Understanding battle strategies...newbie question

[tbontob]

OK. Here's a scenario...

I got control of a light cruiser through Espionage/Crew Insurrection.

The cruiser is on the home planet sector with one other light cruiser and a planet with missiles. Other types of ships are there as well, but they are weaponless.

The light cruiser has techology I would like to have. So I need to get it to one of my planets to analyse it's contents.

However on the next turn, it gets pLastered in strategic play by the other cruiser and the planets missiles as it goes onto the attack by approaching these targets.

I don't know what the strategy of the captured cruiser is...the Designs menu (F3) will not show the cruiser and since it is not shown, I cannot change it.

But, I figure maybe I can overlay a fleet strategy over the light cruiser strategy of the ship I captured.

So the fleet strategy (call it Run-away) for this one ship fleet which I am thinking of employing is:

Break formation for "Ships" (unlit) - means it will not break formation and revert to its own strategy but still follow the fleet instructions. Correct Y/N?

Now how do I
a) avoid the planet like the plague?
b) engage the other cruiser on the best possible terms which is on course to attack the cruiser I captured? This is a fight I cannot avoid. So, I need a strategy.

To deal with a) I use the "Don't fire on these ships to highlight "planet" under the Firing tab

With (b), both ships have the same design. So as I see it, the ship which fire first and which happens to be the closest to the other is most likely to win.

But I still need to get away from the planet (because of it's missiles)

So, in the Movement tab, I am thinking of using
-Primary - Don't Get Hurt (which basically means run away)
-Secondary - Point Blank

I understand when the primary stategy is impossible, the secondary strategy comes into play.

So when my captured cruiser runs out of room, it engages the light cruiser away from the planet.

Back to the Firing tab, I set the Targeting Priority Order to
-Has weapons
-Nearest
-Fastest
-Strongest

Does this make sense... It does to me... Yet somehow I feel it will not work...because my understanding of what the settings mean are different from the computers.

I haven't tried this yet. So do I try again and again until I get the combination of settings which will cause my captured ship (and any future ships captured on a home planet) to behave in the way I want.

So much easier to have a concrete idea of what the settings mean and what they do.

[ August 21, 2002, 20:11: Message edited by: tbontob ]

[Hank]

A poor User Interface design choice is to use check boxes that change their label based on the state of the check box. Also another poor design choice is (as you pointed out) having the default state being a negative.

Proper design would use a radio button to switch between two different descriptions (labels) or one label describing a positive state and default it to on or off.

These design decisions are due to the fact that this is that it is a 1-man show. Having the programmer make, review, and fix UI design decisions only puts one set of biased eyes on the issue. Having the Users of SEIV checking the UI flaws is not the best situation either...

Edit: and just so I am not too negative, I am absof*****glutely addicted to SEIV so any UI flaws are only cracks in the icing on a very tasty cake!

[ August 21, 2002, 21:54: Message edited by: Hank ]

[tbontob]

Hank states:

A poor User Interface design choice is to use check boxes that change their label based on the state of the check box. Also another poor design choice is (as you pointed out) having the default state being a negative.

Proper design would use a radio button to switch between two different descriptions (labels) or one label describing a positive state and default it to on or off.

These design decisions are due to the fact that this is that it is a 1-man show. Having the programmer make, review, and fix UI design decisions only puts one set of biased eyes on the issue. Having the Users of SEIV checking the UI flaws is not the best situation either...

Finally someone who understands what I am complaining about!

I am addicted too. I am not trashing the game. If I had a choice between this game with all its warts, and no SE4, there is no choice.

[tbontob]

Well...here's the results of the scenario

On the first combat turn the captured cruiser runs away.

On all the following turns, it attacks the planet.

Changing the Secondary Movement Strategy in the "Movement" tab to any other selection results in the same thing.

Do you guys actually like doing all this multiple testing?

[Fyron]

Originally posted by tbontob:
2) We decide who is to “chair” the presentation. My own personal choice is Fyron, but being a newbie, there could be a better person.

Umm... how did I get involved in this?

[tesco samoa]

Secondary should be set to don't get hurt as well.

That way you will retreat...

Also make sure you set your planet value to 0% on the damage screen. This way it will avoid the planet.

And did you know if you do not put any weapons on a ship and set it to ram... it will ram.

This way you will reteat and the missle ship will come to you

IF you wish to engage the missle ship set your primary to maxium range and your secondary to do not get hurt... try it out and see what happens.

[tbontob]

Hi Fyron:

In your quote, you did leave out a detail...

2) We decide who is to “chair” the presentation. My own personal choice is Fyron, but being a newbie, there could be a better person. We would, of course, require the agreement of the individual of our choice.

As I said, you were my own personal choice. What wasn't said was that I personally found your communications to be particularly concise, cogent, and informative.

So I/we were not planning to railroad you... It appears the situation is moot...as no one is taking up the gauntlet with me.