On Fleet cohesion

[zgrssd]

Matching Hyperdrive Speeds is one step towards getting fleets to move cohesively. But only one part. And in some cases it is going too far (like matching the fleet to some recent salvage on the other end of the galaxy, that is going for refuelling).

There are still a lot of factors that can split the fleet appart:
- different hyperdrive cooldown and charge times
- different timesframes to retreive all fightercraft

What we need, is a Fleet Cohesion setting.
Fleet Cohesion would tell the game what percentage of the fleets combat Power has to jump together with the flagship. Let's start at 75%.

When a jump order is given:
1. Ships would gather around the flagship.
2. Each ship would indepedantly charge up their Hyperdrive and retrive their fighters.
3. But they will not jump. Instead they will only report "Ready" to the fleet.
4. If and only if the flagship and a total of 75% of the fleets combat power is ready, will they jump. The synchronisation does not need to be perfect for this, just closer then what we got now
5. The ships that are part of the Flagship formation will match hyperdrive speeds
6. Other ships not part of this formation will neither match nor be matched in their hyperdrive speed
7. Idel Ships will try to catch up to the flagship at their best speed. Only if they actually catch up to the flagship, do they start matching the Fleets speed.

Considerations:
- this has to be a per-fleet setting, as the mechanic will likely fail in a lot of edge cases early on
- some mission should never use this formation. Refuelling and retrofit missions for example should always be excempt from cohesion rules
- tankers on automatic should naturally be excempt as well
- if attacking a specific target with high combat power, a higher cohesion percentage might be applied. Enough to reliably win
- invasion fleets should also do this before launching their pods
- Invasion fleets should propably match Ground Combat Strenght and by default match 5/6 of the total strenght. But again, if their target is particulary tough, they might auto apply a higher pecentage

[Miletkir]

Thanks for bringing that up in such thoughtful manner, because for me it's really a pivotal part of the game, both for gameplay and immersion reasons.

I like the idea, but I wouldn't completely follow you on that one. I think having such a percentage setting with all these variables would makes things overly complicated. And I don't see why I would want only 75% of my fleet to jump together as a rule. That, and letting ships jumps individually to refuel or retrofit is bound to create a cascade of other cohesion problems and delays for the fleet.

Obviously, there are indeed situations where you would want the fleet to reach a location as soon as possible, regardless of the state of the fleet formation at a given time. So there's value in being able to let ships jump ahead of others.

So here's what I'd suggest: Just make a "Get into formation" button that will order the fleet to gather and take on missions as a formation. Leave the setting ON and the fleet will always carry on actions as a group. If the fleet was previously dispersed across systems, this would allow for it to gather at the same spot. Leave it OFF and the fleet will behave as it does now. Deactivating the setting during a jump would allow ships to jump without waiting for the others (think of an emergency order) and would allow you to effectively let any percentage of the readied fleet to proceed, as you are looking for.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I'm pretty sure we had such a setting in DWU as well. We could specify that a fleet needed to have at least a part of the fleet assembled before it would jump. This was so damaged and ship with low fuel could be left behind. Otherwise you will end up with fleets becoming very unresponsive, especially if they are very large.

I tend to use fleets with smaller numbers of ships, rarely more than 10 ships per fleet... usually between 5-10 ships. This makes the fleets more flexible and more specialized.

[zgrssd]

I like the idea, but I wouldn't completely follow you on that one. I think having such a percentage setting with all these variables would makes things overly complicated. And I don't see why I would want only 75% of my fleet to jump together as a rule. That, and letting ships jumps individually to refuel or retrofit is bound to create a cascade of other cohesion problems and delays for the fleet.

Obviously, there are indeed situations where you would want the fleet to reach a location as soon as possible, regardless of the state of the fleet formation at a given time. So there's value in being able to let ships jump ahead of others.

Some ships might be on repair. Some ships might be on refuelling. Some ships might just be the odd frigattes in a fleet of Salvaged Battleships, Carriers and Cruisers.
If they are there and ready to jump? Sure go for it.

But if you wait for every last ship to be in place before every jump, you might have to wait a decade for the jump because some ship is just leaving the construction yard half a empire away.

As I said, when fighting strong enemies you can have a sub-automatic so they are more carefull in gathering.

[Emperor0Akim]

I'm pretty sure we had such a setting in DWU as well. We could specify that a fleet needed to have at least a part of the fleet assembled before it would jump. This was so damaged and ship with low fuel could be left behind. Otherwise you will end up with fleets becoming very unresponsive, especially if they are very large.

I tend to use fleets with smaller numbers of ships, rarely more than 10 ships per fleet... usually between 5-10 ships. This makes the fleets more flexible and more specialized.

Prepare and Attack, in the Right Click Menu

[Miletkir]

I agree, but then all you really need for your logical decision are ship statuses, rather than a percentage. With a percentage rule, you might end up with a perfectly functional fleet gathered at 74.9% that will also wait indefinitely instead of jumping. The percentage would then come in to decide when your fleet is considered to beat up to actually go on with fighting.

Logically, I'd write something like:

Code: Select all

Engage jump
	WHEN
	Maximum distance between any ship X <= N
		WITH
		X = any ship Y in the fleet
 		IF
 			Y is NOT disabled 
 			AND 
 			Y has fuel level >= N
	IF
 	SUM(X) >= 50% of fleet size

[zgrssd]

I agree, but then all you really need for your logical decision are ship statuses, rather than a percentage. With a percentage rule, you might end up with a perfectly functional fleet gathered at 74.9% that will also wait indefinitely instead of jumping. The percentage would then come in to decide when your fleet is considered to beat up to actually go on with fighting.

Logically, I'd write something like:

Code: Select all

Engage jump
	WHEN
	Maximum distance between any ship X <= N
		WITH
		X = any ship Y in the fleet
 		IF
 			Y is NOT disabled 
 			AND 
 			Y has fuel level >= N
	IF
 	SUM(X) >= 50% of fleet size

That is why it is a Cohesion Percentage Setting. So you as the player can modify it.

Also that specific figure was a starting point. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Almora]

I agree, but then all you really need for your logical decision are ship statuses, rather than a percentage. With a percentage rule, you might end up with a perfectly functional fleet gathered at 74.9% that will also wait indefinitely instead of jumping. The percentage would then come in to decide when your fleet is considered to beat up to actually go on with fighting.

Logically, I'd write something like:

Code: Select all

Engage jump
	WHEN
	Maximum distance between any ship X <= N
		WITH
		X = any ship Y in the fleet
 		IF
 			Y is NOT disabled 
 			AND 
 			Y has fuel level >= N
	IF
 	SUM(X) >= 50% of fleet size

as far as I can tell this seems great, it can be explained to the player as "gather all available ships to the flagship, then make the jump/carry out orders (whatever those may be)"

[zgrssd]

Now that with 1.0.2.6 we got the "Prepare and" Ordres back and "Prepare and Attack" is the default, people can see for themself why it is not a good idea to always gather everyone.
If I can already kill the target 50 times over, why wait for 1 escort to catch up?

But at least that means were are back at where DW1 was.