SEV: Question: Attacker and Defender Columns...

[Dizzy]

Treaty w/ no bombardment?

But why cant I shoot other ships?

[Raapys]

Actually, I was thinking about "Bombardment of planets is prohibited by our treaties."

Don't know about the ships, throw up a savegame if you bother and I can have a look at it.

[Dizzy]

Ok I've figured it out... I think...

My treaty wont let me bombard anyone's planet. But that didn't solve why fighters wouldnt attack these enemy colony ships... So I attribute that to a fleeting bug because when I detatched the ftr groups from the fleet, they attempted to close with the colony ships instead of flee. But they never caught the colony ships in strategic combat...

Spurred onward because my ftrs actually tried to catch the colony ships which hadnt happened using fleets, I tried another strategic attack. This time the ftrs caught up to the colony ships and did 1% damage. ???

So I tried a tactical attack next, seeing my fighters still had ordinance left and I moved the ftrs toward the colony ships. Strange thing happened... It never seemed like my ftrs were ever gonna catch the colony ships... and then suddenly the battle ended. Then on the system map I noticed the colony ships were no longer in the same hex. They wernt anywhere.

So I checked the news and looked over the battle report. Sure enough there were three battles vs the colony ships. 1st battle no damage to either side. Second battle 1% damage to a colony ship. Third battle showed the colony ships destroyed. How, tho? I was in tactical and never saw my ftrs catch or fire at the colony ships...

Ok, so now I have questions. What caused the colony ships in strategic battle one to be able to get away from my ftrs and have the battle end?

What the hell is wrong with fleeting?

Why did it take 3x battles to finally kill the colony ships?

And yes, I'm a dumb *** for not seeing that no bombardment treaty deallywap. TY for pointing that out. Chalk one up for the noob police.

[Raapys]

I noticed it by accident *_*

I'm not entirely sure what stops a battle, but 5'ish minutes seem to be the hard limit. If the fleeing force has more movement speed than the pursuing force then it'll stop immediately after 20 seconds.

So, did that first battle, i.e. your fighters pursuing the colony ships, last 5 minutes? If the second battle did too, it could mean that your fighters didn't get within firing range of the colony ship(s) until the last minute of the second battle, therefor doing only minimal damage before the combat timed out. In the third battle your ships were already upon the colony ships and as such destroyed them quickly.

Find the 'Sector View' button on your System View panel, it's one of the small ones. When you go in there you can move your ships/units in the combat view without actually being in combat. In other words, you can place your ships right next to the enemy's and then start combat. This also works for placing satellites around warp points, etc.

Not sure what's wrong with fleets, really.