Patrolling

[couslee]

I have hunted and found nothing.

Say I set a fleet to patrol an area, three sectors down, one diagonally up, then back to the staring position. At what point, or during what situation will the fleet attack an enemy ship? I have had only two chances to observe a possibility.

First: The AI ship moved into the same sector on the same day as my fleet was entering that sector. battle occured (obviously).
Second: The AI moved to a sector that was one sector away from where my fleet was going to be, however, it moved first the next time, and when my fleet had it's turn, the AI was no longer next to it.

The question is: If my fleet is in a sector and it's next patroling path sector is empty, but there is an enemy ship next to the fleet, will it break from the patrol path and intercept? or boldly go when no ships have gone before?

[Ragnarok]

The question is: If my fleet is in a sector and it's next patroling path sector is empty, but there is an enemy ship next to the fleet, will it break from the patrol path and intercept? or boldly go when no ships have gone before?

It will not break from the patrol and intercept. You have to clear the order queue and then push the attack orders. Other wise it will continue on its patrolling path.

The purpose of the patrolling order is so you can order a fleet to patrol multiple systems along your front lines. (Or where ever but I'm using front lines for an example.) You tell it to patrol say 5 systems and back on a non stop basis. In those systems you have no planets or nothing in order to see if there are ships in there or not. In which case your patrolling ships are patrolling to find enemy ships. When it finds a system with enemy ships in there, if you didn't change a setting, it will clear the orders and you can tell it to either patrol once more or attack those ships. At least this is how I view the patrol order. I hope I didn't confuse you too much.

BTW, this is my 1500 post.

[ January 31, 2003, 22:16: Message edited by: Ragnarok ]

[couslee]

No confustion at all. makes scents (it stinks).

that is a good use for it. What i was wanting to do was place a fleet to patrol an area around an enemy planet, and intercept any ships leaving that planet, while at the same time, not entering the sector the planet is in. Any way to set that up? or has those attempts been a waste of my time. ugg

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by couslee:
No confustion at all. makes scents (it stinks).

that is a good use for it. What i was wanting to do was place a fleet to patrol an area around an enemy planet, and intercept any ships leaving that planet, while at the same time, not entering the sector the planet is in. Any way to set that up? or has those attempts been a waste of my time. ugg

hmm no I don't believe there is. Unfortunantly you can't set up the game to automatically intercept ships leaving the homeworld. You have to issue the command manually. If you see a ship leave and you want to attack it, you have to go to the attack command. It would be neat to have a feature to automatically intercept ships though.
It'd be worth mentioning to Aaron, althought I imagine it'd be hard to code into the game. But it could be added to SEV I'm sure.

[Krsqk]

Make sure the "Ships should clear orders when enemy presence enters system" option is checked. (Empire Options screen) Any time it encounters an enemy ship, it will clear orders, allowing you to enter new ones to attack the enemy.

Now, I agree it would be nice to have a "Patrol, but deviate from course to attack enemies up to X sectors away, provided they are below Y% of our strength" order system. SE5?

[couslee]

Krysk, that selection is a dual edged sword. If you also are bring in reinforcements, ect into that, or another system, they won't complete thier moves. real pain in situltaneous games, since you lose those points..