Invading fleet auto options to work?

[terranu1]

Hello I'm enjoying this game even though 90% of it is a chore to figure out what works and what not, most of the times the auto fleet AI just seems stuck jumping randomly across the universe.
Such that I had a big defender fleet sitting at my home planet whilst enemies were raiding a mining base in the same system, undisturbed until they left.

Is the current auto fleet behavior for invading broken?
I have my fleet set on auto with every fleet/ship option set to aggressive/immediate/20% component damage before retreating , that is they should be storming a colony and invade it right away cause I gave it alot of troop strength.

This fleet is set to auto template for invasion.
What it did in 2 hours of gameplay ? It went 5 times to a nearby enemy colony, dropped some 15% of it's troop capacity on the planet and backing off to chase random ships then back to loading troops in my home system and back at it.

It ended up never being able to invade a single colony despite having 10x more troop strength loaded onto ships than the enemy colony had troops.

I'm at war with just one AI, my empire is not big 22 or so colonies in a relatively small cluster, on 1500 stars galaxy. Get notifications that enemy AI fleet is coming, enemy AI fleet proceeds to invade a colony in a system bordering my home sistem. I have 2 defender fleets, 2 main attack fleets, 3 raiding fleets, 1 big invading fleet some 250 ships total all set on auto with aggresive stances and 50% fuel engagement range , they all proceed to ignore the enemy fleet and never attempts to defend/retake the lost colony. What's the point of automation if it's not working at all where it matters?

I sent my auto invasion fleet to manually invade and retake my colony. It's a fleet with 150k troop power and 7k fleet power.
I give it comand to invade the colony, 5 minutes later all my troop transports are dying attempting to invade because only 3 destroyers decided to follow them whilst the rest of my fleet full fuel decides to chill at a nearby fuel station.
Ships randomly give up fighting and decide to go refuel mid fights that I'm winning. Regardless of the fleet options I setup they 90% of time ignore enemy fleets in my own territory and go chase stray ships or space monsters.

[MichaelJ007]

See this thread for some further info and excellent posts by Samurai and Scott.

Some quick tips.

1. I would suggest not using fuellers in automated fleets. The game will refuel them at stations anyway, and the fuellers wandering off to do their own thing can cause the fleet to get stuck waiting for them.

2. For defense fleets, be sure to set a home base and engagement range. Engagement range is calculated from the home base, not the fleets location.

3. In automation options, look for fleet posture and make sure it's off. This way the game wont change the home base and leave you high and dry.

4. While the latest beta patch made some fixes regarding fighters, unless you're using that avoid having fighters/carriers in your automated fleets. There is/was a bug with fighters being unable to land on carriers and thus preventing a fleet from engaging hyperdrive while it was waiting for fighters

5. For troop transports to successfully invade, your best bet is to do it manually by assembling the fleet close to the target, waiting for all ships to arrive, then issuing the attack order (not prepare and attack).

6. A good design for troop transports is to have as many assault pods as you can. Troops are landed 1 per assault pod. So if your transports only have 1 pod, that 1 troop will be slaughtered before the next is landed. You want to land as many troops simultaneously as you can. For this reason, automated invasions with low tech transports often fail.

7. Do not immediately embark your troops again. Make sure there is a decent garrison. Strong enough to see off any rebellions. Especially if the happiness rating is red.

Lastly. Fleet ships will prioritise defending their flagship and homebase. If either comes under attack, ships will try to rejoin them, even if they're in another system. So check the locations of your flagship and home base carefully.

[terranu1]

See this thread for some further info and excellent posts by Samurai and Scott.

Some quick tips.

1. I would suggest not using fuellers in automated fleets. The game will refuel them at stations anyway, and the fuellers wandering off to do their own thing can cause the fleet to get stuck waiting for them.

2. For defense fleets, be sure to set a home base and engagement range. Engagement range is calculated from the home base, not the fleets location.

3. In automation options, look for fleet posture and make sure it's off. This way the game wont change the home base and leave you high and dry.

4. While the latest beta patch made some fixes regarding fighters, unless you're using that avoid having fighters/carriers in your automated fleets. There is/was a bug with fighters being unable to land on carriers and thus preventing a fleet from engaging hyperdrive while it was waiting for fighters

5. For troop transports to successfully invade, your best bet is to do it manually by assembling the fleet close to the target, waiting for all ships to arrive, then issuing the attack order (not prepare and attack).

6. A good design for troop transports is to have as many assault pods as you can. Troops are landed 1 per assault pod. So if your transports only have 1 pod, that 1 troop will be slaughtered before the next is landed. You want to land as many troops simultaneously as you can. For this reason, automated invasions with low tech transports often fail.

7. Do not immediately embark your troops again. Make sure there is a decent garrison. Strong enough to see off any rebellions. Especially if the happiness rating is red.

Lastly. Fleet ships will prioritise defending their flagship and homebase. If either comes under attack, ships will try to rejoin them, even if they're in another system. So check the locations of your flagship and home base carefully.

Thank you for the detailed reply.
I never used fuel tankers and carriers yet. I saw Scott's videos and tried to do that setup but apparently it works only if you still manual every fleet. So basically it's pointless to let the auto management on fleets right now, until there are some serious reworks on how it manages fleets.

[dostillevi]

I saw Scott's videos and tried to do that setup but apparently it works only if you still manual every fleet. So basically it's pointless to let the auto management on fleets right now, until there are some serious reworks on how it manages fleets.

This is not accurate. Automated defensive fleets work as intended, as do automated attack fleets.

Revisit MichaelJ007's suggestion #2. Fleets will only engage if the criteria for engagement are met:

1. Engagement range - the target must be within the automated fleet's engagement range.
2. Enemy strength - your fleet won't engage with enemies unless they are strong enough to defeat the enemy. I believe the default is 1.5x stronger than the enemy. I suspect this is your issue.
3. Preparedness - There's not much you can do here with an automated fleet, but if the fleet feels it needs to refuel or prepare before fighting, it will do this instead of directly moving to engage. This doesn't seem to be the issue you have.

[terranu1]

Yeah I think I found what was causing this chaotic behaviour. I improved sensor tech and fleets now seem to react much better to threats. I left sensor tech mostly untouched and focused other stuff, they were still running basic sensors.

[terranu1]

I think the game is simply broken mid to late, had to give up on a 15 hour long game since it was impossible to maneuver anything anymore.
Set my two main fleets to manual and for about 3 hours I struggled to have them gather in one place with all engagement system/nearby and manual options. It was simply impossible they kept flying around and stuck on stations and when given direct attack commands only half of them would ever follow, all full on fuel. After an hour of cursing and smashing the keyboard, reloading I simply gave up. Only half the fleet would ever follow any given command and when they land to attack they retreat and back at it again, ending up loosing to the AI empire lmao.