[Commander G2]

Of the Standard Formations, I like Wall and Spider. Spider is nice against incoming fighters and missles. Wall is nice for creating lots of overlapping fire zones (that is why variations of it used frequently in land commbat). The problem with line formation is the opponent can focus one ship if he can swing the flank. Often the AI will do just that if for some reason it decides to go that way.

If I bothered creating a custome formation, I would use a double or triple wall with a extra ships set back on the ends to refuse the flanks. If you outnumber your opponent or your opponent likes to use arrow, I would suggest the V formation and catch his point ships in the cross fire for fast kills.

V is probably better for bombing, but if there are no enemy ships to defend, you have probably won anyway, unless they are mega into storage facilities and lots of Weapon Platforms. However, a V would probably be real suseptible to a wall formation, so a wall is better in most cases.

If you greatly outnumber an opponent with light ships and he has a few heavy duty ships, a wall will work poorly as your flank ships would not join the combat for a couple of rounds. In that case a densor formation might work better.

I suppose to use a custom formation in a PBW game, you probably have to submit the administaitors to edit the formation text file.