Build version: started with v1.1.8.7 Beta
Severity: Medium
Annoyance factor: High
Confusion for new players: High
Saved game:
1st Fleet, an automated attack fleet, has been assigned (by CC’s queue) to investigate the Perilous Cauldron (a black hole), where there were 2 Gravillex. One has already been taken care of by 1st Fleet, which is now dealing with the 2nd one. The ship that is now in front of the fleet is *Warrior of Vilmuueni*, a destroyer (it shouldn’t be at the forefront of the attack; I’ll come back to this later). It’s been hit by the Gravillex, and damaged slightly:
* 1 of 5 ion engine is at Health: 59%
* its armor health is at 79%.
It’s set to retreat when shields are below 20% or armor below 50%. So given the current strength of its shields and the state of its armor, it shouldn’t be retreating. But it is:
- Destroyer retreating.png (746.11 KiB) Viewed 512 times
The fleet’s retreat strategy is set to “Enemy Strength 50% greater”. Given that the fleet’s strength is 1,767 and that the Gravillex strength is 409, I would hope that it isn’t because of that setting that the destroyer is retreating.
- Fleet's tactical settings.png (943.91 KiB) Viewed 512 times
So that’s the first thing: a destroyer is fleeing combat, when it shouldn’t. If it’s because there are 2 of its components that are damaged, then that aspect of the setting's behavior should be made explicit in the tooltip for the fleet retreat strategy.
Now the question of the ships’ positions in the fleet. The tactical setting is set to “Ship reassign positions within fleet as needed”. It’s not something I use normally, but after reading (again) the tooltip, I concluded that it might be useful to let the AI reassign positions IF NEEDED. For instance, if the flagship is destroyed, to assign a new one, and “play” with which ships are *core*, *closed escort* or *picket*.
But it looks as though when that setting is used, the game reassigns the positions willy-nilly, without justification. At least, I don’t see any reason why the destroyer would be set as “closed escort” and in front of the fleet. I’ve set the designs of the fleet’s ships so that the escorts are *pickets*, the frigate *close escorts* and the destroyers at the core. So why is the destroyer set as *close escort* and why is it in front (it’s not faster than the other ships)? Was I wrong to assume that the position reassignments would occur only when there’s a “good” reason for it? If that’s the intended behavior, maybe the tooltip should be reformulated to make that clearer...
