[Pax]

Originally posted by DavidG:
Can't this be done in the current game? Just create a strategy were all ships will break formation.

Er, did you miss this part ... ?

Version 1.82:
1. Changed - Ships in combat will now follow their fleet's strategy regardless of whether they are in a combat group or not.

That means, if the fleet's strategy is "Maximum range" and you have Troop Transports (each with a single APB) -and- multi-APB warships in the same fleet, and set the fleet to Maximum Range -and- break formation ... the Troop Transports will still try to kinfe-fight with the enemy warships, before dropping off their troops.

Why?

Because the fleet's "Maximum Range" strategy will OVERRIDE the Troop Transport's "capture planet" design-strategy, even if the trasnports break formation.

So, I'd like to see some sort of way to have one or mroe types of ship override the fleet strategy.

Perhaps, for each strategy, a list of types, like the list of those types which break formation, would work -- but the list being design types, so you'd not see just "ships" but "troop transports" versus "carriers" and so on.

Unless we can get "nested fleets" -- IOW fleets within fleets -- the result will be a nightmare of MM for anyone seeking to use combined arms tactics (bunch of warships, supported by a couple carriers, and backed up by a logistics/repair ship or two and some troop transports).

By the current 1.82 setup, we will have to put each type of ship into seperate fleets, and move the fleets together, turn after turn (one turn's movement at a time, or, after the first turn's movement they will start moving one at a time, and NOT join battle as a single grouping ...). That means more MM, more effort, more time to process turns on the player end.

I'd like to be able to set fleets up to have seperate Battle Groups, each of which gets it's own strategy; then we could set up a point-blank PDC Aegis group, a Short Range APB "gunline" group, a Medium-range missile group, put the carriers at maximum range on Fighter Attack strategy, and have the troopships try and just bull their way through to the planet -- all in one fleet, with each group focussed on a different strategy, and even formation (putting the PDC/aegis ships into a disperesed formation, at a range where they are spread out among the other Groups, would be a possibility, for example ...).

At present, in v1.82, we may have to use multiple fleets for what, before, took only a single fleet to accomplish. *sigh*