed ship to leave the protected formation and fly into the fire of the enemy.