Seeking tactical advice

[Merry Jolkar]

I have two big fleets ready to pounce on an enemy fleet. I am concerned that the enemy may split his fleet into many different individual ships and send them in different directions to avoid my fleets.

If I set my fleets to "patrol", will they sequentially seek out enemy ships?

Any other suggestions/advice?

Thanks!
Merry

[ October 02, 2003, 20:13: Message edited by: Merry Jolkar ]

[Suicide Junkie]

"Patrol" means to stay put until an enemy is spotted or supplies reach the "warning" level, at which time, the patrol order is cleared and any subsequent orders are followed.

It also allows you to have an order on ships that are supposed to be not moving, so you can filter them out of the next/previous ship button.

[Arkcon]

Merry, if your concerned about a fleet spliting, you have to split your fleet. You already have two fleets, so, when you give your fleets an attack target, you will be asked to specify an enemy target. Select two different targets inside the enemy fleet. Here'e where statagey comes in... which two ships are likely to be in separate fleets?

[tesco samoa]

seiv is a strenght in numbers game.

Leave a few back to protect the exit warp point.

THen Leave a few to attack his small fleets and send the bulk of the fleet onward to take out his planets.

His breaking up of his fleet is really his problem not yours. Take advantage of it.

Never openly give the inititive to your enemy. Always act not react. He will be forced to concentrate and follow your ships.

[DavidG]

Spliting up his fleet would be an act of desperation. I've had this tactic used against me. I just ignored them and kept my fleet together and had a jolly good time smashing his planets. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Merry Jolkar]

Thanks for your advice, all! Unfortunately, he is in MY system (which I recently took from him and is thus not well defended with WP and Starbases!). So, he could potentially split up and take out several planets. In any event he will lose the bulk of his fleet.
Merry

[rdouglass]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
"Patrol" means to stay put until an enemy is spotted or supplies reach the "warning" level, at which time, the patrol order is cleared and any subsequent orders are followed.

It also allows you to have an order on ships that are supposed to be not moving, so you can filter them out of the next/previous ship button.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Don't want to second-guess you SJ, but isn't that the "Sentry" command? And then, in SEIV anyways, it doesn't use supplies and will sit there until an enemy sighting. In SEIII a ship / fleet used supplies while "Sentry". Maybe you confused / mixed the two.

IIRC "Patrol" is designed for continuous movement between 2 points until enemy sighting.

Or has something changed while I wasn't looking.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

[Seik]

Originally posted by rdouglass:
IIRC "Patrol" is designed for continuous movement between 2 points until enemy sighting.

Or has something changed while I wasn't looking.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No, you are right!
"PATROL" is used to move between X points and the ship(s) current position.

[Merry Jolkar]

Is there any way to have ships intercept enemy ships when they first, say enter a system? Or, when they are observed?

When someone opens a wormhole into my system and moves to close the only other wormhole, it's already too late to stop them. They'll close the 'hole next turn, before I can move ships in to fight them.

It would be nice to have ships "on patrol" that would immediately move to attack em. Any way to do this?
Thanks, M

[Grandpa Kim]

Sorry, no way to intercept ships as you describe. I agree, it should be possible. Seems silly that your ships just sit there for a month admiring the enemies shiny new ships and the colorful explosions they create. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Taera]

very simple. when sentry order clears out, the next one is performed. simply queue a move to the WP order... might not work that well, but you can play around with the idea.

[Puke]

no, theres a problem with that Taera. You're not going to know what sector the wormhole is in, for one. and even if you did, you're not going to be able to predict the direction enemy ships will travel in after leaving it. ships can come through the hole and move in the same turn. if they had to sit on the wormhole for a turn after warping, you might have a better shot at defending.

as it stands, your only options are to either play without stelar manip, or take over 'buffer systems' so that you control what systems are in range to open warp points to your sensitive systems (not an option with top level WP openers). or open 10 wormholes from your important systems, so that new ones cant be opened to them. or build system shields to prevent warp point tweaking.

[Suicide Junkie]

My goodness, you're right.
Either I'm going senile, or I really need some more sleep.

Look at me, even needed to edit this post!

[ October 06, 2003, 23:28: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Cyrien]

No... his idea will work in part. The problem is they warp in with a new point and then close any old ones into the system. SO you could sentry with a following goto the other warp point that already exists to defend it from closing by the just arrived enemies.

[Phoenix-D]

"SO you could sentry with a following goto the other warp point that already exists to defend it from closing by the just arrived enemies."

or you could just park on the warp point in the first place..