Fleet Management Questions (Full Version)

All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Distant Worlds 1 Series



Message

Noble713 -> Fleet Management Questions (1/11/2011 12:51:04 AM)

First off I've been playing for a few months and LOVE DW. As soon as we get tech & component modding I expect it to easily dethrone Space Empires IV as my favorite 4X game of all time.<Kanye> OF ALL TIME!</Kanye>

1. If I manually create my fleets and turn them over to AI control, how does it know to distinguish between "Fleet" and "Strike Force" in terms of actual employment? Is it just # of ships? Right now I'm using 8-9 ship groups, bigger than a Strike Force and smaller than a Fleet.

2. Is there any way to keep certain designs or roles out of my fleets if I let the AI manage them? I pretty much employ attack forces of cruisers and transports, and don't want a bunch of my defense frigates getting roped into an offensive.


My basic problem is that I can't maintain a sufficiently high optempo micromanaging my 6-9 attack squadrons so I'm thinking of automating them and then intervening when necessary. I just want to make sure the AI is using them the way I want (local space superiority and planetary invasions). I've adjusted the focus areas to de-emphasize things like attacking mining stations and it still keeps making suggestions like that, so I'm not sure how effective they'll be.



Noble713 -> RE: Fleet Management Questions (1/19/2011 5:45:02 AM)

*bump*

Really? We don't have a single Subject Matter Expert who can chime in?



lordxorn -> RE: Fleet Management Questions (1/19/2011 6:10:32 AM)

Noble welcome to the DW forums and I am glad you are enjoying the game!

We are all asking for expanded mod support, and Elliot from Codeforce is listening. Will we get what you are asking for, that remains to be seen. Be assured the mod commmunity has already requested this.

As far as your question #1, the game let's you distinguish how many ships go in a Fleet and a Strike force. So as far as a Strike Force this will be more of a hot and run force, where as a fleet would be for major battles and invasions.

Your question #1 also kind of answered number #2, let's say you create a fleet then put it on "Auto". You just in effect chose what designs or roles your fleet is made of. Am I right? If you are giving the AI complete control over ship building and fleet management, then no I don't believe you can dictate what roles or designs go where. I am not the expert in the Auto area because I play on Expert.

The trick to keeping things manageable when we are talking about your military fleet is to compartmentalize the operations. From the start (when you only have tech for escort through destroyer), I put all Escorts and Frigates on Auto. Then I just make sure I expand this part of my Navy as my empire grows to make sure my civilian merchant fleets and bases and stations are being protected. Their designs emphasize speed.

Then I form my Destroyers into fleets, and later Cruiser, Caps, etc. As I acquire more systems, I then will assign a fleet to protect a system and re-base them there. Once I have a good defensive fleet, I then will form two to at most three invasion fleets.

This setup is very manageable, just make sure to keep an eye on your maintenance cost. You may be able to only afford one or two invasion fleets, in this case you can make a judgement call to pull a System Defense fleet off their patrols to temporarily help out with a large enemy fleet.



J HG T -> RE: Fleet Management Questions (1/19/2011 7:42:26 AM)

My general fleets strategy is 2-6 fleets depending on the situation and stage of the game. 2 main fleets in early-mid game. Other attacks, other defends my worlds. 2-4 fleets mid-late game. 2-3 smaller fleets defend and 1-2 bigger fleets attack, depending on how spread my empire is and how's my economy doing. Late game I usually have 2-3 major task forces and 2-4 smaller interceptor fleets. Also, I've got some escorts with ion-cannons and beam weapons (10-50 depending on my economy) auto-patrolling my empire. These tactics have worked out well for me.
Main thing that that controls the size of your fleets is maintenance costs. You can have lots of cheaper ships or smaller amount of souped up, high-tech ships. I use the high tech approach with Kiadians. Even my destroyers can end up quite costly with everything possible installed.
Hope these help you some and welcome to DW. And don't mind the late answer; Threads around here can easily get buried by others sometimes.



hewwo -> RE: Fleet Management Questions (1/19/2011 12:27:01 PM)

I've been playing a bit for the last few days again, and I must say, I find fleet management in general very annoying. Much more difficult than it should be. All kinds of little UI inconsistencies and bigger issues (for instance not being able to merge fleets).

I would make a dedicated post with all my issues, but it's my turn to clean the house today :s



Data -> RE: Fleet Management Questions (1/19/2011 12:44:14 PM)

use an area weapon [:D]



Larsenex -> RE: Fleet Management Questions (1/19/2011 6:09:35 PM)

Data if/when you discover the super area weapon the devastator pulse do you put that on your cruisers and caps? Is that a good idea?

Which is better to put on a cruiser or larger ship? A Devestator Pulse super area or Death Ray super beam weapons? How many of each and would you forgo fighter bays for them?



Data -> RE: Fleet Management Questions (1/19/2011 6:29:05 PM)

actually i was making a joke to hewwo's chores -> "I would make a dedicated post with all my issues, but it's my turn to clean the house today :s"
personally i never used area weapons so as not to damage friendly ships or get in diplomatic problems....but i think i will start to use them defensively on bases



gmot -> RE: Fleet Management Questions (1/19/2011 8:17:15 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: hewwo

I've been playing a bit for the last few days again, and I must say, I find fleet management in general very annoying. Much more difficult than it should be. All kinds of little UI inconsistencies and bigger issues (for instance not being able to merge fleets).



Fleet management is pretty annoying - you should be able to do a lot more managing from the fleet management screen. Like merge, delete, adding new ships to an existing/new fleet, seeing the details on all the ships in your fleet, etc. There were a couple of threads floating around earlier about these fleet UI issues with some suggestions.



lordxorn -> RE: Fleet Management Questions (1/19/2011 8:20:10 PM)

The Ship Listing screen is useful where you can filter military ships and add any ship to any fleet from there.



gmot -> RE: Fleet Management Questions (1/19/2011 8:27:25 PM)

Yes, that's what I use, but it seems odd that you can't do all this fleet mgmt stuff from the fleet mgmt screen.

But if push came to shove, I'd rather have new features than changes to this. Of course being a greedy gamer I'd rather have it all anyways...



hewwo -> RE: Fleet Management Questions (1/19/2011 9:36:59 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: gmot

Fleet management is pretty annoying - you should be able to do a lot more managing from the fleet management screen. Like merge, delete, adding new ships to an existing/new fleet, seeing the details on all the ships in your fleet, etc. There were a couple of threads floating around earlier about these fleet UI issues with some suggestions.


Yeah, I've seen those. I really hope all these suggestions are implemented. Using the ship listing is tedious. But what I find MUCH more important is that the actual ordering around of fleets is so inconsistent and annoying. Sometimes a bullseye will appear, sometimes not. Sometimes I can cue orders, sometimes not. etc. etc.


I guess I'll keep whining in the forums till Elliot notices :D




Data -> RE: Fleet Management Questions (1/19/2011 10:09:15 PM)

i think we can say for sure that he noticed already but as gmot very well put it "if push came to shove, I'd rather have new features than changes to this"
so i'm even more please when i see Elliot giving attention to all facets of the game at the same time - we don't get only modding improvments or bug fixes or feature improvments or new features, etc, etc
we get some on all of them with each patch so you never know what will happen next but you always know everything is on the table
don't know about you guys but this keeps me very immersed in this game.....i found my new monomania (after the moomania) for a long time to come



Page: [1]

Valid CSS!




Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition 2.4.5 ANSI
1.15625