Ship->Fleet auto-join protocol...any way to control it more easily?

from Sins Forums
Hi I have the game a few days, and running into newbish problems with fleet control:

I constantly find problems with the way my ships auto-join fleets, and I wondering is there more ways to control how it works that I dont know of?

Here are some of the issues I get:

(I have a small "garrison" fleet defending a planet which has a frig factory that I use to refresh this fleet if they suffer losses. This works fine as long as theres no other fleets in the sector. But often I might need to bring my Main fleet there either to assist defense, or simply to refresh the main fleet.
But now I find the reinforcement ships built will join the wrong fleet half the time, especially since I may want to refresh both seperately. EG: If I need to build 3 rep LCs for the garrison, and 2 rep LCs for the main.

Ideally I will try to first click the factorys rally spot onto the fleet I want them to join, then queue the 3 LCs for that fleet, once they are built and joined up, I change the rally spot to the other fleet, and queue its 2 LCs......

..but this doesnt work :(
The built ships will move to the rally point I choose, but then will "reform fleet" back to the wrong fleet. So I end up forced to manually select all the ones who went to the wrong fleet, then tell them to leave fleet, then spam each of them to turn off "fleet-autojoin" before they all go right back into the wrong fleet yet again, and then shift-add-target the correct fleet to this selection of new ships, and then....click the create fleet button to make a brand new replacement fleet containing the correct ships.


So my first question is , is there any way to pre-assign a shipyard onto a specific fleet , or can you only set them to rally to that fleet(and hope they dont join a diff fleet in the process)

Then my second question is, is there a way to tell a selected group of ships, to join a specific existing fleet, without using the method above of selecting the old fleet+new ships+creating a new fleet

Thirdly, is there any way to just globally turn off the fleet-auto join, so that you can at least just build the ships , and afterwards tell them where to go/join(without them automatically spawning with "auto-join" turned on, and thus wandering off into the wrong fleets before you notice.

Lastly, is there any way to turn on auto-join for the scout ships (these guys are the opposite problem , refusing to join existing nearby fleets :p )
strategy
9,510 views 19 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Lastly, is there any way to turn on auto-join for the scout ships
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Select the fleet management icon, then right click the create fleet icon.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
So my first question is , is there any way to pre-assign a shipyard onto a specific fleet , or can you only set them to rally to that fleet(and hope they dont join a diff fleet in the process)
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Given what you described, I would say it's a little glitchy. It's true that it sets the waypoint to the fleet leader of that fleet, so you would expect that that's what those ships would join. If it doesn't work that way it sounds like an oversight, but I don't know. There is no other way to do it, however.

If you have a good save where you can easily play with it and show what you mean, go ahead and zip it up and send it to support@ironcladgames.com and describe the undesireable behavior so they can try it themselves. They did change the fleet mechanics a little bit for 1.1, so I imagine since the patch is still in testing there's a decent enough chance for this to be tweaked as well. Couldn't hurt, in any case.

Then my second question is, is there a way to tell a selected group of ships, to join a specific existing fleet, without using the method above of selecting the old fleet+new ships+creating a new fleet
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Not to my knowledge, no.

Thirdly, is there any way to just globally turn off the fleet-auto join, so that you can at least just build the ships , and afterwards tell them where to go/join(without them automatically spawning with "auto-join" turned on, and thus wandering off into the wrong fleets before you notice.
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I'm pretty sure there's a setting in the options somewhere to globally toggle auto-join, but I could be wrong.
Start11 - Customize the Start Menu and Taskbar in Windows 10/11.
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
I'm pretty sure there's a setting in the options somewhere to globally toggle auto-join, but I could be wrong.
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I don't think there is without modding the files.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Or, or, or, you can use the space bar after the production report. Come on daddy needs some karma for Sharon Stone.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
I don't think there is without modding the files.
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You see that's the problem with trying to know everything. I know there's a setting for each ship in its entity file for fleet autojoin by default, but I could've sworn there was a global ingame option too. It's going to drive me nuts until I get home :P
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Same here. I've never looked specifically for an option like that. So until I can check at home...
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
woah woah woah, wait a minute, I don't really see your problems. Look, as I understand it so far, the fleet thingy is just a nice suggestion, or mere cosmetic symbol for your various ships. Therefore, you can just Ctrl assign whatever into a specific group thingy as you may like. And you can do that whenever you like, make a new fleet even. And just in case you don't want somethingy in your group, just fire them by de group the groupies in the fleet management window. Lastly, you want your ship to go "somewhere," right? So auto-join is always beneficial in the greater sense of things.
And umm Sharon Stone harbored 1.5 billion bad karma just b/c she is a idiot, sooooooo karma for Sharon! You can donate some right here...I will turn them into more bad karma for her dumb dumb.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Lastly, you want your ship to go "somewhere," right? So auto-join is always beneficial in the greater sense of things.
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Not always with the fleet the join, though. I'd prefer to have auto-join off and will mod my install accordingly as soon as the 1.09 data is released.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Guess what Kitkun, we were both right! There is a toggle for auto join, like I said. But it's not in options, like you said :)

To toggle it, you have to right click on the create/leave fleet button in the tactical menu.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Well, yes there is that. But you have to do that for each ship, every game.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
I always thought it would be nice to see an auto-join fleet on/off toggle button in the ship factory que's.
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
This is the one aspect of the game that drives me a bit nuts. I experience the same problems and also sometimes ships being produced make their own fleets without me even telling them to (esp. when creating lots of craft after a cap increase).

I think the design is back-to-front. The 'auto-join fleet' option as applies to individual ships doesn't make sense, especially when they invariably go and join the 'wrong' one. It's also too fiddly to control when creating lots of ships. What would be more useful IMO would be to have an 'auto-join me' option which can be applied to an existing fleet.

Then, if there are two or more fleets in the same gravity well, you'd simply turn 'auto-join' on for the fleet you wish new/arriving ships to be added to.

(edit)
Just thought of a potential problem with this approach too, which might be to attract ships which aren't already in a fleet to the 'join me' one. However, this shouldn't affect colony or scout ships (which I don't think can join a fleet..?) Still, I'd rather that happen than the current situation. I understand that the default 'auto-join fleet' ship behaviour has been changed to 'off' in the recent patch, so that will probably make things easier to manage anyway.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
I tried to use the fleet system when i was a beginner, but since ships joins fleets in an odd manner, and since lets say you have your cap ship be the fleet leader, you are bombing a planet, and others ships just sit and watch while there is still enemy structures to destroy, made me forget that crappy fleet management system.

However, I do use group assignation to ships I want to fight together. Although it is limited to 10 groups slots, it is still better than nothing to manage differents ships type more accurately imo.

But mostly I let the ships in no fleet, and then micromanage them.
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
What would be more useful IMO would be to have an 'auto-join me'
option which can be applied to an existing fleet.Then, if there
are two or more fleets in the same gravity well, you'd simply turn
'auto-join' on for the fleet you wish new/arriving ships to be added to.(edit)Just
thought of a potential problem with this approach too, which might be
to attract ships which aren't already in a fleet to the 'join me' one.
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Maybe if you implemented your idea in reverse it would work best. Have an option for "This fleet is full" so prevent any new ships joining it. Then toggle this on all but the chosen fleet to force the new ships go there.

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
Aye, that'd work :)
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
The fleet mechanics tend to favor having a "fleet" of similar craft it seems. So a lot of times I make a Fleet of Carriers, a Fleet of front liners (caps, short range frigates, heavy cruisers, local support cruisers), and a fleet of long range frigates. They tend to both join their groups as I had planned out. They also have the added bonus of speeding up micromanagement of the individual unit types. Especially key for countering 1.09 carriers if you ask me.

Now the only thing I wish was that I could assign keys for the bombers and fighters and lost ones would join that key group in case I need to give them individual assignments. Its a bit of a pain to have to micro them they way they are. Its doable but I do wish for something slightly more efficient.

Mind you in both 1.05 and 1.09 against A.I. I am a carrier spammer. This game can easily be won or lost in the sky. More so with the beta of course.
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top

I too am having serious problems with fleet auto join.  I came here to find out how to turn that useless feature off.  Well at least I can do it for individiual ships.  Sigh.

Actually instead of a global auto join switch, we should be able to click on a button on the factory and turn it off for that factory.  Just like the auto cast buttons for abilities.

As already meantioned if setting the rally point of the factory to a fleet would work as well then that would be great.  If you set it to open space, no auto join.  You set it for a fleet marker, auto join THAT fleet.  That would work too.  Anything is better then the way it is.

Some people mentioned mods, is there a way to mod out fleet autojoin either globally or for ship types?

Now the only thing I wish was that I could assign keys for the bombers and fighters and lost ones would join that key group in case I need to give them individual assignments. Its a bit of a pain to have to micro them they way they are. Its doable but I do wish for something slightly more efficient.
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Not sure what you mean.  If you alt click on a fighter group you select all of the fighter groups at the planet.  Same for bombers or any other ship types.  Is that what you are looking for?

Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top

Some people mentioned mods, is there a way to mod out fleet autojoin either globally or for ship types?
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Yes, each ship entity file has a line for the default autojoin behavior:

autoJoinFleetDefault TRUE

To turn it off, just set it to FALSE. You will have to do it for each ship, though.

Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 18

Some people mentioned mods, is there a way to mod out fleet autojoin either globally or for ship types?
Yes, each ship entity file has a line for the default autojoin behavior:

autoJoinFleetDefault TRUE

To turn it off, just set it to FALSE. You will have to do it for each ship, though.
End of Annatar11's quote

 

Thank you!