How-To Fleet Posture

[Crumplecorn]

Rereading my post I can see how it was unclear, apologies.

When I said they change their attack target themselves, I meant the actual attack target posture setting, not that they were merely attacking another target. So, if I order them (using the posture setting) to attack a planet with 'sector' range, they will kill everything in orbit of that planet, but then disable the posture target and go home. They do not attack anything else in the sector, or even in the same system.

If I leave them automated for long enough, they will assign themselves a completely different sector to attack, though again they will only attack the planet they target, and ignore the rest of the sector.

The reason I referenced the fleet formation automation is this: "Changed fleet posture setting: for the AI to alter the posture of a fleet both the following conditions must be met: Fleet Formation is automated AND the fleet itself is automated" from some old patch notes (maybe this doesn't apply anymore?)


My understanding is that using the posture I should be able to assign a fleet to attack an area, and they will continue to attack any targets in that area until I change their orders.

[Bingeling]

If you are experimenting to make them work, and learn and what does and does not for a bit... I guess you are the active person on this forum that knows the most about fleet postures. The Cube does not appear to be around much [:(]. And Elliot and Erik does not count.

When it comes to the quote: "Changed fleet posture setting: for the AI to alter the posture of a fleet both the following conditions must be met: Fleet Formation is automated AND the fleet itself is automated"

I read this as both must be automated for the AI to start messing with posture settings. This includes adjusting ranges, and moving home base, or instance. Maybe I should try understand this area, but I am way too impatient with the AI, and too fond of micro managing fleets. Maybe it is time to play a game with just fleet formation, ship building, and posture twiddling as manual tasks.

[Bingeling]

Ignore this.

[Crumplecorn]

Yeah, it's kind of dawned on me since that the game has an easy-to-use editor, so I'll probably do some controlled experiments over the weekend. I did a quick test already; one fleet sent to attack a planet with sector range flew to the target planet, then disabled the posture and went home without killing anything. Another fleet killed the base above that planet, but failed to go after a base over another planet within the sector range.

[Plant]

I think the attack postures ranges is in regard to the range of the homebase not the range of where the fleet is currently at.

This is just speculation, I really have no idea how fleet postures work.

[Bingeling]

I think you are right, but the opening post (or thereabouts) says that they should engage stuff around the attack target.

Now, if you could put home base at anything but things you control... I never tried that.

[Dotdotdot]

For those who have trouble with the AI overriding fleet postures: Turn off fleet formation in the empire policy screen.

It would probably be better for fleet formation to be renamed fleet control.

[necaradan666]

I believe that option only controls the formation of fleets, there is a dropdown for controlling attacks and there are checkboxes for default stances. These are what override your postures

btw anyone know how to set a fleet posture Attack Target? I'm trying to get a red circle in Shadows but nothing will take hold as a target when I use the button. Does it only work when targeting an enemy Empires worlds? I know I've done this before but I forget how.

[Bingeling]

No, he is correct. Fleet formation controls also whether the AI controls the fleet postures.

[Crumplecorn]

I finally got around to having another look at this. Running the latest version of Shadows, the postures almost work.

Defensive postures sometimes do work correctly, other times they don't. When they don't work (i.e. there is a visible enemy ship in range of the posture but the defensive fleet does not move), the stance of the ships in the fleet will reset after a moment if I try to change them - as if the ship is being assigned a mission with a different default stance. It looks like the ship is being assigned a mission over and over again, but the ship can't/won't respond to the mission.

The Attack posture is also doing better than before - I put two enemy mining stations in a system, and set one of them as the posture attack target with sector range. As before, the fleet successfully destroyed the initial target, however this time it left the posture intact (previously it always deactivated the posture). Right now the ships are back in their home system exhibiting odd behaviour. Every few seconds the ships/fleet are assigned the mission to attack the other mining station which is in range of the attack posture - however the mission is immediately cancelled. At the same moment as the attack mission is assigned health/shield bars appear over the ships for some reason.
The really interesting part is that as with the defensive posture ships any stance I set is reset to one particular one - but not by the assignment of the attack misson. The attack mission sets it to 'nearby targets', but something else is setting it to 'system'. So if I set a ship's stance to 'only when attacked', I can watch *something* change the stance to 'system', then the posture mission kicks in and changes it to 'nearby', and then the *something* kicks in again and sets it back to 'system' again.

It looks to me like there is some kind of 'ghost mission' getting assigned over and over again and blocking the ships from carrying out their posture duties, some of the time.

[soilwork595]

I am also having trouble with Defensive posture. I set the posture to defense, set the range and home planet, but when a pirate attacks in the range of my defense area, my fleet does nothing but sit there. I tried to un-automate and automate but they still sit there. This is really annoying having something in game that is supposed to work but doesn't. Anyone have clues?

[Crumplecorn]

For some reason the defensive postures started working for me when I started my latest real game rather than game-edited tests. But I have no idea why...

All I can suggest is making sure you are running the latest version, because they never used to work at all for me, but with the latest version they either actually work or "almost work".

[Franky007]

I think i have just found out something that no one has mentionned:
Posture only work against Empires which are at War with you.

But because Pirate empires are never at war, Posture don't work when you play a Pirate, or against them.
Can anyone confirm this. Because that is something that should be patched.
And in addition to this, the ability to set a Raid attack as a Posture instead of an attack
would be a great addition...

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: Francoy

I think i have just found out something that no one has mentionned:
Posture only work against Empires which are at War with you.

But because Pirate empires are never at war, Posture don't work when you play a Pirate, or against them.
Can anyone confirm this.

This is most definitely not the case with playing a prewarp empire, there are no problems with using posture and defense fleets, war or no war, postures also work very well against pirate incursions.

Are you sure you know how to use the stances correctly?

Darkspire

[Franky007]

When i play an Empire everything is fine,
but when playing a Pirate nothing works:
The fleet always return to their home base without doing anything...

Have you tested it while playing a Pirate ?

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: Francoy

When i play an Empire everything is fine,
but when playing a Pirate nothing works:
The fleet always return to their home base without doing anything...

Have you tested it while playing a Pirate ?

Have you set a homebase for the pirate fleet? Like a mine etc in a system you wish to control?

Darkspire

[Franky007]

Just to clarify : I am talking about the ability to automate the operation of fleets OUTSIDE of their current system. Because by setting the engagement stance of fleet to 'SYSTEM TARGET', it will attack anything it it's current system, but this have nothing to do with posture.

Regarding Home base : They should be a place safe where you want to resupply after missions. Here is a quote from erik from another thread : 'The home base for a fleet will also receive logistical priority as far as building up stocks of fuel for fleet operations.'.

Here are the steps i have taken to test the posture :
Set Fleet formation to manual in Empire policy.
Set engagement stance to 'Nearby target'.
Set home base to a friendly star port.
Set target to an enemy Empire planet.
Set range to be within both home base and target. (i see a red circle).
Automate fleet.

While playing as a pirate : fleet move to home base and do nothing. (i have no protection arrangement with the target).

[Franky007]

Sometime, it's a good thing to read the manual !

from the manual:
Attack Posture: When at War, the fleet will attack enemy targets. A specific target may
be set using the Set Attack Target button. In this case, when conflict begins, the fleet will
immediately attack the selected target.

So it seem to confirm why the Pirate won't attack. But i think it should be changed.

[Tcby]

I saw that Gelatinous Cube was online, remembered that his fleet postures guide helped me enormously, and figured that there would probably be some new players lurking that would benefit from this information.

The powers of necromancy, huh?

P.S Hi cube

[Aquitaine]

Just found this threat and it has some great information in it, but one question: is it still possible to manually specify the range of a fleet? The 'set attack target' now seems to require a specific target - it doesn't seem to be used to indicate fixed ranges. The map of overlapping red (attack) and blue (defense) postures for fleets doesn't seem to be something I can get to now, unless I'm missing something? Has this been simplified to the 'sector' and 'nearby systems' range list?