Suggestion - Lock Formations

no idea about chances but i definitly like the idea. i think something happened in one of the entrenchment updates that messed up group jumping behaviour, as well as fleet moving within a grav well

idn, though, what are you doing exactly? if you right click to attack a target, each ship will charge forward, get into its 'optimal' firing position and start plugging away. LF and HC are faster than say cap ships, carriers and some support cruisers, so they will get to the battle first.

if you want them to move forward in a formation until they are within firing range and then attack, you would be better off changing engagement range to local, then telling the fleet to move close to the enemy fleet (or where its going to be) but not actually telling which ship to attack until its within range or even not at all...

that might simulate the effect you are looking for

if you are retreating (i.e. you have pressed the retreat button) your ships will all disengage, turn around and head to the nearest safe planet without regard to group movement commands or anything. if you are just telling them to move... in general... no i dont think there is a way too keep them in formation

but yeah, it would be a nice visual if nothing else. and if possible, while implementing that, if they could give the AI some 'suggestions' of places where each type of ship should be located in a formation, that'd be fantastic. as it is, we have everything just jumbled up.

i saw the front of the game box and saw how the fleet was alined and i was thinking zomg uber cool, then in game it wasnt like that =( i mean, as far as tactics go, it would be beneficial to put battleships and dreadnoughts (maybe battlecruisers), Heavy cruisers, Light frigates, scouts and Hosikos/Guardians/(i forget the name of the vasari one) at the front of the formation, and have carriers, LRF, cielos and variants plus a few HC and LF as reinforcements, plus utility battlecruisers, carriers, and colony battlecruisers at the back, with flak frigs and scouts arrayed around the fleet.

THAT would be hot. imagine seeing that jump into your system...

Well, as for the last part of your post...from what I can tell, ships in a fleet already seem to align themselves in that manner.  Front-line ships are at the front of the formation, utility and long-range ships at the rear.

I always have my fleet on Hold Position by default, to try to keep them together.  And it works well...except when I tell the fleet to move from one side of the gravity well to the other.  Then the Kodiaks shoot out (once I've researched Intercept), the Cobalts come after, etc. etc., and the capital ships slowly grog their way into position.

Simply put...I want a command that will make all ships move no faster than the slowest ship in their assigned fleet.  ESPECIALLY when attacking.

And yes, I've noticed too that with the most recent update, the All-Grouped Phase Jump command seems bugged.

A single speed move order would be very useful. I always miss it in RTS games when I find it isn't there.

If your fleet is actuall a fleet (that is, it is lead by a "Flagship", if you will) then order your "Flagship" to attackthe enemy, and every other ship will stay in formation behind it. Once everybody is in range, you could tell ALL units to engage, and thus all the attack ships, Capitals, supports etc. would be close to each other while attacking.

Hope this helps!

Koda0 (^)

not the last 3 games i played...

sounds good, has my vote

I agree that this would is a needed feature.  I have thought about the need for it several times before when I want to keep my LRMs and flak frigates together.

It's a bit of a pain when you come to a field of 100 mines and your scouts are behind your cap ships. Good idea to look formation.

I never thought of that...I'll have to give it a try.

Even if it works as a temporary solution, I think a lock formation command is still a needed feature.

You could press the Devs. for said feature... use my tactic, OR create a mod that FORCES the speed of ALL of your ships to be the same... that way no one is outstripped by anyone else (Might make things less fun, in my opinion, though).

Koda0 (^)

You can change where your ships will park themselves by changing it from 0 to 3 which will give it 4 row

In small fleets at the beginning of the game, it is not an issue, but the larger your fleets get, the worse it becomes... once your frigates start stacking on top of each other, your formation is screwed...

Simply put, a lock formation button would be appreciated as the ideas given above only work under very specific conditions...

except this could /would affect certain gameplay elements, such as a scouts ability to outrun pursuers, or an LF's ability to hunt down a carrier, or affect abilities like the Kodiaks afterburners ability (mindblank, im not sure if thats what its called but it lets the HC accelerate very quickly and close in on target) so if all ships were set at te same speed, you wouldnt even research that ability

id personally much rather an officially implemented fix. im not a modder myself so i cant just build a mod for all the things i like...

Mod's not gonna do us any good for online multiplayer, though.  It has to be something that the designers add to the game 'cause it's doubtful that more than 20% of all online players would get the mod.

agreed

wow... no one even hinted at the existence of my post...

what? reply 11? first part is info, okay, fair enough

is a request for an official released function... fair enough

i asked for the same (reply 12)... no-one replied to that one either, im not upset...

As far as yours goes, You would still have Intercept and the one on the Vasari carrier... (But regardless, I don't like the idea of slowing down all ships)  

If you are in a locked formation, then you should only travel as fast as your capitals can plug along...  If not, everyone just gets to the destination as fast as they can...

... do you mean you dont like modding it so all the ships cant move faster than X? i wasnt advocating this idea... i was saying its not a great one...

if capitals are the slowest ships in the game (not hard to imagine) then yeah, i agree with this idea.

that was sorta what i was saying all along?

i was also thinking, if you want you ships to break formation, would you have to go into tactics management and turn it off? or would it be intuitive and be shut off when you right click and enemy ship to attack?

one other thing i notice that is really annoying. with fleets, if i get a bunch of say seige frigs, and tell them to attack the planet, then some assault cruisers to attack some structures, and some LF to go around back and hunt down those carriers or extractors whatever. they will go do it, then after a while, they'll stop doing what i told them to and come back to the fleet... its really annoying!! and no, i didnt give the fleet as a whole a new order, they just get home sick and come back.

 so if we make it that that was the standard behaviour when locked in formation, then i think unlocked formation could/should let ships move as far away from the fleet as possible if given a specific mission (we dont want them running through a couple of extra worlds because they got high and wanted to take the scenic route)

First off, I was agreeing with you...

Next, I think it should be toggleable as a Greek army could be in phalanx (locked formation) or man to man.  Once you switch it off, it goes to normal fighting...

I know what you mean...  The problem is a bug in the "Auto Join Fleet" command.  It should be fixed so that if you give a specific command to one ship to do something, it should do that until you give a general command or it finishes doing what you told it to...

Basically, you can give general attack orders or you can give specific orders.  Microing works against ships, but not so much against structures and planets...

so now that we are in agreement: IC! LOCK FORMATION ABILITY PLEAZZ =D