[tbontob]

OK. Here's a scenario...

I got control of a light cruiser through Espionage/Crew Insurrection.

The cruiser is on the home planet sector with one other light cruiser and a planet with missiles. Other types of ships are there as well, but they are weaponless.

The light cruiser has techology I would like to have. So I need to get it to one of my planets to analyse it's contents.

However on the next turn, it gets pLastered in strategic play by the other cruiser and the planets missiles as it goes onto the attack by approaching these targets.

I don't know what the strategy of the captured cruiser is...the Designs menu (F3) will not show the cruiser and since it is not shown, I cannot change it.

But, I figure maybe I can overlay a fleet strategy over the light cruiser strategy of the ship I captured.

So the fleet strategy (call it Run-away) for this one ship fleet which I am thinking of employing is:

Break formation for "Ships" (unlit) - means it will not break formation and revert to its own strategy but still follow the fleet instructions. Correct Y/N?

Now how do I
a) avoid the planet like the plague?
b) engage the other cruiser on the best possible terms which is on course to attack the cruiser I captured? This is a fight I cannot avoid. So, I need a strategy.

To deal with a) I use the "Don't fire on these ships to highlight "planet" under the Firing tab

With (b), both ships have the same design. So as I see it, the ship which fire first and which happens to be the closest to the other is most likely to win.

But I still need to get away from the planet (because of it's missiles)

So, in the Movement tab, I am thinking of using
-Primary - Don't Get Hurt (which basically means run away)
-Secondary - Point Blank

I understand when the primary stategy is impossible, the secondary strategy comes into play.

So when my captured cruiser runs out of room, it engages the light cruiser away from the planet.

Back to the Firing tab, I set the Targeting Priority Order to
-Has weapons
-Nearest
-Fastest
-Strongest

Does this make sense... It does to me... Yet somehow I feel it will not work...because my understanding of what the settings mean are different from the computers.

I haven't tried this yet. So do I try again and again until I get the combination of settings which will cause my captured ship (and any future ships captured on a home planet) to behave in the way I want.

So much easier to have a concrete idea of what the settings mean and what they do.

[ August 21, 2002, 20:11: Message edited by: tbontob ]