Stealing this subject - Herding Cats (solved - sort of)

[MichaelJ007]

SOLVED
The problems I was having were NOT regarding fleet tactics and engagement ranges, though Scott and Samurai made excellent points how to use them.

The problems were NOT due to engagement range, and I was not using prepare and attack. I was not right clicking targets but using very specific attack orders or using move to coordinates. And all automation orders for manual fleets were OFF.

I traced the issues I was having to two things:

1. Rubberbanding to the flagship, which was stuck in another system. This could be due to loading fighters, or locked in combat and then ignoring multiple fleet orders.

2. The Home Base of the fleet coming under attack. Despite the fleet being on manual and in another system, if the home base came under attack the fleet would respond by hyper spacing back to it without warning.

There are undoubtedly other issues with fleet management as well. Tankers. Poor formation keeping. Random ships trying to do their own thing. But those are all accounted for.

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========== original post ============

Had a really frustrating time this morning trying to fight a war, with ships randomly abandoning their fleets, decided to go refuel 5 systems away when they were near full on fuel and the fleet has tankers, ships decided to go capture a random freighter thats not even in the same system, the flagship getting stuck somewhere unable to load its fighters, so everybody decides to abandon the battle and join the flagship instead.

It was near impossible to just get the fleet to behave like a fleet. Everybody stay together now. Even my daughter's kindergarten class is better behaved than this.

Sorry man, the crashes are frustrating, but at least you can reload. This just makes it impossible to get anything done.

Example:
- I have a Line Fleet and a Bombard Fleet. I move them both into the target system. Set the Line Fleet to attack the defense bases. When the defense bases are down, i select the bombard fleet to move in and do their thing. Nope. Most of them are heading away to some other system God knows why.
- I order the bombard fleet to back to the system, and set them to bombard the planet, and leave the Line fleet in orbit to serve as a defense unit.
- A minute later I check on the bombard fleet, and its getting creamed by an enemy fleet. Where is my Line fleet? Most of It is heading to a refuelling point 3 systems away despite having tankers in the fleet! 3 of the ships are chasing a freighter trying to capture it. The freighter they're chasing is FIVE systems away!!!

Note 1: My tactics are all set to engagement range of System or Location. All Automation for manual fleets are switched OFF. Tearing my hair out here.

Note 2: Watched Scott's video on fleet tactics. It bears no resemblance to what happens in my game. At best my fleets form a huge circle. No sign of any formation management, and no attempt to stick together.

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

I had the same problems but I think I know what to do to help the situation.

First, when creating a new design, go to the very top left where there are a series of buttons. Click the left most button and select an engagement range for the ship class. Until you know you want them to behave differently, I suggest selecting 'Nearby'. This setting will keep newly built ships from running off to 'who-knows-where' when what you really want is to gather some of them and send them together (either in a fleet or not).

This can also be accomplished for existing designs. To do so, select a ship and look in the information panel in the lower left. It will show the name of the ship, the mission of the ship, and the ship design. When you hover over the ship design, it will say click for details. Do so. The buttons discussed in the last paragraph will be on the screen that appears and you can make changes here. I used to think this would change the settings for all ships of that design, but testing as I write this indicates it may not.

Also, while looking at the ship information panel, at the bottom, there are a series of buttons. The last one on the right looks like a gear with some arrows and dots. Click on this button and the Tactical Settings display will appear. You can set the Engagement range here as well. However, this way of setting it will only apply to this ship (not to all ships of that design.)

Next, we need to change the behavior for fleets.

Select a fleet and you will have the same Tactical Settings button. Select it. Now you will see a similar display but it has two sections. Set the engagement range in the first section to nearby. This will keep the fleet from galivanting off on it's own recognizance. Next, scroll down and make sure that 'Fleet Tactics Override Ship is set to 'Use Fleet tactics instead of Ship'. I also set the engagement range to nearby here.

With these settings, my fleets do not run off for their own reasons (except to retreat). EDIT: Actually, I should add 'or if they are continuing an engagement' to the except clause.

I should add that there are policy settings within 'Military' that may also affect this. Specifically, the Automatically Refuel / Repair / Retrofit Manual Ships / Fleets. I have these set to no and pay attention to my own fuel ranges.

If this doesn't help, let me know.

Also, if anyone has any other insights, please feel free to add to or correct my thoughts.

Good Luck!

EDIT: After posting, I reread you post. Specifically, you might want to set the bombard fleet (at least temporarily) to 'Do Not Engage'. This should keep them from chasing that freighter.

[Scott2933]

I had the same problems but I think I know what to do to help the situation.

First, when creating a new design, go to the very top left where there are a series of buttons. Click the left most button and select an engagement range for the ship class. Until you know you want them to behave differently, I suggest selecting 'Nearby'. This setting will keep newly built ships from running off to 'who-knows-where' when what you really want is to gather some of them and send them together (either in a fleet or not).

The problem is that the AI will pick the most restrictive of this setting and the fleet setting. So it's best to leave all combat ship designs to the least restrictive (same system) - and then use the fleet setting to temporarily restrict it to nearby or do not engage. You can see it in action in this video.

If you are building ships to eventually be in a fleet - put them in the fleet as soon as you order them (multi-select them in the list view and then create new fleet). Then give the fleet the order for nearby. This way as they get produced they will stay local.

[MichaelJ007]

Dude. Thanks for your reply. But you have not suggested ONE THING i haven't already done or checked.

I was tempted to post screenshots of my automation settings (all off), design settings (all system or location or nearby) and fleet tactical settings (all on Location).

What I am actually seeing however:
- If a flagship is in combat, it will NOT follow move orders. The rest of your fleet will move, then they will immediately return to your flagship afterwards.
- If any of your ships are in combat, they will not abandon that combat, they will not follow move orders.
- If your fleet is parked in empty space near a potential target, they will NOT all stay there and assemble (as Iintended). The game will assign them some random refueling point, and half of them will move off to that point (where are my tankers?). Even though i got them there with a MOVE to co-ordinates order, and did not in any way use prepare and attack.

Also, behavior like Aggressive/Cautious/Nearby rarely works, I created a missile cruiser with EVERYTHIING set to cautious, put them in a fleet with all fleet tactics set to cautious, and only long range missile weapons. What do they do, they ALL charge right up to the target.

Lastly (ending my rant before I break my keyboard) When you carefully position a fleet just outside of range of a target system (with 6 defense bases), why the hell do they break formation and attack random stations (only to get destroyed individually)?

it could very well be that I have some of the tactical settings wrong (I am pretty sure I don't), but the fleet behavior at the moment SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS.

[Scott2933]

Dude. Thanks for your reply. But you have not suggested ONE THING i haven't already done or checked.

Dude - I wasn’t trying to fix your problem or even replying to you (though of course - if it helped you I would be thrilled). I was replying to Samurai’s suggestion specifically about setting ship tactics in the design screen.

Some of the things you said are true and I agree are frustrating but some of the things are probably settings (which I get are not clear so no judgement).

Setting a fleet’s tactics to manual, nearby, and then “guard station x” will not behave the way you described (for me anyway). They will not budge. On auto defense they will.

[Ingor]

That could be automation taking over if you haven't properly set the policy settings, I'm guessing.

[MichaelJ007]

Dude. Thanks for your reply. But you have not suggested ONE THING i haven't already done or checked.

Dude - I wasn’t trying to fix your problem or even replying to you (though of course - if it helped you I would be thrilled). I was replying to Samurai’s suggestion specifically about setting ship tactics in the design screen.

I am so sorry Scott, I was typing a reply to Samurai, not you.

I saw your post after, and should have edited mine to reflect that i was responding to Samurai. I do appreciate Samurai's response as well, however i thought i was clear that i had checked the tactical settings, and his post helpful as it was in general, was not helpful to me.

If you are building ships to eventually be in a fleet - put them in the fleet as soon as you order them (multi-select them in the list view and then create new fleet). Then give the fleet the order for nearby. This way as they get produced they will stay local.

FYI, What I usually do is set up my designs. Modify a template to include those designs, then build the fleet from the template, and let it assemble. Generally, this works great for me. I can maintain my designs, and retrofit to whatever is set in the fleet templates. What I will be doubly careful about, is to use 'Nearby' rather than 'Location'.

What I am struggling with I guess is the combination of ship vs fleet orders, especially because imo the entire fleet mechanism looks like a massive after-thought to single ship behavior. The game seems to model single ship behavior at the expense of the fleet, and not in conjunction with it.

[MichaelJ007]

That could be automation taking over if you haven't properly set the policy settings, I'm guessing.

As I said in my OP, everything is switched off.

Settings-01.png (24.39 KiB) Viewed 1786 times

Settings-02.png (57.31 KiB) Viewed 1786 times

Shrug. I will hold out for Erik to review the logic around ship and fleet movement.

[MichaelJ007]

Here is another thing I noticed.

- My entire fleet is in system Diysom, with orders set to Nearby. Half of them suddenly hyperspace out.

- I check the ships that hyperspaced out. They have the order 'Capture ship' for a ship in entirely another system. None of my fleet is in that system. How they decided on that order, I have no idea.

- My Home Base space station is in that system.

I am *guessing* that they decided to go defend their home base, despite it not being 'Nearby', and despite it having multiple defense bases, and an entire defense fleet of its own. /shrug.

Needless to say, the ship they wanted to 'Capture' died in seconds, but they didnt cancel their hyperspace journey back home :/

[Dudok22]

First be sure you are not just right clicking on enemies with fleet selected like me few weeks ago as for some reason "prepare and attack" is the default instead of just "attack" and fleets that are like 90% full still want to go to some random mining station to refuel with the "prepare and attack" order. This really needs a toggle in settings or something.

But yeah, I am having similar experience half of the time, for example:
Fleets in nebulas pathfinding to other star system and then back just to move from outer side of the system to the inner system instead of jumping directly. Or fleet attacking a target recommended by the advisor, everything seems ok until the first ship arrives near the target and all the other ships in the fleet jump out of hyperspace at the same time before they are actually at the target, (now there is a line of ships stretched just outside of the system) which means they have to reengage the hyperdrive before jumping again which means the first ship gets to fight the whole enemy fleet by itself for up to a minute depending on your hyperdrive technology. I think ships should always complete their jump and just queue the fleet order after that, unless you press the cancel order button or manually order move to other system than they are currently jumping to. also yeah, ships don't hold formations very well and tend to run off or split after the combat starts. Something like "hold formation" setting toggle would be nice.

[Scott2933]

I am so sorry Scott, I was typing a reply to Samurai, not you.

I saw your post after, and should have edited mine to reflect that i was responding to Samurai. I do appreciate Samurai's response as well, however i thought i was clear that i had checked the tactical settings, and his post helpful as it was in general, was not helpful to me.

No my bad - I should have realized that! My apologies my friend. No harm no foul. Again - I completely understand your frustration.

[Scott2933]

Here is another thing I noticed.

- My entire fleet is in system Diysom, with orders set to Nearby. Half of them suddenly hyperspace out.

- I check the ships that hyperspaced out. They have the order 'Capture ship' for a ship in entirely another system. None of my fleet is in that system. How they decided on that order, I have no idea.

- My Home Base space station is in that system.

I am *guessing* that they decided to go defend their home base, despite it not being 'Nearby', and despite it having multiple defense bases, and an entire defense fleet of its own. /shrug.

Needless to say, the ship they wanted to 'Capture' died in seconds, but they didnt cancel their hyperspace journey back home :/

Oh yes - I neglected to mention that (and in my video too I'm afraid) - it has to be nearby their home base (whatever you make that to be).

[Scott2933]

I think ships should always complete their jump and just queue the fleet order after that, unless you press the cancel order button or manually order move to other system than they are currently jumping to.

This is literally the MOST annoying thing in the game that I'm sure EVERYONE doesn't understand at first. When my first half arrives - I want to immediately order them to do something while the others continue to approach the system. But you can't for they will reset their jump. It should be that they ONLY cancel their jump if you say STOP FLEET first and THEN order the fleet to do something - otherwise like you said - it should queue the other orders and keep the jump going until they arrive.

[MichaelJ007]

Being responsive to Home Base is perfect for automated fleets. I use it all the time. As long as the automated fleet postures is OFF, you can set an area of operation around a home base and it works fairly well.

However, when having a MANUAL fleet, home-base should be ignored by the fleet AI.

I do NOT want my fleet suddenly going off to try and capture a random frigate that wandered into range of the home base. The trick I settled on for this game (after my frustrations) was to set a home base deep inside my empire for all my manual fleets, where it was unlikely they would be disturbed by a random enemy frigate arriving.

I can guess that this will be royal pain in multiplayer (if that ever arrives), where you can ping an enemy's home base with a cheap ship, and force all his automated (and manual) fleets to auto-respond to it.

[Scott2933]

Being responsive to Home Base is perfect for automated fleets. I use it all the time. As long as the automated fleet postures is OFF, you can set an area of operation around a home base and it works fairly well.

However, when having a MANUAL fleet, home-base should be ignored by the fleet AI.

I do NOT want my fleet suddenly going off to try and capture a random frigate that wandered into range of the home base. The trick I settled on for this game (after my frustrations) was to set a home base deep inside my empire for all my manual fleets, where it was unlikely they would be disturbed by a random enemy frigate arriving.

I can guess that this will be royal pain in multiplayer (if that ever arrives), where you can ping an enemy's home base with a cheap ship, and force all his automated (and manual) fleets to auto-respond to it.

Agreed it should work that way. If you say "guard this station" it shouldn't matter if it is your home or not.

[lomo]

The same here.
The war is a damn frustrating thing. Every ship do what it means have to do and not what I intent.
It should be an easy thing: If the fleet is setting to "Manually" then every ship in the fleet should do "NOTHING" until I say what it need to do. And if a command can not be processed then I need to get a notification why not!

[dostillevi]

I've had some luck doing the following for managing manually controlled fleets:

1. Set manually controlled fleets so that ships follow the fleet engagement rules. This keeps individual ships from wandering off.
2. Set the fleet stance to same location or same system depending on the objective.
3. Whenever I manually redirect the fleet, select each of it's fuel tankers separately and select "stop". They'll still be on automatic, and will re-align to the fleet's new destination.
4. Never right click on a target. Instead, ctrl-right click and select the action. Even then, the fleet might decide to regroup before completing the action. If it does, consider removing any ships from the fleet that are low on fuel or that aren't local to the objective (reinforcements en-route).
5. Bring 2 or 3 more tankers than you think you'll need, so when they run astray to go mine fuel in the enemy's system you still have some around to handle refueling. Generally I find 4 to 1 ratio for ships to tankers works well.
6. Never warp directly to the target. If you want to engage on arrival, warp to empty space near the target, then give commands once the full fleet has arrived. Otherwise, have the fleet stage in empty space in the destination system, then redirect to the actual target once everyone has arrived.
7. Don't mix ship strategic roles in a single fleet. Separate ships into fleets based on the following: Assault/Combat, capture, bombard (if you bother with bombard weapons). This makes managing each fleet a bit easier since all ships in the fleet can generally fill the same tactical role. I don't like mixing capture ships within my assault fleets because it leads to unexpected and hard to control behavior.

I want to reiterate that *none* of this is desirable from a game-play perspective. It's all tedious workarounds to an extremely frustrating system.

[lomo]

I want to reiterate that *none* of this is desirable from a game-play perspective. It's all tedious workarounds to an extremely frustrating system.

So true.
It's a great game and I enjoy it. But the warfare is an important part of it. Unfortunately the war part is very frustrating and I would say unplayable currently on each level (ship/fleet, tactical, logistical. Little more acceptable on strategic layer) and especially in big scale. Please set focus to improve it dramatically in the coming updates.

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

@Scott2933,

First of all, thanks for all you do for the community!

I watched your video as you recommended. I certainly learned some things. I plan to watch it again and take notes. The problem (LOL) is that when I start watching your videos, I want to play so I rarely finish them.

I think the clincher to your assertion that it is best to assign designs to have a 'system' engagement range is at the very end of the video where you point out that if you change the fleet tactics for ships to use the fleet's tactics, then you cannot discriminate between aggressive/normal/cautious for individual roles.

I am usually skeptical and don't like to accept other's assertions as fact, but you have convinced me.

Thanks!

[Scott2933]

@Scott2933,

First of all, thanks for all you do for the community!

I watched your video as you recommended. I certainly learned some things. I plan to watch it again and take notes. The problem (LOL) is that when I start watching your videos, I want to play so I rarely finish them.

I think the clincher to your assertion that it is best to assign designs to have a 'system' engagement range is at the very end of the video where you point out that if you change the fleet tactics for ships to use the fleet's tactics, then you cannot discriminate between aggressive/normal/cautious for individual roles.

I am usually skeptical and don't like to accept other's assertions as fact, but you have convinced me.

Thanks!

Thanks for the kind words and no worries - I usually am very skeptical myself. And I hope I clearly state often enough I'm not often 100% sure myself with some of these things. I've learned a ton from others like yourself in this small community here. Thanks again.