Jumping in at the deep end

[Jtownsend]

Update - Turn 18

No hostile contact beyond a blasted colony ship - R&T alliance with that player now

20 colonies in 5 systems, 4 borders, each guarded with a few capships and a mess of crude fighters - fighter tech being a freebie as I've mentioned.

Score is 212k, ranking is 2nd, 52 tech levels, 29k research per turn, 15.1b pop, 314 units (all fighters, I've been lazy about mines because fighters move themselves instead of me picking them up) 21 ships, including 5 or 10 PPB3 light cruisers and 3 PPB light carriers, 3 starbases around my homeworlds.

The only major threat I'm aware of in the wider universe is my relative isolation, a lowish number of SYs, my resources are still not being balanced - and one player who is playing a very fleet-heavy mercenary-mongol game and allegedly has 80 ships. I'm just about done researching intel and will soon set up a few facilities and start on counter intel projects, my only use for them.

Mid-game or late-beginning tips are very welcome.

One particular worry is that fleets don't seem to be "pooling" supplies as I would expect. Instead my capships are 55/3000 and so on while my fighter groups in the same fleet are often 2/3rds full. What's up with this? How do supply pools work, what is the easiest way to deal with supply when fighters are in space draining them, and any info on supply mechanics generally is greatly welcome.

[Fyron]

Jtownsend said:
One particular worry is that fleets don't seem to be "pooling" supplies as I would expect. Instead my capships are 55/3000 and so on while my fighter groups in the same fleet are often 2/3rds full. What's up with this? How do supply pools work, what is the easiest way to deal with supply when fighters are in space draining them, and any info on supply mechanics generally is greatly welcome.

Fighters and ships do not share supplies. This was done to prevent an easy exploit of launching fighters, fleeting them to gain supplies, then recovering the fighters. Launch them again and they have full supplies.

Also, note that supply sharing only happens after you hit end turn. The supplies are not shared during the middle of the turn as soon as you add ships to a fleet.

[Jtownsend]

Ok, interesting. A few more questions:

So, my fleets are sharing each turn? So I should wait till a few CL's I'm building get into the line then assess my supply problem? Or will I want some supply ships regardless?

And the fighters. So recovering and launching will replenish them, but will it cost the carrier? And how can I make sure the one fleet that is currently yellow will be recovered rather than others? I have an awful lot of the miserable things.

Also, how do you manipulate the base fighter units, the groups, beyond putting them into fleets? Do they merge on their own? I have some in groups of 2 and some in groups of 11, and I'm not quite sure how it's happening.

[Suicide Junkie]

Adding some supply ships to your fleets always helps. Adding some now means you'll reduce your current supply woes and you won't need to add as many later on when your fleet gets bigger.

Launching fighters does not cost any supplies.
Fighters have full supply when launched.
Its when you have the fighters in the same fleet as ships, that you lose supply.
Use shift-click to make the fighters move with the fleet when you need them to.

To control the grouping of fighters, you can use the strategies to launch in groups of 5,8,10, etc in combat.
Outside of combat, you'll have to launch one group, move them away, then launch your next group. Otherwise they'll all bunch up into one huge stack.

Any fighters launched (outside of combat) while there is a fighter group in the sector will be added to the existing fighter group.

[Jtownsend]

I'm still perplexed about fighter management. They group as they're launched, I gather, but where did these 11 fighter units come from? I don't recall missing launches, and even then it's an odd multiple. Do the groups merge under some circumstances?

Good to know that I need to seperate fleets between fighters and capships. What about ideal fighter group size? And if I transport the fighters from one system to the next in a carrier and launch them, will they be in one big blob? Is that bad?

[Suicide Junkie]

They stick onto existing groups when you launch them.

You may have had a stack of 3 sitting around after battle losses killed them down to an odd number, and then tried to launch 8.

Those new ones stick onto the first fighter stack they see.

---

If you load fighters up and relaunch, they'll all end up in the same stack.
You'll have to launch, move, launch, move...
They can only stick to existing stacks in the same sector, after all

[Jtownsend]

That sounds sufficiently irritating not to be worthwhile, though... Multiple turn operations just to split up stacks? Anyway, good to know I guess. Would there be advantages to having a lot of different stacks from a PD perspective? I've not done enough combat to understand PD, because my chief use of fighters is on WPs so they don't have so much approach time, but it's very hard to set up a simulator to show a close-engagement with multiple stacks of fighters, so I've not done much testing.

Heh, it'd have been easier if I'd never gotten fighters from ruins

[douglas]

No, you can do it all in one turn for each planet. You just have to use the cargo transfer screen rather than the load population order. This requires that the cargo ship be at the planet at the start of the turn. Both transferring and jettisoning cargo happens instantaneously rather than waiting for turn processing, so you can repeatedly transfer and jettison as much as necessary all in one turn.

[TurinTurambar]

Hey, no one's mentioning any repeat orders strategy. Get a fleet of transports automated to move population off your homeworlds and out to your new large "breathers." Having 3 or 4 Huge planets full of pop. when it's time to build Stellar Manip ships is pretty major.
Also, I do believe a Large size breather full to 4000M will turn out a sophisticated Light Cruiser every 2 turns.

Edit: Let me know if I need to "i.e." that strategy for you.