Too hard to control fleets

[Zakhal]

I just came back from my first big big fleet action after around 8 hours of playing. And I find myself fighting more against the user interface than the enemy fleets.

Around half of my fleet is out of fuel. They are somwhat dispersed. I just want to tell them all to go to this station for refuelling but thats impossible? I can only tell them to refuel at nearest meaning they will all stay dispersed.

Since the refueling&combining didnt work I just ordered the fleet to move to the battle with limited fuel and dispersed. The whole system was in combat but there was no order to "defend the whole system". Its very messy with zooming back and forth. If I have big fleet I want them to protect the whole system not just one planet or station or asteroid!

Shortly I wish this game would have:

1. Ability for fleet to refuel automatically while idling
2. Ability to order fleet to refuel and combine in certain fueling place with one mouse click
3. Ability to order fleet to defend the entire system

If these things are allready possible to do then please tell me how.

[Malevolence]

ORIGINAL: Zakhal
1. Ability for fleet to refuel automatically while idling

If you put energy collectors (enough) on your ships, they will not use fuel while idling inside a system with a star.

ORIGINAL: Zakhal
2. Ability to order fleet to refuel and combine in certain fueling place with one mouse click

Take resupply ships with you that you have filled with fuel. Select your fleet, then right click on the re-supply ship. It will allow you to send the whole unit to refuel at that ship... which you can place anywhere you like.

ORIGINAL: Zakhal
3. Ability to order fleet to defend the entire system

Well, yes I agree. In the meantime, break your big fleet up into 5-10 ship task force fleets... then send all those task forces into your target system. If you want to quickly give them orders, select one ship in the fleet, then click on the fleet name in ship summary window (bottom left hand corner of the screen). That will grab the fleet. Give them a specific order to react to some enemy or go to some moon, etc.

Mobility is the key... find the enemy, fix him, and then fight him.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Zakhal
Around half of my fleet is out of fuel. They are somwhat dispersed. I just want to tell them all to go to this station for refuelling but thats impossible? I can only tell them to refuel at nearest meaning they will all stay dispersed.

If you tell them to refuel at nearest, they will pick one "nearest" point and it will combine and refuel them. If they are already out of fuel, this will take time as they will be moving slowly on reserve power.

If I recall correctly, you can also zoom in to a point that you want them to refuel at, right click on that point and tell them to refuel there.

Since the refueling&combining didnt work I just ordered the fleet to move to the battle with limited fuel and dispersed. The whole system was in combat but there was no order to "defend the whole system". Its very messy with zooming back and forth. If I have big fleet I want them to protect the whole system not just one planet or station or asteroid!

Going into battle with limited fuel will not work as they need the fuel to run their reactor, which powers the weapon systems. Adding a "defend the system" order for a fleet is something I agree with as well.

1. Ability for fleet to refuel automatically while idling

As far as I know this is already in there if they are stationed at their home planet. I agree we could improve this further. You can also add energy collectors to your designs to make it so that your ships do not use fuel when idle.

2. Ability to order fleet to refuel and combine in certain fueling place with one mouse click

This is already there, see above.

3. Ability to order fleet to defend the entire system

I'd like to see this in the future as well, though you have to allow them to select their priorities in such an instance.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Malevolence
Take resupply ships with you that you have filled with fuel. Select your fleet, then right click on the re-supply ship. It will allow you to send the whole unit to refuel at that ship... which you can place anywhere you like.

Yes, this is probably the best way (and intended as such) to control where your fleet refuels.

[siRkid]

I would also like to see ships that you assign to a fleet automatically go to where the lead ship is. I assign ships to a fleet and spend a lot of time trying to get the all the ships of the fleet into one system. Also, the fleet should move all together at the speed of the slowest ship. If the navy moved its fleet like the ones in DW, we would have lost WWII.

[Zakhal]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
If I recall correctly, you can also zoom in to a point that you want them to refuel at, right click on that point and tell them to refuel there.

That doesnt seem to work with all fueling places i.e gas giant miners. I can only get it to work with support ship. Is it a bug? I can order my fleet to fuel on gas giant with the "fuel at nearest" but I cant order them to fuel there directly.

Going into battle with limited fuel will not work as they need the fuel to run their reactor, which powers the weapon systems. Adding a "defend the system" order for a fleet is something I agree with as well.

After several more hours in new game I made my first real offensive and the same problems seem to exists in both attack and defense. In attack its even worse. The fleets dont do anything unless I order them.

They are zombies. They only shoot back if they are shot by enemies. And even then only single ship from the fleet will shoot back. And once the ship is destroyed they will stop shooting even if there are 30 enemy ships nearby.

Im not 100% but I think I saw "attack enemy fleet" command once upon time. But there are also big groups of enemy ships that dont belong to any fleet. You have to select each of your fleets and order them to shoot individual enemy ships and then repeat that for every enemy ship until all are destroyed. Its a lot of micromanagement.

I like the game but the fleets have no AI. They dont even know how to refuel themselves unless I tell them so all the time (I know about the collectors). If they were able to be more independant on peace, defend and attack the game could be much more enjoyable.

The user interface has lots of annoying problems too. So many small ones that I lost count. It could use som testing and tweaking.

[aprezto]

If you can see the enemy fleet you can right mouse click on it, while you have your fleet selected - your fleet will get orders to attack the enemy fleet. This is still not that great as their fleet moves, but if they have a target in your system you have a chance of catching them.

[Gertjan]

Take resupply ships with you that you have filled with fuel. Select your fleet, then right click on the re-supply ship. It will allow you to send the whole unit to refuel at that ship... which you can place anywhere you like.

Does this also work if the resupply ship is not deployed?

[Zakhal]

ORIGINAL: aprezto
If you can see the enemy fleet you can right mouse click on it, while you have your fleet selected - your fleet will get orders to attack the enemy fleet. This is still not that great as their fleet moves, but if they have a target in your system you have a chance of catching them.

That doesnt seem to work. There was 30+ enemy ships yesterday in one system and I always attacked them with right mouse click. Problem is my fleets always stopped shooting once the target of my mouse click was destroyed. They didnt see the targets as fleets but individual enemy ships.

I had to right mouse click every enemy ship in the system to destroy them all. And I had to do this with 3 fleets of my own aka I had to change fleets between mouse clicks. Fleet change takes min 2 mouse clicks so 3 mouse clicks to destroy one enemy ship. 3*30+ = near one hundred mouse clicks to destroy all enemy ships in one battle.

I even tried to seach for "attack enemy fleet" menu-command. I found the "attack" menu but there was only order to attack the enemy planet.

EDIT: I went back and checked save game. The enemy ships didnt belong to any fleet even though they were a large group. It says fleet (none) in their info panel.

They did act like fleets though. They jumped to refuel in large individual groups etc.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Zakhal

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
If I recall correctly, you can also zoom in to a point that you want them to refuel at, right click on that point and tell them to refuel there.

That doesnt seem to work with all fueling places i.e gas giant miners. I can only get it to work with support ship. Is it a bug? I can order my fleet to fuel on gas giant with the "fuel at nearest" but I cant order them to fuel there directly.

Hm, let me check. In order to assemble a fleet you can also just order them to move with a right click to a location near the refueling point you want, then order them to refuel at nearest.

After several more hours in new game I made my first real offensive and the same problems seem to exists in both attack and defense. In attack its even worse. The fleets dont do anything unless I order them.

They are zombies. They only shoot back if they are shot by enemies. And even then only single ship from the fleet will shoot back. And once the ship is destroyed they will stop shooting even if there are 30 enemy ships nearby.

This is how ships on manual control work right now - they only fire if fired upon and they attack what you order them to attack. If they are on automatic control, they will engage nearby targets as well, you can see this behavior in your automated ships. Understanding this difference is important to managing your fleets. With that said, we realize that while this is by design it is not necessarily intuitive and some tweaks are in the works to help with this.

Im not 100% but I think I saw "attack enemy fleet" command once upon time. But there are also big groups of enemy ships that dont belong to any fleet. You have to select each of your fleets and order them to shoot individual enemy ships and then repeat that for every enemy ship until all are destroyed. Its a lot of micromanagement.

Yes, you can absolutely attack another fleet. If you automate them, they should also attack the ships in an area. There is still more micromanagement there than there probably should be.

I like the game but the fleets have no AI. They dont even know how to refuel themselves unless I tell them so all the time (I know about the collectors). If they were able to be more independant on peace, defend and attack the game could be much more enjoyable.

Keep in mind though that once you put them on manual control, by definition they have no AI. Only when automated is the AI controlling them either on the strategic or tactical level. If you have fleet formation off and attack targets set to manual control rather than suggest or automate, you will not see the fleet AI. What we are now aiming for is making the ships when on manual control more tactically intelligent as far as their reactions.

The user interface has lots of annoying problems too. So many small ones that I lost count. It could use som testing and tweaking.

Some specific feedback here would help. [8D]

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Gertjan
Does this also work if the resupply ship is not deployed?

I believe it needs to be deployed. In testing yesterday, I was having no problems with my fleets, other than the occasional micro to attack targets of opportunity that weren't firing on them.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Zakhal
I had to right mouse click every enemy ship in the system to destroy them all. And I had to do this with 3 fleets of my own aka I had to change fleets between mouse clicks. Fleet change takes min 2 mouse clicks so 3 mouse clicks to destroy one enemy ship. 3*30+ = near one hundred mouse clicks to destroy all enemy ships in one battle.

Were these enemy military ships or civilian ships? I haven't had this problem with the enemy military as they generally fire on you. Hunting down civilian ships with a fleet on manual control takes a lot of micro management though. If you automate the ships in your fleet, they should automatically engage such targets while at war.

Regards,

- Erik

[gunnergoz]

I was really frustrated in a game I just quit over the issue.  It seems that fleets arrive at their destinations really strung out based upon speed of the individual units.  Fleets need to STAY TOGETHER even if they travel at the speed of the slowest (healthy) unit.  What happened to me is that I sent a fleet of 16 heavy units mixed with a few escorts to battle an enemy fleet of mostly frigates and destroyers.  My fleet arrived piecemeal and was destroyed piecemeal.  By the time the heavy units got there, they were ganged up upon and most of them were eventually lost or had to flee due to excessive damage.   I allowed the fleet to automate once the battle started, so this was all AI choices.

I think this is a major problem in fleet behavior that needs to be addressed...otherwise, what am I do do, build fleets of only similar designs?  Or micromanage it so that every ship in a fleet has a similar speed curve?  Please fix this, thanks.

[Fishman]

I have not found this to be the case unless your fleet is misdesigned. Do they all have different hyperwarp speeds or something? Because given that they should all have been built with the same engine technolergy, they should all have the same hyperspeed, unless you have built them wrong and they do not have enough reactor power to actually function.

[Malevolence]

ORIGINAL: gunnergoz

I was really frustrated in a game I just quit over the issue.  It seems that fleets arrive at their destinations really strung out based upon speed of the individual units.  Fleets need to STAY TOGETHER even if they travel at the speed of the slowest (healthy) unit.  What happened to me is that I sent a fleet of 16 heavy units mixed with a few escorts to battle an enemy fleet of mostly frigates and destroyers.  My fleet arrived piecemeal and was destroyed piecemeal.  By the time the heavy units got there, they were ganged up upon and most of them were eventually lost or had to flee due to excessive damage.   I allowed the fleet to automate once the battle started, so this was all AI choices.

I think this is a major problem in fleet behavior that needs to be addressed...otherwise, what am I do do, build fleets of only similar designs?  Or micromanage it so that every ship in a fleet has a similar speed curve?  Please fix this, thanks.

For large fleet actions where you expect significant resistance.

Check to make sure the hyperspeed is the same for your warship classes. This is located in the ship design screen in the top right corner.

If that doesn't work for you, use an assault position type of rally point. Don't send them to directly to your target over long distances. Send them to a gas giant or something in the system. Good place to drop off a resupply ship and some escorts. Then give them the command to attack the target. They don't get strung out over short distance hops.

[gunnergoz]

Thanks for the input fellows, it is useful, up to a point.  But my concern is that you are presuming that it is the player's responsibility to babysit ship design and fleet composition so that the fleets are uniform in speed characteristics.  That's fine in theory, but in games, as in life, "you go to war with what you've got."  If war comes unexpectedly, you will find yourself with ships as yet not refitted to the latest designs. With a large game with a large, wide-flung fleet, you may have a lot of different characteristics. So a mismatch of vessels with different speeds is going to be the rule in fleet formation.  And that is why the game badly needs to limit fleet group movement and keep fleet units together.

The AI, I'm sure, does its best to do what you suggest, build uniform ships, but as we already know, the AI cannot even build some ships that it designs, that are over the weight limits.  So the game needs some tweaking in this area if you ask me.

In the meantime, until a fix, I'll use your useful suggestions, thanks.

[Anthropoid]

I've had some similar experiences: (a) strays from fleets; (b) fleets destroying one target but not then moving on to the next one; (c) fleets getting strung out.

Also, (d) I still have not managed to decipher ship designing; (e) knowing which research labs benefit from being close to neutron, black hole and supernovae is not entirely clear (seems energy benefits but not high tech?): would suggest that some additional clarification be added to the galactopedia on this; (f) the "retrofit" (in the fleet and ship right-click windows) and "upgrade" (in the ship design windows) seem to often be clickable efen though none of the ships in a fleet or a class are actually eligible for any upgrades. (d) I blame on myself, and having not got that far yet, but the rest I think could deserve attention in future patches. If a ship or all the ships in a fleet or a ship class are not eligible to be retrofitted or upgraded, then these buttons should not be clickable.

With respect to (a) through (c) here is an interesting gray area here between tedious micro-managing and fun strategic asset managing, so I want to encourage the devs and testers to think hard before they make too large of changes in auto-functions.

(a) I think that: yes, fleets should move with the slowest ship in the group (as they do in WiTP), but obviously it behooves the player to put complementary designs into the same fleet, i.e., ships with similar speed.

(b) a good solution here would be if there were one or two additional option when you right-click to give a fleet (or ship) orders to attack a target. For example, at present, if I select Fleet 2 and then right-click that annoying momma Kaltor harassing my colony ship Fleet 2 will attack and kill momma Kaltor but then ignore daddy and baby Kaltor. There should be an additional option in the right-click: "Attack Giant Kaltor then Continue Attacking Additional."

That line of "Continue Attacking Additional" could be added to all attack lines.

In addition, if you are attacking enemy ships and there are enemy bases in the area, an option to "Attack Enemy Frigate then Enemy Base" would be good. Alternatively it should also work as "Attack Enemy Base then Enemy Ships/Fleets." Related to this, you can order a fleet to attack an enemy fleet when zoomed out sufficiently far, but it does not appear to be an option when zoomed in too close. If that could be adjusted so that you can also order to attack fleets even when zoomed in close that would be cool.

(c) Here I'm of a mixed mind. If fleets are not on "auto" (which I never do myself) then I don't think there should be an _additional_ auto-sub-routine for ships to reassemble with their fleet. If you are having problems with your fleets getting strung out, just go to the fleet window and put them on auto, then give the fleet an order like "go to home base" or whatever, then turn them back off auto. Here is an example where I think addiing too many additional automated sub-routines could take away the players options for customizing strategic assets, and also making things more complicated than they really need to be.

[Gertjan]

But my concern is that you are presuming that it is the player's responsibility to babysit ship design and fleet composition so that the fleets are uniform in speed characteristics.

That's my main issue with the game (and it was so from the start). Even though I like it very much, this keeps me from absolutely loving it. If you want to play this game well and have fun, then you need to design your owns ships and constantly check your fleets. That's annoying and makes me want to play different games like Galciv2, Sins, BOTF (modded), etc.
Make it a priority in the next update that all AI designed military ships (perhaps except escorts) have more fuel and solar collectors. That would already be a huge improvement.

[Zakhal]

But my concern is that you are presuming that it is the player's responsibility to babysit ship design and fleet composition so that the fleets are uniform in speed characteristics.

Ship stats should also be shown when you click invdividual ship in galactic view and then its class name. Its cumbresome and unintuitive that you have to go to the design screen which is many clicks away to do this. Often I dont even care to know what my ships have because its too much work to check it out.

[Joram]

Zakhal, I share your concerns with fleets.  The auto-refuel in the next patch will go a long way to solving some of the issues but I still find it very very cumbersome to control fleets.  One thing I do is assign a hotkey to the ships in the fleet which helps a bit but I still find my ships like to get scattered alot and I really don't know why.