Why don't ships obey their $@#$@# fleet orders

[DavidG]

I don't think ships completely ignore fleet orders. I often use the wall formation and they do stay in formation. What they do ignore is the don't hurt me orders. And I believe Capture Planet orders which I understand that correctly means a ship will fire on a planet untill all defensese are gone and then cease fire and allow the troops to land.

[DirectorTsaarx]

Originally posted by DavidG:
I don't think ships completely ignore fleet orders. I often use the wall formation and they do stay in formation. What they do ignore is the don't hurt me orders. And I believe Capture Planet orders which I understand that correctly means a ship will fire on a planet untill all defensese are gone and then cease fire and allow the troops to land.

The Capture Planet fleet order mostly works (at least I've gotten it to work on some of my invasion fleets). What I like is that the game automatically (well, usually automatically) sets the fleet orders to Capture Planet if there's a Troop Transport ship in the fleet. Well, I like that until I forget that a particular fleet has a troop transport and order it to attack a small planet and I end up capturing some useless planet deep in enemy territory, just to see the AI glass the planet on the next turn.

One problem with Capture Planet: if you run out of troops, the fleet won't fire on unarmed planets in strategic combat. Somewhat annoying at times...