Fleet set to “Engage When Attacked” doesn’t retaliate when attacked

[100thMonkey]

Platform: Steam
Build version: 1.2.0.2 Beta (started with v1.1.8.1)
Severity: Medium
Annoyance factor: High
Confusion for new players: High
Saved game:

The Culture - Ackdarian - 2790-10-06.7z

(6.15 MiB) Downloaded 12 times

Got a message that a frigate - Ruinous Mayhem - is being attacked by Aggressor of Sreloor, a frigate of the Boskara Collective (whom I’m at war with):

Under Attack message.png (149.49 KiB) Viewed 1006 times

My frigate is part of the Grabbers 1 fleet, a manually controlled fleet set to “Engage When Attacked”. But neither the frigate nor the fleet retaliate after being attacked.

Fleet status and tactical settings.png (250.21 KiB) Viewed 1006 times

In a test, I’ve let things run, and at one point, my frigate being attacked decided to escape. Then, the Boskara ship went to attack another one of the fleet’s ship. Rinse and repeat.

Granted, Grabbers 1 is a manual fleet. But shouldn’t it retaliate when attacked if it’s “Fleet Engagement Range” is set to “Engage When Attacked”?

[iancmtaylor]

Because your fleet is set to use ship tactics, so if your ships are set to never engage, then they wont.

Is the system completely confusing and way more convoluted than it needs to be?- absolutely.

[MaximKI]

As iancmtaylor says, it seems that the ship settings are overriding the fleet. What are your ship tactics set to?

[100thMonkey]

Unless I’m misunderstanding something (always a possibility), it’s not the ships’ tactical settings that are causing the fleet’s inaction. Their engagement ranges are set to “Same System”. Here’s a screenshot of the fleet’s flagship’s tactical settings (the fleet's ships all have the same settings, except for “Position within fleet”):

Ship tactical settings.png (241.89 KiB) Viewed 945 times

And there’s also the tooltip shown when hovering the mouse above the “Engagement Range” in a ship’s tactical settings panel:

Tooltip.png (111.69 KiB) Viewed 945 times

So if the ships’ tactical settings override the fleet’s tactical settings, then the tooltip is lying. Or, at the very least, it's incomplete and misleading.

As to the system being confusing and more convoluted than it needs to be, I agree (for one thing, see tooltip above). I didn’t play DW:U a lot, and it’s been a while since I’ve played it, but if I remember correctly, it was way worst with DW:U. The tactical settings in DW2 are a big improvement in comparison. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for more improvements.

For instance, in the “Fleet Ships - Tactical Overrides” section of a fleet’s tactical settings, if “Fleet Tactics Override Ship” is set to “Use Ship tactics instead of Fleet”, then the settings below it are deactivated. But if it’s set to “Use Fleet tactics instead of Ship”, then the settings below become available. Among those, there’s another “Engagement Range”. So at this point, there are 3 “Engagement Range” settings:

* One for the fleet
* One for the fleet’s tactical overrides
* One for each individual ships

So how do these 3 settings interact with each other?

Confusing and convoluted... Hmmm, let’s see... Maybe?

As per my signature: now, imagine how confusing that is to a new player!

[100thMonkey]

To correct and nuance my statement in the previous post:

So if the ships’ tactical settings override the fleet’s tactical settings, then the tooltip is lying. Or, at the very least, it's incomplete and misleading.

I understand that if the fleet's tactical overrides are set to "Use Ships tactics instead of Fleet", the ship's tactical settings will be used instead of their equivalent in the fleet's tactical settings. So the tooltip is not lying. But, in my opinion, it is incomplete and misleading. It should mention that the fleet's engagement range does not always override the ships' tactical settings, like when "Fleet Tactics Override Ship" is set to "Use Fleet tactics instead of Ship".

It might seem obvious to the devs and experienced players (and even then, I wonder ), but again, new players?

And I'm all for granularity in settings. It's just that, in my opinion, the way settings interact with each other needs to be explained as clearly and as completely as possible. I believe it's especially important for new players, so that they're able to understand and enjoy the game, and keep playing it.

[MaximKI]

Thanks for the feedback. We know that one of the areas to improve on is how the game explains itself. This is going to be a long-term effort, but that is certainly one of our goals.

[100thMonkey]

This is going to be a long-term effort, but that is certainly one of our goals.

Good to know that it's on the radar.

Regarding the initial goal of this thread (bug report), I just want to make sure you didn't miss that the cause of the reported behavior isn't the ship's individual tactical settings: they're set to "Same System" (see my second post). So, there does seem to be a problem with the fleet's behavior.

[StormingKiwi]

Well, I should have expected that - I downloaded the save file and loaded it, however, was unable to because it requires DLC I don't own.

Perhaps there is a difference between the ship and the fleet being under attack. I.e. Aggressor of Sreloor is only attacking one ship, not the fleet, therefore the fleet is not under attack, therefore it is correct for the fleet not to retaliate when attacked because technically, the fleet is not attacked.

Unable to verify this because unable to load the save.

[fruitgnome]

I tested the savegame. It's because the fleet is set to manual.