newby's guide to ship and fleet strategy

Quikngruvn · #1 January 16th, 2002, 09:44 PM

"Break formation" is almost always better than holding formation, because of the aforemetioned problem with ships flying out of range of enemy ships to hold the formation. But, I can think of one exception, in the case of Capture Planet.

Say you have a fleet with mostly warships and a troop transport (with troops on it, naturally). The way the strategies are set up by default, the warships will pound the planet to smithereens before the troop transport will get there. So, I've changed 'Capture Planet' to (a) thwack enemies till all weapons are gone, and (b) dole out less than 100% damage on the planet. But, if the ships were set to break formation, the warships would revert back to the ship designs' default planet-pounding strategy. If the ships do not break formation from a fleet set to Capture Planet, the warships shouldn't eradicate the planet before the troop transport gets there. (At least that's been my experience.)

Tangential question: if a ship is set to break formation from a fleet, does it still get the fleet's experience bonus?

Quikngruvn

Fyron · #2 January 17th, 2002, 12:50 AM

quote:
Tangential question: if a ship is set to break formation from a fleet, does it still get the fleet's experience bonus?

Yes.

Quikngruvn · #3 January 17th, 2002, 04:17 PM

Thanks! (Whew, for a while there I thought I was going to have to completely redo my tactics....)

Quikngruvn

tesco samoa · #4 January 17th, 2002, 06:58 PM

I have lost whole fleets of 30 ships because I forgot to make sure the fleet breaks formation when it meets anything.

If the leader cannot move then the fleet does not move.

Your fleet dies.

so make sure you break formation, even if it is because the fleet needs to stop for some coffee.

Fyron · #5 January 18th, 2002, 03:42 AM

Yeah, in my first post I said that it would be good to set all strategies to break formation a couple of times. Formations are nice for starting positions, but thats about all.

Growltigga · #6 January 21st, 2002, 01:26 PM

alright, cue howls of laughter and derisive comments

where the flipping nora is the break formation button - I can't find the wretched thing anywhere

Gryphin · #7 January 21st, 2002, 08:18 PM

I would make a comment but it took me 8 minutes to find it and I've been practicing with it all along.
Empire > Strategies > Formations >
There is a list of "Types that break formation"
Choose the ones that you want to do so.
< wry grin > no , make that a < poker face >