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How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system?

 
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How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 4:55:20 PM   
Speeder

 

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I tried many things, but when I have fleets with uneven speeds, the first ships that arrive (not on the target I will attack, but on some edge of the system far from the target) will happily jump on enemies and get killed.

I guess I may need to change engagement stances, but that is very annoying, I want a button that says: "Go there and STAY there until I tell you otherwise"
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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 5:03:41 PM   
adamsolo


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The same thing happened to me. Escorts would dive into the enemy and get squashed while my frigates were on the back, while other ships didn't even arrive to the fight yet.

The solution is to play with the "Stronger Opponents", "Weaker Opponents", and the "Flee when" options for each design. So, you may want to tell your escorts to "standoff", or even "evade" while setting your missile frigates or your torpedo destroyers to "standoff", attacking enemies from long range. Meanwhile, your escorts may be set to "Evade" to prevent them from being totally annihilated by the enemy space port or other strong base or ship you are attacking.

I didn't have any luck playing with the engagement stances, or the range, or the defend/attack posture. My ships seemed to always disobey even when they were full manual. Playing with the design settings (and hitting save) was the only way to avoid complete suicide. But, then, all escorts in your all empire will behave on a certain way, and then you need to re-set the options again when you finish your attack runs and decide to get back to defend mode.

Is there a way to manage behavior (evade, standoff, all weapons, point blank) for a single battle instance without having to play with the design options that affect all your fleets?

< Message edited by adamsolo -- 5/25/2013 5:04:08 PM >


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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 5:04:06 PM   
Bingeling

 

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Howto: Manual control. You may have to set the stance defensive and the range minimal if you have issue with the fleet running off on your own.

Select a system close to your target. You may prefer an empty one if there is one. Send your fleet there. Wait for all to arrive, then target your objective. They will still not land all at once (as some may need to turn, jump faster, travel faster...), but it will be reasonably at once...

Apart from that, different speeds on ships in fleet i not the greatest idea ever. I think the fleet usually moves at the speed of the slowest member, though?

I use the above when I want to use more than one fleet for something. Typically assault strong planetary defenses. Send the forces to a common system, then start the attack.

Jumping into the enemy system is hopeless. Ships will jump at and follow targets, including the freighter sitting between the spaceport and the defensive base.

You can try to keep the stance at "only when attacked", but then an enemy frigate take a pot shot at you fleet leader, then jumps to spaceport, your fleet leader follows, and the fleet follows... You can make the feet hover if you give them a new order more often than their hyperdrive jump speed. I sometimes spam frequent move and attack orders on the first arrivals, to attack ships jumping at them, and avoid jumping at the powerful defenses in the system.

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 5:31:54 PM   
adamsolo


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

Howto: Manual control. You may have to set the stance defensive and the range minimal if you have issue with the fleet running off on your own.



I'm afraid that doesn't work. Even when you're in manual control, and choose "Defend" posture, set range "Homebase", and stance "When attacked", your fleet will still disobey no matter what you do, and decide to jump from your system rendezvous point to nearby enemies, basically going on suicide runs. I tested this just now with a big fleet attacking a pirate hideout.

So, from my experience, the only way to avoid your ships from going kamikaze against enemy space ports and bases (even in full manual control) is to set their design as "Evade or Standoff". However, there doesn't seem to be a way to set a fleet formation for a single battle without changing the behavior globally. Or is there one?

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 5:36:58 PM   
ASHBERY76


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It would be nice to have a fleet option for synchronised fleet arrival.

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 5:38:52 PM   
Bingeling

 

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I have spent the last week playing an AAR, and have not had fleets run away from me once. In all cases when I have this happen, it is the stupid, default, "attack everything anywhere" stance that I have forgotten to change.

So, defensive stance, "defend xxx only". And I can even set home bases without them showing a mind of their own. The only thing I notice is that they head for home whenever getting out of retrofit (and possibly repair). Also freshly constructed fleet leaders go "home", other fleet members always go to leader when he is elsewhere.

That the stances work even when a fleet is not automated, is a different matter. That is plain stupid.

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 5:41:29 PM   
Resan

 

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Wouldn't it work to set the "Default Engagement Stance" to something passive?

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 5:42:20 PM   
Spacecadet

 

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You haven't left Military control to your Advisers have you?

You can throw everything out the window if that's the case, they'll grab what they want and do a they please.



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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 5:46:47 PM   
Erik Rutins

 

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Starting with the "Assemble and Attack" order, which was improved for Shadows, is a good idea. Second point is that is indeed a good idea to not have greatly different speeds in your fleet. The last is indeed managing the stances and postures. With a combination of those, I've been able to get the results I want as well.

With that said, if you guys are still seeing odd behavior despite that I would be happy to investigate further and make sure there is not a bug.

Regards,

- Erik


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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 5:50:54 PM   
Bingeling

 

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Messing with default engagement stances is not something I would do. The general case overrides the special case. The frequent order interrupt is the only way I know to reliably keep a fleet (or ship) sitting in the outskirts of an enemy system.

Apart from the stupid fleet defaults, I have no issues with keeping manual control. I may disagree with refuel reflexes once in a while.

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 5:59:49 PM   
adamsolo


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

I have no issues with keeping manual control.

I, on the other hand, have many issues keeping manual control. I have a save that I can supply where it's Impossible to keep a fleet on a designated spot (at least I can't), irrespective of the posture/stance, range I choose. After a while, probably because they're attacked by enemies, some elements of the fleet leave the rendezvous point and decide to assault the enemy space port on the other side of the system. I tried defend/minimal range/only when attacked and other passive combinations to no effect.

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 6:06:49 PM   
Erik Rutins

 

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Hi Adam,

Please do upload that save file for us per the instructions in the Tech Support forum and we will investigate. I'm guessing whatever you are seeing was the case in Legends as well. In terms of engagement stances, the main thing we did was try to make ships and fleets smarter about not engaging in "lost cause" battles like that. Since the area was worked on, it's possible we made some aspect of it worse while improving others.

Regards,

- Erik


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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 6:11:39 PM   
Bingeling

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: adamsolo

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

I have no issues with keeping manual control.

I, on the other hand, have many issues keeping manual control. I have a save that I can supply where it's Impossible to keep a fleet on a designated spot (at least I can't), irrespective of the posture/stance, range I choose. After a while, probably because they're attacked by enemies, some elements of the fleet leave the rendezvous point and decide to assault the enemy space port on the other side of the system. I tried defend/minimal range/only when attacked and other passive combinations to no effect.

As I have said, keeping ships parked in the same system as enemies require very manual control, and a new order every hyperdrive charge period to prevent them from jumping off.

There are so many scenarios of being baited to the nasty spaceport, that one of them surely happens (chasing enemies is key if the stance is "when attacked only").

Fleet postures may make them take off to different systems, that is avoidable.

To give an example. I want to bust a legendary base, but I want to kill off most of the ships before engaging it. Jump at the star. Keep spamming some "move here" to have them in place. When defenders arrive, tell the whole fleet (fleet selected) to "kill that one". Once it is dead, don't leave them on own initiative, tell the whole fleet with 3300 firepower by 13 cruisers and 3 carriers to "kill that escort". Of if there is no suitable target, tell them to "move here". Make sure that "here" is pretty much where they are, so they don't get the bright idea to use the hyperdrive to get there.

I am not paying much attention to the rest of the galaxy while doing this ;-)

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 6:16:03 PM   
Bingeling

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Hi Adam,

Please do upload that save file for us per the instructions in the Tech Support forum and we will investigate. I'm guessing whatever you are seeing was the case in Legends as well. In terms of engagement stances, the main thing we did was try to make ships and fleets smarter about not engaging in "lost cause" battles like that. Since the area was worked on, it's possible we made some aspect of it worse while improving others.

Regards,

- Erik


I think he speaks of using the Haako 11 gas giant as rendezvous point before attacking the colony defenses around Haako 2. I think it is fair that keeping a fleet parked at Haako 11 in this case is close to impossible without hefty micro management.

If the rendezvous is instead the empty system nearby, it will be no problem. If you can accept some base busting, it is no problem if there are mines and small forces busted in that system either. They will kill what is there, and hang around at fleet leaders. And if the two uniting fleets end up at each their own side of the rendezvous system, it is hardly a massive problem for timing their arrival at the final target.

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 6:21:37 PM   
Speeder

 

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Eric, why not put a stance named "DO NOTHING" where the fleet literally DOES NOTHING unless you tell them to?

Seemly the "bug" is related to combat, you made the combat to be full auto, so you cannot micromanage combat, the problem is that combat is too easy to initiate, and thus frequently you lose control of your ships.

You really need a way to tell ship to DO NOTHING, even if they are a sitting duck getting hit by a pea shooter.

I am getting really annoyed that no matter what I do, I am never able to really assemble the fleet, and individual ships do what they want (and usually what they want is commit suicide, or kill the team, in the form of jumping to enemy, realising it will die, and jumping out of system, and leave my formation entirely broken as half of my ships jumped out of the system in random directions, and the other half is left behind to take a pounding)

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 6:24:16 PM   
adamsolo


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

quote:

ORIGINAL: adamsolo

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

I have no issues with keeping manual control.

I, on the other hand, have many issues keeping manual control. I have a save that I can supply where it's Impossible to keep a fleet on a designated spot (at least I can't), irrespective of the posture/stance, range I choose. After a while, probably because they're attacked by enemies, some elements of the fleet leave the rendezvous point and decide to assault the enemy space port on the other side of the system. I tried defend/minimal range/only when attacked and other passive combinations to no effect.

As I have said, keeping ships parked in the same system as enemies require very manual control, and a new order every hyperdrive charge period to prevent them from jumping off.

Yes, that's exactly what you need to do to avoid ships jumping off. I mean, issue orders every second or so, so that some don't decide to go kamikaze on the space port (Not yet dummy!!). Is that acceptable/fun behavior?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bingeling
There are so many scenarios of being baited to the nasty spaceport, that one of them surely happens (chasing enemies is key if the stance is "when attacked only").

The thing is, you can set "when attacked only" or "nearby enemies only" or "system targets". But what about a "don't engage stance"? That would solve it, no?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bingeling
To give an example. I want to bust a legendary base, but I want to kill off most of the ships before engaging it. Jump at the star. Keep spamming some "move here" to have them in place. When defenders arrive, tell the whole fleet (fleet selected) to "kill that one". Once it is dead, don't leave them on own initiative, tell the whole fleet with 3300 firepower by 13 cruisers and 3 carriers to "kill that escort". Of if there is no suitable target, tell them to "move here". Make sure that "here" is pretty much where they are, so they don't get the bright idea to use the hyperdrive to get there.

Yes, that's a lot of "move here", "attack there". I mean, it's like playing Starcraft. Select all, attack, next, attack, move, attack (prey some don't jump off to the spaceport). Ooops 4 escorts jumped, sh*t. Move again, attack again. Seriously?

Is it just me, or the game needs a "don't engage" stance. Then you can move and attack, and move again to your hearts content, but at least you don't have ships jumping to the space port every 3 seconds!

But, there's the other thing. I want my attack fleet escorts to evade while attacking the spaceport. Is the only way to achieve this to alter the design to "Evade", save, attack, destroy, and then set the design back to "All weapons"? But then, I just set all escorts in the empire to evade. That means my escorts are evading attackers some other battle somewhere else...


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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 6:29:54 PM   
Bingeling

 

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I think it is acceptable that camping in a system with an enemy is not supported. A "shoot how much you feel like, but never, ever move" stance could be useful for those of us that are stubborn.

You can gather your forces in deep space too...

You can set your escort designs to "evade stronger targets", but I guess you want them to shoot at cruisers, destroyers and such in most cases?

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 6:37:58 PM   
ASHBERY76


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Set range system and engagement stance system stopped fleets moving in Legends.

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 6:38:27 PM   
adamsolo


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

I think it is acceptable that camping in a system with an enemy is not supported. A "shoot how much you feel like, but never, ever move" stance could be useful for those of us that are stubborn.

No, it would be useful to those of us who like to have control over their gameplay, the battles in this case.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bingeling
You can set your escort designs to "evade stronger targets", but I guess you want them to shoot at cruisers, destroyers and such in most cases?

Exactly. That's the problem. Sometimes you want escorts to attack cruisers and other times you want them to evade space ports. But, you can only set a global "Evade" stronger opponents option. So, the only way is to change the global design to "Evade" and then get it back to "All weapons". I would prefer a fleet option saying: "Fleet posture: Standoff", and then, everybody on that fleet would "Standoff" and attack from long range. This way I wouldn't need to affect all Escorts in the Empire when changing the design settings.

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 6:51:38 PM   
Bingeling

 

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Distant worlds don't support micro managing fleets much. It is a rather tedious process to do a clean landing near the enemy for instance (they love to circle the targeted spot). Maybe if you give individual orders to fleet members...

To get the escort behavior you want, multiple fleet layers could be a good thing. And in more cases than this as well. One main fleet, and several sub fleets. You could tell the main fleet to "attack nasty spaceport", and then the subfleet of your escorts to "move over there". Defensive coverage would also be beautiful if the subfleets could have separate bases, and "return to base" made them spread out a bit.

Real armies have several layers of command for a reason :)

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 7:06:25 PM   
adamsolo


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

Distant worlds don't support micro managing fleets much. It is a rather tedious process to do a clean landing near the enemy for instance (they love to circle the targeted spot). Maybe if you give individual orders to fleet members...

To get the escort behavior you want, multiple fleet layers could be a good thing. And in more cases than this as well. One main fleet, and several sub fleets. You could tell the main fleet to "attack nasty spaceport", and then the subfleet of your escorts to "move over there".

You know, I did just that actually. I ended up having the "escort fleet" and the "frigate long range standoff fleet" when attacking a rival pirate space port. First fleet attacks patrols, or goes some place else, second goes after the pirate space port. The thing didn't work very well though. As my escorts had "All Weapons", eventually they headed to the space port as well, and died. The only way to avoid this, again, is to change the global design settings for a particular ship design, but then you're back into the situation where you need to constantly change it to adapt to a particular circumstance.

So, while divide to conquer is great, managing more than one fleet at once while attacking a single target creates an additional layer of complexity, where you have to instruct two fleets with consecutive commands instead of just one. It didn't work, but maybe that's something you improve with time.

So, I see that DW doesn't support fleets and combat micro much, like you say. Defense-wise, fleets seems to work very well. But when attacking, all hell breaks loose. I guess we'll have to live with that, for now.

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 7:10:35 PM   
Bingeling

 

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This is a game that assumes that attacks are very point and click. "Attack that spaceport". The fleet does that. If you make a fleet of all capitals and some carriers, this works quite well. Especially if the carriers are heavily shielded and armored.

Once you have an opinion of how to attack stuff, micromanagement enters the scene.

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 7:14:37 PM   
adamsolo


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Hi Adam,

Please do upload that save file for us per the instructions in the Tech Support forum and we will investigate. I'm guessing whatever you are seeing was the case in Legends as well. In terms of engagement stances, the main thing we did was try to make ships and fleets smarter about not engaging in "lost cause" battles like that. Since the area was worked on, it's possible we made some aspect of it worse while improving others.

Regards,

- Erik



I sent the save:

- "Space Sector Vigilants 2103-07-12__manual_fleet_disobeys_stance_attacks_pirate_base.zip"
- "Space Sector Vigilants 2103-07-12__manual_fleet_disobeys_stance_attacks_pirate_base.txt"

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 7:17:37 PM   
adamsolo


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

This is a game that assumes that attacks are very point and click. "Attack that spaceport". The fleet does that. If you make a fleet of all capitals and some carriers, this works quite well. Especially if the carriers are heavily shielded and armored.

Once you have an opinion of how to attack stuff, micromanagement enters the scene.


Well, this is the Age of Shadows now, remember? Pirates don't have the luxury of "all capitals and some carriers" ;) Pirate strongholds are still quite tough, and we have to live with escorts and frigates for most of the Age of Shadows game, because research is Very slow.

\Edit: And having "glass made" pirate bases/fortresses (the only way to boost research), destroyed in a blink of an eye (at the moment) doesn't help either.


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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/25/2013 7:39:37 PM   
Bingeling

 

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When the pirate bugs are sorted, I expect to see proper pirates again, not the wimpy bunch currently roaming the galaxy Human players are not the only ones hit by vulnerable structures.

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/26/2013 5:02:37 AM   
elliotg


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Hi all

Just adding some thoughts to this: in Shadows we did improve the Assemble and Attack mission - fleets will now always properly sync before attacking when using this command. If some ships in a fleet have hyperdrives that charge up sooner (i.e. shorter time to initiate a jump) then they may arrive slightly earlier than other ships, but nothing too major.

I think we can probably work some more on beefing up engagement stances, and making them work more intuitively. So I'll take a look at that, but might not be until 3rd patch or so.

Thanks
Elliot

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/26/2013 11:02:41 AM   
adamsolo


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quote:

ORIGINAL: elliotg

I think we can probably work some more on beefing up engagement stances, and making them work more intuitively. So I'll take a look at that, but might not be until 3rd patch or so.



Awesome. May I ask what are your thoughts on the possibility of a "do not engage" (whatever happens) stance? Would that be inline with your design vision? Or, is that something that you think would make sense, and it just didn't get in yet? I think it makes sense, and would be useful, but that's probably because of my playstyle (I like to micromanage my main fleets heavily). So, what do you (and others) think about this?


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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/26/2013 11:22:48 AM   
feelotraveller


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The 'do not engage' option already exists, at least as a default stance.  Unfortunately you can only apply it empire wide at the moment. 

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RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/26/2013 12:13:17 PM   
adamsolo


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quote:

ORIGINAL: feelotraveller

The 'do not engage' option already exists, at least as a default stance.  Unfortunately you can only apply it empire wide at the moment. 


Ok. With your help, feelotraveller (and by re-reading Resan's and Bingeling's posts - particularly when Resan says "Wouldn't it work to set the "Default Engagement Stance" to something passive?" and Bingeling says "The general case overrides the special case"), I finally found a way to keep my fleets from disobeying my stance orders when playing fully manual. It's not intuitive, as Elliot said above (and now I understand what he meant), but I just tested it, and it works. And, I think I may have found a bug on the process.

The solution is to be found on "Empire Settings->Default Engagement Stances". The game's default (after you install it) is "Engage system targets" for all types of missions (escort, patrol, others), if I'm not mistaken. What happens is that, even if you set a fleet's stance in-game to, let's say, "engage when attacked", when some event happens (an enemy attacks your ships for example), the game reverts the stance to the one set on the global "Default Engagement Stances" settings. So, the game overrides the manual controlled fleet's stance from "engage when attacked" (what I wanted them to do and keep doing) to "engage system targets" (the default I had on the settings).

So, the "bug", I think, is that the game overrides the manual-set stance to the default global one after some event happens, in the example case above, when someone attacked me, the fleet's stance reverted to the game's default (engage system targets), and so, some "rogue" ships decided to go "kamikaze", not because of my orders but because that was what the game has instructed them to do. In my opinion, because I like to have full control of things, I think the game shouldn't override the manually-controlled fleet's stances unless the fleet is set to automated.

So, the solution to achieve a "do not engage" stance (not a specific option at the moment), to force your fleets to follow a stance religiously, is to set the "Empire Settings->Default Engagement Stances" to "no default stance" and then set each fleet to the stance you prefer for each. So, while a "do not engage" stance is not available in the game yet, there is an indirect way to achieve it.

But, please be advised that this solution is for people who like to micromanage their fleets, who like to have full control and play manual. If you like to leave all your fleets automated, you should probably leave the default engagement settings to "engage system targets" or "engage nearby enemies", as the game currently has as default. But, even if you leave your defensive fleets automated, I imagine that you'd want to manually control your attack fleet(s) still, and for that case the only solution I have for you, to have full control over the stances, is to set the "Empire Settings->Default Engagement Stances" to "no default stance".

So, a simple solution, in my view, would be NOT to revert a manually-controlled fleet's stance to the default (as the game does now), but to keep it at the stance the player decided in the first place, and keep that stance religiously. When/if the player decides to re-automate the fleet later, that fleet may assume the default engagement stance by then, but not (never) when it's still in manual mode.

Sorry for the long post, but I shared the OP's frustration of not being able to have full control of my (attack) fleets, and witnessing my fleets going rogue. I hope this has helped him. This discussion has certainly helped me have more fun with the game, and certainly understand it better.

< Message edited by adamsolo -- 5/26/2013 12:42:52 PM >


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(in reply to feelotraveller)
Post #: 29
RE: How I assemble a fleet into a enemy system? - 5/26/2013 3:56:28 PM   
Erik Rutins

 

Posts: 37503
Joined: 3/28/2000
From: Vermont, USA
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Yes - I think we made fleet control very flexible and customizable in Legends, but between the stances, postures and design settings a lot of folks are confused now. Our main goal when we have time to do another pass on this will be to simplify and make the controls more intuitive without removing player flexibility.

We'll check on that override of manual settings.

Regards,

- Erik


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(in reply to adamsolo)
Post #: 30
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