SEIV Fleet Strategy Question

[douglas]

I don't see much point in having separate fleets for capturing. There is one very simple rule that makes it almost useless: if a friendly ship with Drop Troops strategy is in combat and has troops on board and the planet has no weapons, then all of your forces will automatically not attack the planet no matter what their strategies are set to.

If a ship has five weapons and the first one destroys the last weapon platform, the remaining four will still shoot at the planet, but once that single volley by that one ship is done no more shots will be fired at the planet. It is theoretically possible for those final shots to glass the planet, but almost any planet worth capturing will survive. Missiles already launched will not abort their attacks, but missiles aren't worth much in stock anyway.

In summary, set your fleet's strategy to break formation and put the troop transport in the main attack fleet, and it will have almost exactly the effect you're looking for with the added benefit of not crippling your combat fleet's tactics. Seriously, the way SE4 handles formations makes staying in them almost universally a very bad idea.

[JeffGeorge]

Ok. I'm going to experiment with putting the attack and capture fleets together instead of separate. I also have a third, mine sweeping, fleet. If I throw that one in with the other two will mine sweeping take place before any possible damage from mines, or is it a bad idea to combine my sweepers with my offensive ships?

[PvK]

JeffGeorge said:
Ok. I'm going to experiment with putting the attack and capture fleets together instead of separate. I also have a third, mine sweeping, fleet. If I throw that one in with the other two will mine sweeping take place before any possible damage from mines, or is it a bad idea to combine my sweepers with my offensive ships?

No, it's generally good to keep minesweepers in the same fleet as the ships they are supposed to protect (unless you might not have enough minesweepers to sweep all the mines). Especially if they are dedicated minesweepers who can't defend themselves very well.

A single fleet of minesweepers combines its sweeping ability before taking any hits. So it's good to concentrate minesweeping ability in fleets up to the mine limit per sector (100 in stock).

PvK

[Urendi Maleldil]

Actually, I think it's better to keep mine sweepers separate. That way if you don't have enough sweepers to completely clear a mine field, you will only loose the sweepers and not your entire battle fleet.

It's also useful to have a single disposable scout ship enter a potentially mined sector (like a warp point near an enemy sector) before sending your main fleet in. It's also a good way to get rid of obsolete designs that are too much trouble to retrofit.

[Atrocities]

Yes, keeping the MS separate really is the best way to go.

[JeffGeorge]

douglas said:
I don't see much point in having separate fleets for capturing. There is one very simple rule that makes it almost useless: if a friendly ship with Drop Troops strategy is in combat and has troops on board and the planet has no weapons, then all of your forces will automatically not attack the planet no matter what their strategies are set to.

If a ship has five weapons and the first one destroys the last weapon platform, the remaining four will still shoot at the planet, but once that single volley by that one ship is done no more shots will be fired at the planet. It is theoretically possible for those final shots to glass the planet, but almost any planet worth capturing will survive. Missiles already launched will not abort their attacks, but missiles aren't worth much in stock anyway.

In summary, set your fleet's strategy to break formation and put the troop transport in the main attack fleet, and it will have almost exactly the effect you're looking for with the added benefit of not crippling your combat fleet's tactics. Seriously, the way SE4 handles formations makes staying in them almost universally a very bad idea.

This works very well, as I would expect when listening to veterans. I'm not even sure now of the original reason that I split the fleets up, as it was so long ago in the game. I think that the main reason was that the enemy kept counterattacking my new conquests and the colonies were being destroyed. So I broke off a separate fleet to stop them and just kept it that way.