Ships Orders
 

Time and time again I give a ship orders and they get ignored! I give a ship 'Capture ship' as the classes default orders put it in a fleet with 'capture ship' orders and what does it do? Run away. (No the enemy did not have shields) Same goes with Ram orders and Don't Hurt me orders' (except with don't hurt me they don't run away) you would think Ram orders should be simple to program. Move towards enemy and ram. Similar with Capture ships orders. This is so frustrating I wonder why I even bother playing. And I know I'm not alone in this as it has happened to those I play with.

Re: Ships Orders
 

David, I agree wholeheartedly. This is by far the flakiest part of the game. I don't think it will ever be fixed because it would require massive reprogramming. The three items you mentioned are only the highlights. Many other items work in confusing, illogical or contradictory ways. Yes, there are some bright spots, but they hardly make up for weaknesses. Sorry, Aaron, just had to say it.

However, I have learned to work with what's there. It's hardly satisfactory, but I can play a reasonably strong game by avoiding the flakiest orders.

Kim

Re: Ships Orders
 

I've learned to play by the ways of the game, i dont count much on parts that are weak. i have been trying to find the ways around the bad sides of strategies -- dont put weapons on ramming and/or capturing ships, thats one lesson i've learned.

Re: Ships Orders
 

What’s the problem exactly?
Ramming strategy does not require any weapons on board the ramming ship.
When you use capture enemy ship you will need a weapon to stay at the front line. The ship will try to capture an enemy ship even without weapons but the enemy shields must be lowered by another ship. As soon as the shields are down, the capture ship will head for its target but most of the time the target ship will be blown up when the capture ship arrives. but if the capture ship has a weapon it will stay at the front all the time and might be on time to catpure an enemy without shields.
It is not a bug that ships without weapons or weapons that won't work against the enemy (i.e. boarding parties against ships with shields) try to disengage from the enemy IMHO. Who really wants his maybe even damaged ships to sit in front of the enemy unable to do anything and wait to be blown to pieces by him?

Re: Ships Orders
 

The problem with the Capture ships was they did not move towards the enemy (unshielded). These ships had swashbucklers and their only 'weapon' They instead either milled around or moved away. The ram thing was the same although this happened to a friend in the game so it may have been incorrect orders. Fleets with Don't hurt me orders I have found never worked since Gold came out. The ships always revert back to thier class orders.

Re: Ships Orders
 

Were you fighting a Psychic race, by any chance? Or perhaps a Cruiser or larger?

Psychic races get double the normal boarding defense, and swashbucklers are not very strong.

If you ship will not overcome the defenders, it won't attempt to board.

Re: Ships Orders
 

Psychic No. The enemy was mostly Battle Cruisers though.

Re: Ships Orders
 

I once had been using ship capture strongly and used CRs armed with two shields sapper, double shield and the rest loaded with boarding parties. THey just sapped the shields and ran to the corner, only to die there. The enemy was not psychic and did not have any boarding defense.
Same with ramming - tried putting weapons on them, and they dont ram but dance around firing weapons instead.

Re: Ships Orders
 

The frustrating part is that it seems to me that it really shouldn't require 'massive reprpgraaming' I would think orders like Ram, Capture and Don't hurt be should be the easiest to program.

As far as ways around these things. What are they? I don't understand the 'not putting weapons' on ramming and capture ships because the latest incidents that prompted this thread were with ram ships that had no weapons and capture ships that had no weapons. The weird thing is that in the game I'm currently playing I have has a lot of success with capturing ships then comes the big combat against the megaevil human and poof they all die without even an attampt to capture.

Re: Ships Orders
 

Well, either the problems arise with the MODs you are using or there is just something set wrong in your strategies. If you don't touch the strategies (i.e. out of the box) and obey the need-weapon/no-weapon outlined below it will work every time both in my regular game (1.78) and beta (1.81). In short, I wouldn’t blame it on SE4 in general but to some screwed up settings in your games or some variables we all overlook in your examples.