Wish List item - Formations

Redpain, you can either move your fleet to an edge of a gravity well that does not contain any enemies, or turn their auto-attack off (right-click the attack button in the lower right commands area). They all line up nicely when you move them a fair distance in a straight line. Then, if you want to do the same in a combat situation, turn auto-attack off and move them into an enemy's busy gravwell, and then flip it on and immediately pause and take your screenshot.

(Note: I recommend you save just before doing the latter, just in case they happen to snuggle up against a whack of capships. )

As for the warping of a large fleet all at once, the tutorials show you how to move them singly. What I often do if I'm in a rush is right-click the "move" button to change it to 3-green-arrows, wait till half the fleet lines up and is waiting for the other half, and then right-click it again until it's a single-green-arrow. The fleet part that's ready will immediately jump, and the rest will follow when they can.

-- Retro

aye, you can work around it, but changable formations would be nice(haven't found a way to do this yet if it is in there) It hasn't mattered to me much as the default formations work perfectly for me anyways.

As Long as this is a Wish list   I wish that the Game Options at game set up had a random feature. It would add a lot to the fun factor if you did not know going in if it was going to be a slow economy or fast research, or abundant / Scant resources, etc...

Anyway that's my wish. Hope the powers that be make it happen.

Hum wouldn't do that for me no matter what I did. Mind you this is with max units and cap ships all in one fleet.



It's a wish list about "formations" I’d like to keep it on the topic if we can.

Op title: Wish List item - Formations

This is a great idea, and would add some tactical depth without overburdening the player with micro.

Formations like Homeworld had would be nice.

I Would like formations as well as a facing option so that once you have the formation you can hold the button down to face the ships. Ship facing does matter in this game (As ships can't shoot out their rump) so it'd be nice to be able to face them prior to combat in mid combat so that your ships side weapons could come into play. Example would be the advent carrier with beam weapons on the side. Generally mine will line up with the enemy and broadside, it would be cool if you could have it turn so that there was a ship on each side without having to move it in between them per say.

I think there should be formations, with the afformentioned facing options, and with a subset of attack styles available for each formation.

For instance, you might have options like line formation, box formation, and echelon formation (Short-range Frigates in front, Cruisers and Long Range Frigates behind them, Long range Cruisers and Capital ships in the back).

Then from the line formation your attack style options might be Encircle, Flank left, Flank Right, and Hold Center. Your echelon attack styles might be Hold, Slide Left, Slide Right, and Slow Retreat (this would require the ability to move backwards at least very slowly, so that would need to be changed too). Then whenever your formation encounters an enemy they would immediately implement the current attack style.

So lets say to otherwise equal fleets run into each other. Fleet A is in line with the attack style set to Flank Left. Fleet B is in echelon and set to Hold. Fleet A would start moving slowly to the left as a whole, and the ships starting on the left would begin moving forward. This would bring lots of firepower to bear on the right side of Fleet B, quickly reducing that side of the fleet to a shambles, and without further intervention Fleet A would eventually win, but not by much. However, if Fleet B had been in, or was quickly changed to, Slide right, then they would bring more focused power to bear on the advancing left side of Fleet A, and would win by a considerable margin. Similarly, if A was flanking right, and B was sliding right, then A would flank the heck out of B, and be able to destroy B even faster. Of course if A did a slow retreat then any attempt to flank or encircle would be death for the line formation, who should instead hold their line.