Fleet Movement - how do we control this?

from Sins Forums
Played some more of the BETA last night.
I have been right clicking on the correct button to choose - hold ground, gravity well or local area style attack radius.
Been getting used to jumping in with groups of ships together, its a little hard to control the fleet if its more than a few ships. A lot of micro is needed for any tactics.

Thats ok, but what would be better are some basic formations. My main gripe is that I lose control of my ships if I want them to attack, they move off on their own, dogfight style. That ok like I said, but sometimes I want to regiment things, I like to see HW2 style formations that do not break easily, supporting each other and firing at the right targets. That way I can actually utilise the ships in the way their role intended them.
Fighters also suffer from this problem, however you can at least dock them. but you have no control over whether they fly cap or offensive sweeps.

Is this planned for the final version? Or any other fleet control methods?
Or perhaps I am missing something.
24,564 views 17 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Apparently there will be some new fleet control features added in an upcoming patch.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
With shield mitigation, fighters going in formation would probably be counter productive. To control their movements however, you do have options right now. You can waypoint them to a ship which is supposed to make them act as a sort of guard and only defend locally, I have not tried it myself however and it may have been an overly vague explanation of the following. You can set their stance independant of the carriers, they will default to following them around until they engage someone, and then return. Aside from specifically moving them somewhere else. Thus fighters on local defense would only defend locally, not spanning the entire well, fighters on hold would sit there looking stupid till something got in range of them. This can be done with all ships, not just fighters. A capital ship with a fleet on local defense set as a guard will move about doing whatever it is you have it doing, and the fleet will stick nearby. Still a pretty big range, but better than nothing.

It's definitely not functional formations or anything, but something is better than nothing.
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
We haven't been told if it's coming in a beta patch, but we do know the devs are working on a fleet manager, and more formation control has been brought up as being related.

That said, we probably won't be seeing on the fly formation changing like in Homeworld.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
I will look forward to the changes. Will hepefully make a large fleet look cool and be worth having as a functional entity.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
I guess I wasn't clear when I first brought this up but there is no "Fleet Manager" per se. There is a tactical manager that has a couple different buttons (check my original post for details). One of those buttons is a create fleet button that allows you to put your currently selected ships into a fleet which means they will stick together and behave as a unit. I'm bringing this up because the name "Fleet Manager" suggests it does more then it does. Nonetheless, the option to put things into a fleet is very handy and the other tactical options are also very useful.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
The post I was thinking of was one where you guys just brought up the thoughts about implementing something like it and were considering what exactly it would encompass I suppose my post was also unclear as I didn't mean to say we'd would be able to put ships in whatever formations we want. Actually, I always assumed pretty much just what you said, that it would allow a fleet to fly in formation, that is cobalts wouldn't be suicidal maniacs while everything else stays behind and laughs at them getting shredded
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Blair, this is exactly what I am looking for.
I just wanted the ships to act as a cohesive unit. Any extra formations and tactical options will be a bonus.

Like I said, its more about the fleet dispersing and acting as singular units, theirfore getting picked off without great micromanagement.
Its also about targetting and fleet balance, as I said at the moment things like Flak frigates are virtually useless. The AI uses them as heavy hitters and when they wonder off they get picked off, these kind of support ships should be attacked to fleets that stick together to allow their specialised abilities to be used the way intended.

Great stuff and good support from you Blair.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
What's the difference between putting ships in a fleet and assigning them to a group with ctrl-#?

I'm confused... lol

-Avarice-
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Well, when you assign them to a group, that just means you can select all of them with one push of a button, but each ship still acts individually.

With the tactical manager allowing you to create a "fleet", it means you'll be able to move all the ships as a single unit.. they would all move at uniform speed, and more importantly they would all move together. It would sort of be like some other RTS games do, you control a 'squad', which is made up of us several individual units Also the case with fighters/bombers in Sins.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Ah ok I see now.

Sounds interesting, wonder what the pros and cons are going to be with fleet vs single units.

I'd assume the entire fleet will absorb the dmg, which may be considered a plus vs losing a single unit, but I like to micro my wounded units out of combat..forcing the enemy to chase or pick new targets.


-Avarice-
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

I'd assume the entire fleet will absorb the dmg, which may be considered a plus vs losing a single unit, but I like to micro my wounded units out of combat..forcing the enemy to chase or pick new targets.
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No, I don't think so. The "fleet" would just be to get them to stay together, and work as a group.
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
We actually wanted to make the "Ctrl-#" method a shortcut to creating fleets but felt that the expected behavior of that operation is just too established to mess with.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

We actually wanted to make the "Ctrl-#" method a shortcut to creating fleets but felt that the expected behavior of that operation is just too established to mess with.
End of quote


LOL
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
Fleet = move at the speed of the slowest unit in the group then?

That feature is in plenty of other rts games as a simple toggle for a ctrl group.

I was imagining something entirely different...if I'm still wrong then forget it lol I'll find out when it's part of the game.

-Avarice-
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
Well that won't be the only feature of the tactical manager, we'll just have to see
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top

That feature is in plenty of other rts games as a simple toggle for a ctrl group.
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Really? Most of them require the use of another key, not the Ctrl key... at least, most of the ones I've played.
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
He's probably thinking of SupCom specifically, where ctrl-# assigns a group, and ctrl+click puts them in formation and moves them as a unit.