Fleet Formations questions

[Merry Jolkar]

What is the significance of the numbers in fleet formations? Is this the order in which I list the ships within the fleet? Could I, for example, protect several ships by listing them at the top of my fleet, and choosing Dark Wing formation? More generally, what sorts of formations do people use to protect mine sweepers, support ships, etc.?
Thanks!
Joe

[primitive]

Except for the fleet leader, you have no control of which ships goes where in the formation. I'm not sure, but I think the oldest ships gets the lowest numbers.
For protecting your supportships, there is (AFAIK) no fancy options that works better than the plain old brake formation and run for the corner http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Taera]

I'm pretty sure it is in the order you're adding the ships to the fleet.

[primitive]

Originally posted by Taera:
I'm pretty sure it is in the order you're adding the ships to the fleet.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Nope (just checked http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

It's the way they are listed in the fleet window.
Oldest first.

[Fyron]

Breaking formation is nearly always a much better idea than staying in formation. Non-combat ships always break formation anyways (not sure if you can change that...). Keeping your ships in formation guarantees that you will run into situations in which some ships move to positions to stay in formation where they can no longer fire on the enemy. That is a very bad thing to do.

[Merry Jolkar]

Primitive, I'm sorry if I'm being dim, but I didn't quite understand the result of your test. By the fleet window, do you mean the fleet transfer window? I don't seem to have control over the order in which ships appear in that window, but the ones at the bottom of the list appear in positions 1, 2, 3, etc., right? And, those are the oldest ships?
Thanks!
Merry

[ July 18, 2003, 23:33: Message edited by: Merry Jolkar ]

[tbontob]

I think I am right in saying:

The "Fleet window" can be accessed by clicking on a fleet.

From there you can gain access to the "Fleet Transfer window".

[oleg]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Breaking formation is nearly always a much better idea than staying in formation. Non-combat ships always break formation anyways (not sure if you can change that...). Keeping your ships in formation guarantees that you will run into situations in which some ships move to positions to stay in formation where they can no longer fire on the enemy. That is a very bad thing to do.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Absolutely true. The only situation when keeping ships in formation may be benefitial is when enemy likes missiles. Then you must either put extra PDC on every ships or make sure ships stay close and cover each other.

[Taera]

another situation is when your using weapons with more than ROF1 and long range (QTorpedoes, WMG, some racial techs) - then spinning fleets might actually benefit you because a ship shoots and next round gets out of range. Also beneficial in medium fleet fights where you can regenerate (armor/shields).