Fleet is patrolling?

[Fleshbits]

My fleet seems to be going station to station around my system, wasting gas. I just want them to sit.
I hit stop and they continue...

Their current mission is "none"..
Everything I know of is set to control manually.

I don't see any setting making them do this. What could it be?

[pycco]

they are patrolling why, hmm are there enemy's nearby, space monsters? to make them follow a planet click next to the planet when the cursor changes to a planet shape. this puts them in an "orbit" around the planet this will keep them in place AFAIK.

[Ultraman]

I have a hard time with my fleet, as well. I was attacking a colony with a couple dozen ships, and my ships kept flying off piecemeal to attack mining bases in the system. I tried setting their stance to defense, turning off automation, telling them to stop, everything I could to prevent ships from flying away from the fleet to attack bases I didn't want them to attack, but just had to sit there clicking like crazy herding them back to the main fleet.

[pycco]

set them to target only, enemy's nearby attack stance, when attacked stance.

[Ultraman]

Thanks.

[Bingeling]

ORIGINAL: Fleshbits

My fleet seems to be going station to station around my system, wasting gas. I just want them to sit.
I hit stop and they continue...

Their current mission is "none"..
Everything I know of is set to control manually.

I don't see any setting making them do this. What could it be?

They are patrolling because something told them to patrol. Either you or some automation that can be turned off. Automated fleet? Fleet formation automated? War and attack automated? Some of that could cause it, I don't have this issue.

ORIGINAL: Ultraman

I have a hard time with my fleet, as well. I was attacking a colony with a couple dozen ships, and my ships kept flying off piecemeal to attack mining bases in the system. I tried setting their stance to defense, turning off automation, telling them to stop, everything I could to prevent ships from flying away from the fleet to attack bases I didn't want them to attack, but just had to sit there clicking like crazy herding them back to the main fleet.

There is no way to avoid this without excessive micro management. Any ship with no mission will usually "attack system targets". They will gang up according to the setting in empire polity of attack overmatch, which may decide whether 1 or 5 jump at each mine (see options - empire policy). You can try to change their attack stance (a button around the selection panel) to something else than "attack system targets" but from one that has tried to control fleets in enemy systems for years:

Don't try to have a fleet hang around in a system with enemy structures. If they are mines, let them kill them, if they are a large spaceport with friends and you want to hang around in the outskirts, kill the spaceport or leave the system before it kill your ships. You can keep the fleet busy, though, by telling it to jump around in the system, or to tell it to chain-kill all the mining bases and then refuel. But you can not in a sane way make them sit around with something to kill inside the system. And if you make them chain kill stuff including defenders, and see them happily engaging the enemy ships? One of them is going to kill its target or find that it is "free" due to attack overmatch being met and think: "Ey, they can handle this! I can go kill that large spaceport instead".

I usually want my ships to sit on top of whatever they defend. So that they are right there when nasties appear. Whether it is defending a gas mine from pirates in early game, or defending a colony from raid or invasion, having to start off from the other side of the system is not a good start on a protection duty. This is a partly losing battle, the fleet loves to jump at some enemy exploration ship in the system, or something else they feel they have to attack. So one has to herd them back. Or one has to find some wonderful automation setting that I have yet to find.

[UnitedFreelancers]

Yeah make sure they are set to attack only within their system. Manually set them if you have to. You can set the fleet to patrol by holding CTRL + R-Click on the planet and setting it.

[Fleshbits]

Mine was set to attack target only in system and there were no enemies. They just decided to wander around jumping from one place to the next. I got them to stop by setting a home base. What a pain.

[Bingeling]

To have full control, set their posture to defensive and their range to minimal. I think they take off according to their posture settings.

It could be that there is some kind of automation setting for guard duty (automated, range system, defensive?) but I don't dare to give any fleet that matters to the AI. I want them to sit at the base unless they have something better to do (in the system).

[Thrake]

Is there a magical setting to prevent single ships moving to and attacking nearby pirate systems? I do leave some ships for patroling and escorting (I just build them and let automation deal with them) and some of those do consider themselves as some sort of Chuck Norris in a capital ship.

[Bingeling]

ORIGINAL: Thrake

Is there a magical setting to prevent single ships moving to and attacking nearby pirate systems? I do leave some ships for patroling and escorting (I just build them and let automation deal with them) and some of those do consider themselves as some sort of Chuck Norris in a capital ship.

I solve that by only ever automating the odd troop transport to run around to pick up troops. Other military ships are in fleets or in the case of resupply ships, manually deployed.

And the fleets? Manual.

[buglepong]

All the settings are bunk. Doesnt matter what level of automation or range.my.ships will still split up and go chasing after explorers, etc

Home base settings only work for home base. You cant make your ships babysit somewhere else.

This is probably the worst aspect of the game and is the singular feature that makes me not want to play the game

[Bingeling]

ORIGINAL: buglepong

All the settings are bunk. Doesnt matter what level of automation or range.my.ships will still split up and go chasing after explorers, etc

Home base settings only work for home base. You cant make your ships babysit somewhere else.

This is probably the worst aspect of the game and is the singular feature that makes me not want to play the game

You can set the home base anywhere that is your's. That is not the problem.

Ships splitting up and chasing is not really a big problem. The problem is that they end up at a random spot afterwards. The random spot being wherever the fleet leader happened to jump to while chasing something. That they sit "slightly off" their target is only a problem when babysitting some structure, be it a mine or a colony.

[buglepong]

Nope. Home base is planets only

[Bingeling]

Use the home base button below the selection panel. You can use that to set home base at for instance a gas mine. At the fleet screen you can just set colonies, though.