Maintaining formation and other whines

Krakenup · #1 January 31st, 2001, 08:57 PM

Things that annoy me:

1. In tactical combat, fleets do not maintain formation. If the leader moves diagonally, the rest attempt to wheel in that direction. If the leader moves back, the rest mill around like a bunch of lost sheep. I think that if the leader moves forward, everyone should move forward. If the leader moves diagonally, everyone should move diagonally. If the leader moves back, everyone should move back.

2. Dividing research points evenly is not an intelligent option. Why is it the default? Can I change the default?

3. Although no one else has probably ever done this,

I created a zero population colony Last night. It sure would be nice if there was a pop up confirmation window that asked if you really wanted to launch a colony ship without loading population.

Taqwus · #2 January 31st, 2001, 09:05 PM

1. Aye. I'm not fond of using formations. At least in tactical, you can immediately cancel everybody's membership in the group and move 'em all individually.

2. There are only a few cases where you'd want to divide evenly, AFAICT. One is where you're a subjugated empire, but plotting to break free soon; another is where you're close to becoming Mega-Evil. In both cases, you may be better off with a lot of tech at once (in the former case, because you can break off the treaty, and then receive a raft of combat techs the next turn -- if you went one at a time, you'd have to either a) turn them over, or b) break the treaty relatively unprepared; in the latter case you may want remain below Mega-Evil status until you're ready for an upgraded design and a refit).

Maybe they were thinking of adding a bonus for dividing evenly at some point. *shrug*

3. Agreed. I suspect I've asked Malfador about flagging zero-pop colonies and various other brands of obvious silliness.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

UmberGryphon · #3 January 31st, 2001, 09:12 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Krakenup:
In tactical combat, fleets do not maintain formation. If the leader moves diagonally, the rest attempt to wheel in that direction. If the leader moves back, the rest mill around like a bunch of lost sheep.

Note: if your leader has a move of 5 (for example), and you move four steps diagonally and one step forward in a single movement, then the fleet does not wheel or mill around. They do the "right thing"--attempt to move four steps diagonally and one step forward without rotating or otherwise messing with the formation.

I move my fleets this way until I'm where I want to start actually fighting, at which point I break formation and move ships individually.

rdouglass · #4 January 31st, 2001, 09:17 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Taqwus:
1. Aye. I'm not fond of using formations. At least in tactical, you can immediately cancel everybody's membership in the group and move 'em all individually.

How exactly do you do this? I've tried but can never seem to figure it out. I end up moving all the ships except the leader one at a time. What sucks is if I've moved all my ships where I want them before I move the leader, then move the leader, anyone with any remaining movement tries to move back into formation w/ the leader.

To me, the whole idea of doing tactical combat is to position yourself in the best possible location for that specific ship.

A side question would be, do they (the ships) have to begin combat in a formation at all?! IOW can a fleet of ships enter combat without a formation???

Tomgs · #5 January 31st, 2001, 09:59 PM

You break fleet formation by going into the Orders menu. The clear group assignment removes the selected ship from the formation and the clear all group assignments removes all ships from the formation.

The only ways to enter into a combat with more than one ship at a time is if either you already have all the ships in the sector with the enemy (like over an enemy planet that just built a ship) or you can hold down the shift button while selecting multiple ships and fleets and then click the move button to move them into combat. Note to do this you must have enough movement remaining for each ship to reach the combat location in one move otherwise if this is a multiturn move the second and later turns the ships and/or fleets will move seperately.

rdouglass · #6 January 31st, 2001, 10:06 PM

Of course, the orders button (the one I never use). I'll go hide now for a while untill I'm no longer embarrassed.... Thanks much....

raynor · #7 January 31st, 2001, 10:15 PM

quote:
Originally posted by rdouglass:
What sucks is if I've moved all my ships where I want them before I move the leader, then move the leader, anyone with any remaining movement tries to move back into formation w/ the leader.

You have just stated the one thing I hate more than anything else about formations.

Like you, I'll be carefully moving several ships individually. Then, I'll move the leader, and all my careful work was for nothing!

I wish the game was smart enough to cancel the group orders for that turn once you have moved a ship in a group that isn't the leader.

Tomgs · #8 January 31st, 2001, 10:19 PM

Heh I don't think there is any reason to be embarrassed because something is not obvious or spelled out in the manual in this game. There are so many options and different way to play this game I learn something new almost every time I play a new game. One of the things that keeps me comming back to play again is the richness of options. With new patches and new mods appearing all the time (or even going into the files and trying to mod something myself) there is always some new combination or ability I haven't tried yet.

raynor · #9 January 31st, 2001, 10:19 PM

One of these days, I'm going to get smart and change the default formation for all my ships. It seems that most fleets default to the 'arrow' formation or somesuch where the leader is in the front row with the next two ships to the left and right in the second row and so on.... I think this has to be the most worthless formation I've ever seen.

From what I understand, it was one of the MOD'ers who first suggested the WALL formation which seems to have been added in one of the patches. In this formation, all your ships are in one long rank. IMHO, this formation is much better for me since I attack with a fleet of six or eight identical ships with balanced firepower.

So, to frame this as a question: How can I change it so that every time I start a new game, the default formation for any fleet will be 'The WALL' instead of the other default?

raynor · #10 January 31st, 2001, 10:47 PM

How many of you use this particular tactic?

I'll just use 'AUTO' and leave my ships in formation while they destroy the enemy ships and any defences. Then, I'll click ORDERS->Clear all group Formations.

Next, I'll select my transport hiding in the corner, and click ORDERS->Set Group Leader and choose any old group and formation.

The advantage of this is that when I press 'E' on the keyboard for End Turn, it will automatically select the transport instead of the leader of the group of warships that bombed the planet. This makes it much, much easier for me to move the transport in and drop troops on the planet.

Now, if they would just make the view shift so that the ship is *always* in the center...

(Err.. Change tactic above to read trick/method)

[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 31 January 2001).]