very strange combat behavior -- please help
 

I just attacked a single enemy satellite with a large fleet. The ships that should have moved in immediately to kill the satellite moved in and just remained there, in a stack over the satellite, as it fired on them. Eventually, a kamikaze fighter arrived and rammed the satellite but not before one cruiser was disarmed and badly damaged, and another was damaged. I would really appreciate it if some kind soul could help me understand what happened. The game ain't fun when a huge fleet can be stopped by a single small satellite.
I am playing SE5 v1.74 with Balance Mod v1.14b
My fleet was organized into three task forces:

Task Force 1: Orders to attack at maximum range. Composition: carriers, mine sweepers, and seeking parasite ships. These all moved away (as they should, since none had weapons that attack satellites -- seeking parasites don't).
Some fighters had small electric discharge, and others were kamikaze ships with warheads. Both groups of fighters closed on the enemy satellite, but only the kamikaze ships attacked (ultimately killing the satellite).

Task Forces 2 and 3: Orders to attack at point blank range. Composition: cruisers armed with acid globules, plasma charges, point defense. All these ships moved into range of the satellite, and then did nothing, as they were being eaten up by its depleted uranium cannons.

I've verified that my point blank and attack maximum range do list "satellite", with "engage range" "point blank" and "maximum range", respectively. I've also verified that the ships had "autotargeting" on and "auto move" on.

Is this a bug, or is there some arcane explanation for this odd behavior?

Many thanks for any advice. -DB

Re: very strange combat behavior -- please help
 

Seeking parasites can't target satellites, but I'm surprised none of the other ships with direct fire weapons did not fire. If possible, I'd suggest running the combat again as a test and have the strategies set so that all ships break formation...

Re: very strange combat behavior -- please help
 

My ships were set to break formation. But, thanks for the suggestion. I would like to rerun that battle and see if it was just a fluke, or can be fixed by changing orders. I'd hate to think that I'll run into the same bug next battle. How can I re-run the turn from PBW? Can I download the files and play around on my own machine?

One friend suggested that the "point blank" engagement order might only work when the ships are really close. But, if I have "point blank", won't they fire at longer range, but just try to move closer?

Thanks,
DB

Re: very strange combat behavior -- please help
 

You'd have to be the host of the game to download the necessary files, and even in that case, you could only change your own orders to experiment with changes.

I'd suggest setting up a similar battle in the simulator, except that I don't trust the simulator's results myself.

capnq
PBW admin

Re: very strange combat behavior -- please help
 

You can make a new game on your own computer. Play 2 or 3 players, and have no others. Play several turns and practice empire expansion. When you have a nice little game going, save it. Then use that game to test various things. Set up any battle you want, just build the ships needed on both sides and have them fight.