quote:
Originally posted by Sinapus:
How about being able to group fleets into sub-fleets, i.e., task forces or squadrons? Something so you can put your heavy close-combat ships in one group to close with the enemy and have your missile ships and carriers in another to stay back.
As S_J said, you can do this in tactical combat with the ctrl # command. Unfortunately, You can't do this in strategic, and the AI _NEVER_ does it. I don't think it would be too difficult make the AI do it. Of coarse, I've never programmed anything in my life, yet I'm qualified to make that statement. (If you believe that, I've got a nice bridge for sale!)
In the AI_Designcreation file, add a line that goes something like this:
Combat Group : <enter value 1-9>
In strategic combat (hopefully, if this gets implemented) ships in a single fleet could then be broken up into different combat Groups so as to better take advantage of the varying ranges of the weapons used. Beam ships could be assigned to a different combat group than missleboats. (Ie, beam ships have combat group 1, missleboats and carriers are in group 2, etc etc etc. Then, if the entire fleet has Optimum Range as the strategy, each combat group will now close to it's own optimum range (ie beam ships close to about 4-6, while missle boats would stay farther out).
So does this make sense, or am I just off my rocker here?