Fleets have no "respect" for manual orders

[100thMonkey]

=============================================================================================
Edit: posted in the wrong place; wanted to post it in the support thread. If admin read this, please move it.
=============================================================================================

Build 1.0.3.7
Severity: medium
Steam version

Saved game:

The Culture - Mortalen - 2843-08-23.zip

(9.54 MiB) Downloaded 11 times

Manual fleets that are given a mission, if they have to fight with ship(s) or fleet(s) on their way to the target, forget about the initial order once the fighting is over. At that point, they choose a different mission than the one they had originally. Even when the target is there, nearby, and weaker than they are.

And I’ve seen that behavior many times.

Here’s an example. The attached save is at the point where the fleet is in the target’s system, and still has the order that I gave it manually. So by simply unpausing, you’ll be able to see the behavior happen in front of your eyes.

I’ve ordered my fleet “Raiding Force 1” (on manual), to capture an enemy resort base (“Royal Hotel”). Initially, the fleet wasn’t in the system where the resort base is.

Once it got there, a small enemy fleet was at the same location. My fleet’s mission then changed to become “Attack Overpowering Plague”, one of the enemy fleet’s ships.

Overview.png (706.73 KiB) Viewed 945 times

Once it got rid of the enemy fleet, instead of returning to the mission that I had ordered it to do initially (capture the resort base), the fleet “decided” to attack a mining station on the other side of the nearby planet.

And that, even though the fleet:

* is on “manual”
* is much closer to the resort base that I had ordered it to capture, than it is to the mining station it has “decided” to attack
* is able to capture the resort base (still strong enough, enough fuel, etc.)

Not only did it not revert to its initial target, but it didn’t revert to the initial mission type either (capture), going for attack instead.

I, as most players I’m sure, expect a fleet on “manual” to follow my order. Even if it has to deal with an unforeseen situation (like an enemy fleet or some enemy ships). After dealing with the situation, it should go back to the initial order, unless it isn’t able to do it anymore (too weak, not enough fuel, that type of thing). In which case, ideally, a message would warn the player that the mission cannot be fulfilled anymore.

[dostillevi]

This feels like another case related to the lack of objective queuing. I don't think there's a mechanism for a fleet to "remember" what it was doing - so once it sees the fleet and changes objectives to fight that fleet, it can't go back to it's previous order because that order can't be stored.

[100thMonkey]

Yes. I would just add that implementing a single-order queue (to store one "initial" order) might be simpler to implement than a large (or unlimited) queue. So we might have that earlier than a full queue. But I DO want, and hope we'll get, mission queues, ideally unlimited, for fleets and ships.

[MichaelJ007]

I would be happy to stop short of mission queues, as long as the primary objective is 'remembered'.

What would be sufficient for me is an idle indicator for fleets with no current objective or an objective that cannot be fulfilled.

There is already a mechanism in the game for automated fleets to 'pick up missions' from a priority list (see mining, construction, salvaging, colonising). If we had the same for exploration that would be amazing.

We do have attack lists, but I've never used it so not sure how effective it is.

[maggiecow]

I, as most players I’m sure, expect a fleet on “manual” to follow my order.

You need to lower your expectations.

Don't have a helpful answer for you, unfortunately. Anything involving automation seems to break down or act unexpectedly so do what most people streaming the game do and turn off all automation, on a per fleet level but also in the race profile menus, then just add back once you understand what it's doing. That won't fix your problem but it will realign your expectations for what a "manual" fleet will do, i.e. absolutely nothing unless you tell it, vs expecting it to handle unexpected events and then return to mission.

Basically this isn't a bug, it's how the game does stuff. What you want might make it in some day as a feature request, but I wouldn't be hopeful. Sadly the game has two settings, automate everything and let it play itself, or automate nothing and micro everything. If you try to compromise the automation will, in general, eff up your manual orders. That is still the main underlying problem with the game, but fixing it isn't as flashy or obvious as game crashes or stuttering graphics.

I would love to see some of the official playtesters actually stream this on Twitch using the default automation settings for each difficulty. Guarantee that in a real game first thing they do is go in and take a bunch of the training wheels off, but these have been left on for "new players", so the options haven't been explored nor has any consideration given to how new players will actually interpret what is happening to them when they play.

EDIT: also, haven't actually played for a while, but I wonder is it a ship posture thing? ie perhaps your individual ships have engagement rules in their design making them favour the enemy ship over their target (which they shouldn't if they're on manual, but this is what the game do.) I dunno. I have no desire to go back to the game yet and check. Such a disappointment.

[mordachai]

I like the ideas here about storing the initial "main" objective, and each time a blocker is unblocked, reviewing that order to see if it's doable now (and if so, doing it). If another blocker appears, then deal with that, and repeat (check if main object still exists, we're capable of it, go do it).

I don't think a deep queue is actually helpful - as that will get into very buggy territory. You don't want your fleet to queue up 10 things while ignoring your original order! You just want it to return to your stated objective whenever the immediate problem is no longer a blocker for it.

Having a global player specified set of objectives - a global queue - from which any idle fleet can pull a "job" to go execute - that would be awesome in some ways, but even so might prove a UI / UX nightmare as I'm wondering where my fleet is off to next, rather than staying until I issue a new order to it?.. I kind of like global queue for automated fleets, but one-main-goal for manual fleets.

I second the idea of the game showing idle-manual-fleets / notifying me of idle-manual-fleets. Knowing that my ship I put on manual so it didn't idiotically do stuff I didn't want it to (I'm STARING at you, colonizers!!!) -- I would like to know when they're ready for their next order (first they should let me know when they're built (if on manual), then when they're done loading colonists, then when they arrive at their target system, etc...

[100thMonkey]

As I mentionned, I'd also like to have multi-step queues eventually, especially for exploration ships, but also for other ships and even fleets. I think it could be helpful, even for manual ships and fleets, IF:

• The "AI manager" for manual ships or fleets was improved quite a bit (I don't want my fleets going for refueling when they still have plenty of fuel and their next target in the queue is in the same system as they are).

• The tactical settings and overrides for fleets were explained, clearly, completely, in depth, by Erik and/or Eliott (Scott's guide and videos help, but even he isn't quite sure about certain aspects). We need to know what the intent of the settings are. Otherwise, how can we evaluate if the system work as intended or not?

Of course, before going to the next mission in the queue, there should be a check for the "initial order" (completed or not, if not, still doable, etc.).

As for the global queue in the control panel, I believe it could work well, for auto and manual fleets, with the following improvements:

• It should allow to choose to allow the mission to an auto OR a manual fleet

If assigned to a manual fleet, it should:

• allow to select to which fleet it's going to be assigned

• have a filter to show manual fleets on idle

• mention, for each manual fleet shown, how many missions are already in their queue

I believe that those additions would greatly improve the usefulness of the control center. But I'd be surpised (happy, but surprised) if we'd get all that soon. But I'm really hoping for a "revert to initial order" fix in a not too distant future.

[MichaelJ007]

I did some experimenting last night with the attack lists on the military panel.

They work fine and within reason as long as the objective is not too ambitious, and you are prepared to let the AI do its thing in it's own time.

With strong enough fleets, clearing out critters and pirates was not a problem. Sometimes ships got lost due to the AI feeding them in piecemeal and fleet cohesion can definitely be improved. But it worked.

In a fullout war, I was able to tag planets for invasion by automated fleets. They did quite well against undefended targets and small colonies, but ignored well defended colonies or lost troops and ships unnecessarily by feeding them in piecemeal. The automated fleets were also prone to selecting their own targets and running off, but mostly these worked out well because they auto selected targets that were easy to take.

I didnt see them bombard once, and a few invasions failed due to landing too few troops at a time. I compensated for this by manually clearing out defense bases and bombarding the planet, then leaving it for the automated invasion fleets to pick up.

If the AI was better at keeping fleet cohesion, bombarding if necessary, and coordinated troop landings, it would be dangerous.


EDIT: The main area where priority lists are needed now is exploration. It has for abandoned ships, but not planets or systems, and not transient debris from battles.