Being able to build ships directly for/into a fleet...

[Darkspire]

Put a build order in for new ships that you want in your fleet.

Go to the ships screen and select the military filter.

As long as the sort for the columns is at default, grab the slide bar and pull it to the bottom of the list, your new ships will be there with the names in orange, select the first one you want, hold shift, select the last one you want, with the ships selected click the dropbox for fleets and select the fleet you want to add them to.

Select the fleet and you will now see the new ships in orange with the current ships in that fleet.

Darkspire

[henri51]

Darkspire, what happens when you build unfinished ships into a fleet that is far away? What happens when the ships are finished building, so they fly off and join the fleet wherever it is? Will the fleet keep doing its thing while they wait for the new ships, or will they stop and wait for the new ships to arrive?

Henri

[Bingeling]

That depends on the orders of the fleet. If they chain attack orders I think they happily move along, with the straggles changing targets. If they have a refuel or retrofit order I think they will wait for all to complete it. "Prepare and attack" probably has them waiting for the already built stragglers.

Unless you are aware of what you are doing, you end up with out of fuel ships that chase the fleet, lowering the fleet's movement speed to those out of fuel. It is particularly fun if the building spaceport can't fill them up when new and they are out of fuel from the very start.

This is why it is important to be able to specify spaceport on any automatic "refill function", and why it is a bad idea to build replacements on the current build order screen where they are built at whatever location the AI pics. The AI is good at getting ships built, it is not so good at building them where they are needed.

If the spaceports are far away, it is better to add them to a build fleet that never gets orders (apart form maybe refuel). The lead ship can stay in a forwards position to gather up the new ones. Ships always head to their leader when they got no order. Recruit replacements for the active fleets from members of the build fleet that are at the gather point, and that are full of fuel. Hopefully they are not too far away from the fleet to be reinforced (or you have a poor gather point).

[btd64]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

A very good quality of life improvement, would be a fleet screen where I can say what the desired fleet composition is. One where it is easy to see what is missing. And one where one can order ships to build the fleet up to strength, using a selected spaceport.

I may run the normal fighting fleets at 14 cruisers and 3 carriers. If they are down to 16 ships I know something is dead. Apart from firepower/fighter count it is not always easy to see whether a carrier or cruiser is missing.

If I could define that my "main fleet" type has 14 cruisers and 3 carriers, the game could clearly define what is missing. A pulldown to select spaceport and an "order replacements" button would be just sweet

A nice and simpler function would be the fleet screen printing the fleet composition, and I could just check that list for what is missing.

Good Idea. Would make fleets easier to manage. In the fleet screen have a list of the ship types, and all you have to do is type in 2 for carriers, 4 for capital ships, etc. Select a form new fleet button, Then hit the build button. After the ships are built they would converge on the lead ship to form up. Just have to watch your cashflow though. GP

[btd64]

ORIGINAL: Darkspire

Put a build order in for new ships that you want in your fleet.

Go to the ships screen and select the military filter.

As long as the sort for the columns is at default, grab the slide bar and pull it to the bottom of the list, your new ships will be there with the names in orange, select the first one you want, hold shift, select the last one you want, with the ships selected click the dropbox for fleets and select the fleet you want to add them to.

Select the fleet and you will now see the new ships in orange with the current ships in that fleet.

Darkspire

Thats good to. GP

[btd64]

ORIGINAL: henri51

Darkspire, what happens when you build unfinished ships into a fleet that is far away? What happens when the ships are finished building, so they fly off and join the fleet wherever it is? Will the fleet keep doing its thing while they wait for the new ships, or will they stop and wait for the new ships to arrive?

Henri

The new ships, when complete, will move to were the main part of there assigned fleet is located. depending on the fleet reassemble setting you have set in your game. GP

[Bingeling]

ORIGINAL: General Patton

The new ships, when complete, will move to were the main part of there assigned fleet is located. depending on the fleet reassemble setting you have set in your game. GP

Are you sure? I believe they move to the fleet leader, but "staying together" could explain one issue I had where this did not seem to happen. The fleet leader did not move to the main bunch either, though.

There are some assemble setting in empire options, but I always figured they are about "prepare and attack", and my boys never do that...

[btd64]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

ORIGINAL: General Patton

The new ships, when complete, will move to were the main part of there assigned fleet is located. depending on the fleet reassemble setting you have set in your game. GP

Are you sure? I believe they move to the fleet leader, but "staying together" could explain one issue I had where this did not seem to happen. The fleet leader did not move to the main bunch either, though.

There are some assemble setting in empire options, but I always figured they are about "prepare and attack", and my boys never do that...

Under options> empire settings, you will fine the setting. It works for me. When I build a new ship and assign it to a fleet it goes for the current fleet location or to there current destination. GP

[Bingeling]

ORIGINAL: General Patton

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

ORIGINAL: General Patton

The new ships, when complete, will move to were the main part of there assigned fleet is located. depending on the fleet reassemble setting you have set in your game. GP

Are you sure? I believe they move to the fleet leader, but "staying together" could explain one issue I had where this did not seem to happen. The fleet leader did not move to the main bunch either, though.

There are some assemble setting in empire options, but I always figured they are about "prepare and attack", and my boys never do that...

Under options> empire settings, you will fine the setting. It works for me. When I build a new ship and assign it to a fleet it goes for the current fleet location or to there current destination. GP

Setting a home base will have them move there, potentially unless the leader is delayed and they move to him. And them moves to home base when the leader is finished.

I did a quick test in a new game. Remove all automation for military ships. Have them refuel at the spaceport to have them all gathered outside. Disband the AI created fleet.

Then have one ship move to a system nearby. Then have him join a new fleet, and go to ship list to have the rest join his fleet. The fleet moves to the leader, they do not stay where 5/6 ships were, and the leader does not move.

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: henri51

Darkspire, what happens when you build unfinished ships into a fleet that is far away? What happens when the ships are finished building, so they fly off and join the fleet wherever it is? Will the fleet keep doing its thing while they wait for the new ships, or will they stop and wait for the new ships to arrive?

Henri

I set the options / empire options for fleet dispersal and fleet refuel both to 90. When the ship(s) is built(are) it(they) will immediately join the fleet it(they) is(are) a part of, useful for defense fleets in systems, you can just add ships when they lose any to pirates or attacking enemy fleets.

By careful setting of options both in general and design you can avoid fleets going off for repair and refuel unless explicitly ordered to do so when under manual control [:)]

Darkspire

[necaradan666]

I think this could be very easily implemented in the current UI simply by adding two new dropdown menus to the build order screen.
One with a list of fleets which newly built ships automatically join, there would have to be a [none] option also.
One with a list of spaceports telling which is to build them, there would have to be an [any] option to keep current behavior.

I think the Troops screen could do with a similar update. Where you can build and transfer troops according to the dropdown filter list. All it needs is two buttons added.

[Tormodino]

That is another excellent alternative addition to the UI. Hopefully something like this can get implemented.

[necaradan666]

hell with a little extra coding you could manage manual fleet refurbishment empire wide from this single screen, as a bonus it would once again become a useful screen to veterans who play full manual and never let the randomness of the build order screens current behaviour interfere with their game.

If the build order screen refreshed each time you clicked build, or chose a different spaceport you could for example build '5 frigates' at 'spaceport 1' and at the same time '3 destroyers' at 'spaceport 2'

Imagine if there were also checkboxes at the end of each line for infinite build ala Gal Civ 2. Build batches of '2 escorts' at 'spaceport 3' to join 'escort fleet forever' ...infinitely, or for as long as cashflow is positive or resources hold out.

[Tormodino]

Check out the Master Wishlist in the stickied threads. I did a short writeup of my suggestion for an improved fleet screen. Please add your thoughts. The more, the merrier.