Too hard to control fleets

[JonathanStrange]

That's fine in theory, but in games, as in life, "you go to war with what you've got."  If war comes unexpectedly, you will find yourself with ships as yet not refitted to the latest designs. With a large game with a large, wide-flung fleet, you may have a lot of different characteristics. So a mismatch of vessels with different speeds is going to be the rule in fleet formation.  And that is why the game badly needs to limit fleet group movement and keep fleet units together.

Yes, a very good point: the "living universe" aspect of DW would have one relying on mixed older and newer tech warships with variable speeds. A simple solution (well...simple to suggest but implement?) would be to have an order to fleet move at the speed of the slowest ship.

The other suggestions are good though with a large empire and lots to coordinate, they're rather out-of-character for a macro-level strategy game; just a bit.  In smaller games, it would be simpler to coordinate all the ships, rallying point, targeting, rapidly scanning your speeds, etc.

[emeg]

After several more hours in new game I made my first real offensive and the same problems seem to exists in both attack and defense. In attack its even worse. The fleets dont do anything unless I order them.

They are zombies.

Probaly a secret weapon was used against your crew... irradiated by a mindcontrol weapon [:D]

[Malevolence]

ORIGINAL: Joram

... The auto-refuel in the next patch will go a long way to solving some of the issues but I still find it very very cumbersome to control fleets.... 

I think we all need to be prepared for some oddities regarding auto-refuel and set our expectations accordingly. Depending on how it's implemented, ships may be breaking formation unexpectedly.

As it stands now, you can strategically move a fleet from one system to another without having enough fuel. The ships' hyperspeed are penalized, but it does work for long-range re-deployments. Imagine you are moving a fleet and ships are breaking off to head to gas miners.

Also, if you have not adequately planned for fuel near target systems, your fleet might begin to fragment as ships pull out and head to other places for fuel.

I'm not clear if "auto-refuel" will be based on a game wide toggle/setting, fleet toggle, or by ship toggle.

I know I am going need to be much less flippant about where refuel points are relative to my fleets after this patch.

[Zakhal]

ORIGINAL: Malevolence


I think we all need to be prepared for some oddities regarding auto-refuel and set our expectations accordingly. Depending on how it's implemented, ships may be breaking formation unexpectedly.

I understand and hope the auto-refuel is fleet based. Im planning to mainly use it to keep fleets oiled during peacetimes. Once the action starts Im going to turn it off. Its main purpose is to keep my fleets ready when the time comes without constant micromanagement.

Allthough its propably useful in action too because ship without fuel is useless so its better it go refuel itself instead of going dry and becoming an easy target for enemy ships.

[Anthropoid]

I personally don't think an auto-refuel is necessary and that it will cause more problems that it solves, as indicated by the previous poster.

You can set the message settings so that you are alerted when a ship needs refueling, and it is also easy in the fleets window to give orders to an entire fleet to "Refuel and repair this fleet."

[Erik Rutins]

Don't worry folks, as with the previous updates, we will make this next one a public beta before the official release and we will be reading your feedback.

[shinobu]

ORIGINAL: Kid

I would also like to see ships that you assign to a fleet automatically go to where the lead ship is. I assign ships to a fleet and spend a lot of time trying to get the all the ships of the fleet into one system. Also, the fleet should move all together at the speed of the slowest ship.

Definitely want to support what Kid says here, on both points. Sometimes I feel like I'm herding cats trying to get fleets to all be in the same place at the same time... I LOVE the game, but this is an area we certainly could use some improvement on.

[astote]

automating ships has problems too. if start automating ships pretty soon i start getting diplomacy complaints about my military in other people's systems because my ships are escorting or doing who knows what. we really need that "patrol system" (which i think is an option for a fleet, but not an individual ship), as well as "attack system", "invade system" (where your ships automatically load troops and reassemble then attack), "blockade system"..."Set home system"... the game puts way to much importance on individual bases and planets.

I also really hate having to click ships 1 at a time to have them patrol a base. i really want to be able to have a group of 10-20 fighters in important systems just patrolling-refueling when needed, and not going off on their own to other systems where they will tick off my neighbors.... or the ability to automate them but restrict their access away from non hostile systems so that they can auto-respond to an attack in "system A", despite being in " system B, C , D ...."

having layered options allows for having a general empire defense, and dedicated system defense, as well as dedicated planet or base defenses, and then being able to see a display of that information would be icing on the cake, just so you would know if your general empire defense was being spread thin, or planet A only has outdated ships....


anything a fleet can do, a single or group of ships (not in fleet) should be able to do.

colony ships also fail. I am currently in a game where i have a dozen or so colony ships all retrofitted to the most current design, but when i go the expansion planner, they are not in the list of ships i can send to the hostile worlds.... i ended up just clicking the "build and send colony ship" and then 90% they fly to the system and just hover above it till i manually double click.

I also design my own defense bases/ports and like to call them other things than the default, but the game autodesigns a base with the default name in addition to the one i have (often leading to me building the wrong base)....and yes i have designs fully automated.

still, despite all that, this is still the most fun i have had playing a game in at least a year... maybe not even since i first played MTW.

[Malevolence]

A "Patrol System" order for ships and fleets is within the first four or five pages of the big wish list post.

[code99]

ORIGINAL: Malevolence

A "Patrol System" order for ships and fleets is within the first four or five pages of the big wish list post.

I recall reading in some thread that if u select ur fleet/ships and order them to patrol the star itself, they will patrol the whole system ... not sure tho, need confirmation on this

[Zakhal]

ORIGINAL: code99

I recall reading in some thread that if u select ur fleet/ships and order them to patrol the star itself, they will patrol the whole system ... not sure tho, need confirmation on this

Nope. They will just stop next to the star and take som tan.

[code99]

ORIGINAL: Zakhal

ORIGINAL: code99

I recall reading in some thread that if u select ur fleet/ships and order them to patrol the star itself, they will patrol the whole system ... not sure tho, need confirmation on this

Nope. They will just stop next to the star and take som tan.

ok, good to know

[Interesting]

If their nearest refuel point is your research station in a blackhole, super nova, or neutron star you are screwed up.

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: Fishman

I have not found this to be the case unless your fleet is misdesigned. Do they all have different hyperwarp speeds or something? Because given that they should all have been built with the same engine technolergy, they should all have the same hyperspeed, unless you have built them wrong and they do not have enough reactor power to actually function.

I've just started playing the game and the reason I'm reading this is I'm having difficulty in getting a two ship fleet to do anything together and they are the same type.

As regards the comment above, that's rubbish, it would never happen. Ship in a fleet should travel at the speed of the slowest ship.