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[Jo Jo]

I'll often attempt to use a couple points on a battlemap to form my fleet into something resembling a formation in battle.

With three or more points distributed among my gunboats for fighting and defending on the line. Rear line points for support ships and carriers. And points on the wing if not just nav satellites and such with small skirmishers assigned to potentially flank the enemies blob or to simply control the enemies skirmishers.

At least once or twice I have successfully drawn much of an enemy fleet into one of the bottom corners of the map before unleashing a reserve force to attack the enemies rear with.... mixed but usually good results.

Catching otherwise safe enemy missile or carrier ships where they might have otherwise been protected by gunboats is always a great feeling. And if the enemy fleet tries to readjust to meet the flankers your line can be moved up, or even set free to assault the less then prepared enemy.

Basically I often try to fight fleet battles like they were ancient army battles with infantry, skirmishers, and cavalry which seeing as this is a 2d game works rather well! I mean you COULD do that in a 3d game but I find even then how well such tactics work can be a bit iffy. Never could get my head around homeworld.

Great info, and a good reminder that we can assign various ships to control groups and give them orders to move to and defend certain points! I feel like someone trying to ride a unicycle for the first time, being glad I'm able to stand while reading strategy and advice posts on this forum are akin to me watching a juggler on a unicycle flying by without a care in the world. Pretty steep learning curve between being able to fight and to fight well while not piloting your own ship. Thanks again!

[Flying Dice]

The bottom line is that with AI-commanded ships up to ~light cruisers (think Falcon/Fury/&c.) you're not going to avoid losses. Starsector AI is flat-out not good enough to keep flimsier ships alive. It only starts to be reliable with well-armored midline cruisers like the Eagle; even high-tech capitals will occasionally get popped when the AI misjudges the flux war.

Your best bet for minimizing losses while you're faffing about with wolfpacks of frigates, since you're not going to take the most effective route of commanding and killing things yourself, is to reduce risks. Don't go after anything with ships larger than low-tech destroyers, and focus your own fleet around things which are durable (Monitor/Brawler/Centurion) or dangerous (Hyperion/Wolf/Tempest/Lasher). Get through the frigate phase as fast as possible -- normally I'd suggest a cruiser purchase ASAP to give you a flagship that'd allow you to punch way outside your weight, but a single AI-directed cruiser is going to die fast. Instead, repeat the process with durable/hard-hitting destroyers until you have 3-4 of those, then start acquiring cruisers.

The skill combo of Officer Management + Field Repairs for you and Damage Control/Reliability Engineering + Impact Mitigation on your officers is going to help a lot in the long run, but you're still going to take losses frequently even with the best possible AI personalities and doctrines that others have already outlined coupled with durability cap fleets.

[Jo Jo]

The bottom line is that with AI-commanded ships up to ~light cruisers (think Falcon/Fury/&c.) you're not going to avoid losses. Starsector AI is flat-out not good enough to keep flimsier ships alive. It only starts to be reliable with well-armored midline cruisers like the Eagle; even high-tech capitals will occasionally get popped when the AI misjudges the flux war.

Your best bet for minimizing losses while you're faffing about with wolfpacks of frigates, since you're not going to take the most effective route of commanding and killing things yourself, is to reduce risks. Don't go after anything with ships larger than low-tech destroyers, and focus your own fleet around things which are durable (Monitor/Brawler/Centurion) or dangerous (Hyperion/Wolf/Tempest/Lasher). Get through the frigate phase as fast as possible -- normally I'd suggest a cruiser purchase ASAP to give you a flagship that'd allow you to punch way outside your weight, but a single AI-directed cruiser is going to die fast. Instead, repeat the process with durable/hard-hitting destroyers until you have 3-4 of those, then start acquiring cruisers.

The skill combo of Officer Management + Field Repairs for you and Damage Control/Reliability Engineering + Impact Mitigation on your officers is going to help a lot in the long run, but you're still going to take losses frequently even with the best possible AI personalities and doctrines that others have already outlined coupled with durability cap fleets.

All great info. I had to look up quite a few terms to make sure I understood, though I absolutely get what you're saying. I have access to the wolf and the lasher, and both tend to die quite easily in the AI's hands when going up against the 300k bounty fleets. Maybe it's time to try the more durable frigates and see what happens. BTW, I have not run into either a monitor or a centurion yet, though both look quite nice. I have had some luck with a brawler much earlier in the current playthrough, though I can see why you didn't place them in the "dangerous" category. I've seen them as more of a tough decoy than an enemy AI killer. Thanks for the advice!

[Flying Dice]

I can see why you didn't place them in the "dangerous" category. I've seen them as more of a tough decoy than an enemy AI killer.

A lot of that comes down to the build. A standard Brawler running the Safety Overrides + HMG + Assault Chaingun build is pretty nasty, or Safety Overrides + 2x Heavy Blaster on the TT variant. The main problem with it is the low speed, so SO is pretty much essential.

[Jo Jo]

I can see why you didn't place them in the "dangerous" category. I've seen them as more of a tough decoy than an enemy AI killer.

A lot of that comes down to the build. A standard Brawler running the Safety Overrides + HMG + Assault Chaingun build is pretty nasty, or Safety Overrides + 2x Heavy Blaster on the TT variant. The main problem with it is the low speed, so SO is pretty much essential.

Thanks for the tips. I'll have to experiment a bit with them when I can find a couple.