Lack of Fleet / ship commands

Hello, there should be an option that says auto join fleet where the ship joins the nearest available fleet.

Define agression control?

i mean you can tell them to fire but hold position, follow in the gravity well, or local area as far as i know. under tactics management.

What I mean in aggression control is the following capabilities or may be same as tactics:-

1. All guns blazing
2. Stealth mode
3. Strategic mode (ie attacking strategic targets of an enemy fleet/structure)
4. Defensive combat

I'm not sure most of those apply to Sins. There is no "stealth mode" in the game at all - once you have a ship in a gravity well, you get sensor information on everything in it. Sins defaults to "all guns blazing" unless you tell your ship using the orders panel to hold position and it's not in range of an enemy. Sins autoattacks the types of ships that your own vessel does the most damage to when different armor types are present, and I'm not sure what defensive combat is.

Not trying to tear apart your post, just not quite sure what you're asking for or how you'd expect it could be delivered in Sins, and I have a fear that much of it would increase micromanagement.

-- Retro

Thanks for your comment I need to think about what I mean I will come back to it later.

However, lets go back about the other commands are found in majority of similar RTS games eg.

1. Guarding ships/structures
2. Patrolling within designated way points
3. Fleet formation
4. Adding units to a paticular fleet.

Regards

Dimerx aka J Haria

im a little new as well, but here is what i know within the game capabilities...

1. Guarding ships/structures
&
2. Patrolling within designated way points

you can select ships\strike craft to hold a position. the ai will move them to engage unless you specify hold position. against the computer i will often set planet based strike craft near the arrival points outside the grav well. this helps them to engage more quickly. its not a "guard" or "patrol" order but it effectively serves the same purpose.

3. Fleet formation

This would be nice, but for now we have Tight, Loose, and Standard. Combined with the move\attack order (Hold, Grav Well, Local Area) this can help you accomplish some tactical manuevers. ie. a Tight formation and Hold Position around structures.

4. Adding units to a paticular fleet.

I have a work around for this. Fleet management is new in Sins and very good but it does lack a unit level "Join Fleet" or "Make Leader" function. The AI helps you by auto-pinning units to fleets but this can be tricky especially if you have multiple fleets at a planet.

My current work around is to select all the ships in the system, remove all fleets, and then create a new fleet. Maybe someone has some else better options.

You can also set a fleet as a rally point for factories. This may help you as well.

I didn't know about fleet as a rally point. That's nice cuz I'm often holding a fleet while I wait for a gaggle of cruisers or frigs to replenish their numbers.

I'd be nice to be able to establish a priority of structure & planet defense acting as a general "kill this unit if it attacks my civ research station". Something on a scale of 3 high priority ordered 1-3 and the rest low priority.

I'd like the guard unit as well. I know the AI does a good job so I'm not to worried about it.

yeah the rally feature is pretty good. you can set RP's as points in space, planets or fleets. maybe even more than that, but these three are all I use.

if you need ships faster than what a single factory can chunk out, try two factos at the same planet. this is useful especially when setup behind a line so you can quickly deliver reinforcements to your fronts (against AI this works. i would guess a human player would find the ship yard planets and wipe them out easily.)

for exmaple, on a large map i am working, i made peace with my neighbor and then started wiping out the other factions. the planet on the line near my "friend" has been building factories. so when i finish off everyone else i can quickly rev up local forces if they are needed until my main fleet gets to battle.


--

also, i have been working with the add\remove from fleet buttons and i like them better now. its pretty easy to seperate ships from fleets and add new ones in. so +1 for stardock.

The rally to fleet function seems to be hit and miss on occasion. If you leave a gravity well while new ships are trying to join up they will follow, but never join the fleet. Also, if you hot key a fleet but add ships to that fleet via rally they are not added to the hot key. So periodically i have to select the fleet and re-hot key when new ships have been added. (you'll notice this when you press your hotkey and then press your fleet "medal" and see the difference.

My biggest gripe is trying to micro my ships using the side panel but the panel keeps shifting down while new ships enter/exit and I end up sending my ships to attack something I don't want them attacking. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Stardock make the panel sticky! That way the only ups and downs it goes is when I scroll on it. Anyone else have this problem?

to the OP, if you want those things, buy Star Trek Armada II.

Yes, using "Abilities" should be easier. When I have 50 ships in a fleet and I do stack them or things are a bit unmanageable and I really hate selecting a stack of 10 ships, activating an ability, and one out of 10 does it when I really want 10/10 to do it.

Also, the Vasari missile boats abilities are a complete pain in the ass. "Disables Sub-light" for greater range? Bad idea.

Amen to Evernights57, lock the damn panel please.

Also, I would like to be able to have fleet composition matrices. Fleet 1 to have x number of capitals, x number of frigate types, x number of cruiser types. otherwise trying to separate a large fleet into small ones takes forever.

We need a Tow Ship to tow the factory around with your fleet (Yes, across phase lanes too, I know :)), this way you could replenish destroyed ships immediately (too bad the shipyards are owned by planets, much like strikecraft are owned by hosts like carriers...

Helioforge not practicle to have a tow ship it may be idea for a mod to create a mobile factory ship.

In meantime u know u can instruct your factories to deliver to where your fleet is so u get a constant supply

You can "sort of" guard ships.

Select the guarding ship, then right-click the ship you want guarded. You can then move the guarded ship around, and the guarding ship will follow - even through phase lanes.

The trick is also setting its engage distance to "local area" instead of "gravity well". Otherwise, your guards will go wild with bloodlust while your poorly guarded ship is destroyed.