Fleet position

[Smolf]

Is it possible to place a ship in a specific position in a fleet? So that I know which ship is number one, two etc?

[Evil_Duckie]

I believe it has something to do with parameters like construction date. Personally, in solo games, one of the first things I do once I get close to the enemy is break all formations. More often than once I happened to move the leader, in which case all other ships in the fleet that have movement points try to get in their respective positions, throwing my plan way off...

[Smolf]

I'm playing a game by email, so I can't use tactical combat. So I have to find some way to determine where the ships are placed before entering strategic combat.

[NullAshton]

I believe it may order it based on strength. Stronger ships are at the front positions, and weaker ships and ships without weapons are at the back of the formation. The fleet leader is always at the L position in the formation.

[Smolf]

I guess I have to learn to live with it... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Suicide Junkie]

the best idea is to use the fleet formation to determine a general distribution for your ships (compact vs spread out)

Then set them to all break formation so they can each move to their optimal firing ranges.
You will also have to make your designs a little more mulitpurpose than with tactical combat; every ship should have 2 or 3 PDCs, and every ship that you want to stay in the fighting needs at least one non-PD weapon.

[Fyron]

Strength is irrelevant. Evil Duckie was close. Construction order (possibly that ship ID number thing, which might obfuscate the exact ordering after some ships have been destroyed...) is what determines the order the ships are placed in the slots of the fleet. The leader is the ship you designate as the leader, but all other positions are out of your control. The order you add ships to the fleet is also irrelevant (other than determining the leader when you first create the fleet; the first ship added is the leader for a newly created fleet).

Ships without weapons are not placed in the formation. They are scattered randomly around the battlefield (as are extra warships that do not fit in the formation when you have too many), generally behind the fleet, but not always. This random placement is the same method used for a group of unfleeted warships (such as when you have a group of ships orbiting a world and you are attacked). It is a very poor solution, but it is what the game does.

[Captain Kwok]

Imperator Fyron said:...This random placement is the same method used for a group of unfleeted warships (such as when you have a group of ships orbiting a world and you are attacked). It is a very poor solution, but it is what the game does.

What's wrong with that... since the ships aren't officially organized into a fleet maybe they're going about their business in the sector - you know just milling about. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Fyron]

For unarmed vessels or excess warships in a fleet, it makes no sense at all and causes them to be picked off one by one, when the fleet they are with should be protecting the unarmed combat vessels. If SE4 had smart enough AI that would group the warships together before sending them towards the enemy fleet, unfleeted or excess ships "milling about" wouldn't be such a big deal... There should be no set limit to the number of ships that can fit into a fleet formation. Unarmed vessels should be protectable. Hopefully SEV gets it right...

[NullAshton]

Unarmed ships can be protected, Fyron, all you have to do is turn off that type of ship in the strategy that says 'break formation'...

[Evil_Duckie]

Which brings on another question. When adding ships to a fleet, *sometimes* (I have no hard evidence to support this though) the most recently added ship becomes the leader, but sometimes not. Any rules behind this?

[Slick]

No rules that I have ever seen. Obviously if it is a 1-ship fleet, that ship is the leader. When adding multiple ships and not selecting a leader manually, which ship is arbitrarily chosen? I dunno. I've seen my best attack ship in the fleet get chosen sometimes and I've also seen a support ship get chosen at other times.

I have also seen the leader spontaneously change from the one I manually selected when adding ships to a fleet at some later point after fleet creation.

So many things out there to test...

[Fyron]

NullAshton said:
Unarmed ships can be protected, Fyron, all you have to do is turn off that type of ship in the strategy that says 'break formation'...

From everything I have seen, ships with no weapons are never placed in formations, regardless of the strategy settings. In small fleet combats, they tend to be placed centrally located behind the fleet of warships, but in larger combats, anything goes.