Maintaining formation and other whines

Tomgs · #1 January 31st, 2001, 09:59 PM

You break fleet formation by going into the Orders menu. The clear group assignment removes the selected ship from the formation and the clear all group assignments removes all ships from the formation.

The only ways to enter into a combat with more than one ship at a time is if either you already have all the ships in the sector with the enemy (like over an enemy planet that just built a ship) or you can hold down the shift button while selecting multiple ships and fleets and then click the move button to move them into combat. Note to do this you must have enough movement remaining for each ship to reach the combat location in one move otherwise if this is a multiturn move the second and later turns the ships and/or fleets will move seperately.

rdouglass · #2 January 31st, 2001, 10:06 PM

Of course, the orders button (the one I never use). I'll go hide now for a while untill I'm no longer embarrassed.... Thanks much....

raynor · #3 January 31st, 2001, 10:15 PM

quote:
Originally posted by rdouglass:
What sucks is if I've moved all my ships where I want them before I move the leader, then move the leader, anyone with any remaining movement tries to move back into formation w/ the leader.

You have just stated the one thing I hate more than anything else about formations.

Like you, I'll be carefully moving several ships individually. Then, I'll move the leader, and all my careful work was for nothing!

I wish the game was smart enough to cancel the group orders for that turn once you have moved a ship in a group that isn't the leader.

Tomgs · #4 January 31st, 2001, 10:19 PM

Heh I don't think there is any reason to be embarrassed because something is not obvious or spelled out in the manual in this game. There are so many options and different way to play this game I learn something new almost every time I play a new game. One of the things that keeps me comming back to play again is the richness of options. With new patches and new mods appearing all the time (or even going into the files and trying to mod something myself) there is always some new combination or ability I haven't tried yet.

raynor · #5 January 31st, 2001, 10:19 PM

One of these days, I'm going to get smart and change the default formation for all my ships. It seems that most fleets default to the 'arrow' formation or somesuch where the leader is in the front row with the next two ships to the left and right in the second row and so on.... I think this has to be the most worthless formation I've ever seen.

From what I understand, it was one of the MOD'ers who first suggested the WALL formation which seems to have been added in one of the patches. In this formation, all your ships are in one long rank. IMHO, this formation is much better for me since I attack with a fleet of six or eight identical ships with balanced firepower.

So, to frame this as a question: How can I change it so that every time I start a new game, the default formation for any fleet will be 'The WALL' instead of the other default?

raynor · #6 January 31st, 2001, 10:47 PM

How many of you use this particular tactic?

I'll just use 'AUTO' and leave my ships in formation while they destroy the enemy ships and any defences. Then, I'll click ORDERS->Clear all group Formations.

Next, I'll select my transport hiding in the corner, and click ORDERS->Set Group Leader and choose any old group and formation.

The advantage of this is that when I press 'E' on the keyboard for End Turn, it will automatically select the transport instead of the leader of the group of warships that bombed the planet. This makes it much, much easier for me to move the transport in and drop troops on the planet.

Now, if they would just make the view shift so that the ship is *always* in the center...

(Err.. Change tactic above to read trick/method)

[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 31 January 2001).]

Baron Munchausen · #7 February 1st, 2001, 02:45 AM

Also, why can't you CLOSE UP a formation when some ships get destroyed? Isn't the point of a formation to have the ships protect each other and tocoordinate firepower? If they mindlessly keep a position three places back when the intervening ships have been destroyed that's not very helpful. There should be a "re-assign formation slots" button to close them up.