Why does this fleet retreat?

President_Elect_Shang · #1 January 9th, 2007, 04:14 PM

That is StarJack's save game. I wanted Raapy's to try and figure out why his doesn't sort and mine does. Nothing I have tried so far stops the sorting.

Kana · #2 January 9th, 2007, 04:31 PM

Maybe they are sorted by construction number, I know this was an issue in SEIV, that all items constructed have a number assigned telling what order it was constructed in.

Raapys · #3 January 9th, 2007, 04:35 PM

Actually, the screenshot is from Starjack's save. Guess the game might have some sorting issues with capital letters or some such, which would explain why other people's fleets sort alphabetically while his doesn't. There's definitely some sorting going on there though, since ships removed and put back into the fleet will appear at the same place that they were previously. At any rate, the game seems to always give the uppermost ship on the list the title 'leader', then they're assigned Core 1,2,3,4,..., etc. and unfortunately, weaponless ships can *never* be prevented from auto-retreating when under computer control, regardless of which strategy they have, which is why Starjack's weaponless leader ship, and therefor the whole fleet, will run as soon as combat starts.

President_Elect_Shang · #4 January 9th, 2007, 04:46 PM

Oh well there goes my hopes it was a line that could be moded... So as Slick pointed out my fix is only a temporary stop-gap solution. This still needs corrected by Aaron.

For some reason I am not very pleased to be proven correct on this issue...

Raapys · #5 January 9th, 2007, 05:01 PM

Yeah, he must've missed out the 'Leader' button while he was making it. He needs to add that button, and change the current "Core", "Escort" and "Picket" buttons so that they display a list of the role number ( i.e. this ship < insert random ship > should be core #53( which in turn decides its place in the formation) ).

He could just give us the ability to manipulate the order of the ships, but that's a much too dirty solution I think.

At any rate, so as not to confuse StarJack: To avoid having your fleet retreat as soon as combat begins, always make sure a ship with (functional) weapons on it is the uppermost on the task force list. Put your non-combat ships in another task force.

Speaking of which, there should probably be implemented some sort of 'retreat feedback'. Imagine new players coming over these problems. There's, what, at least 5 factors that can have ships retreat for what could appear to be 'no reason' for people new to the game? Supply, ordnance, unable to target enemy with available weapons, anti-bombardment pact, weaponless fleet leader, etc. All these lead to retreating ships without giving a single hint as to which one of the factors did it.