Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Author Topic: How I tell my ships to not suicide?  (Read 1536 times)

speeder

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 364
    • View Profile
How I tell my ships to not suicide?
« on: April 04, 2020, 11:51:26 PM »

So... got attacked by a ridiculously larger force (they had I think 80 capital ships? nevermind smaller ones...)

So I decided to use new "disengage" mechanic, so I grabbed my best ships, parked them all near the bottom of the map telling them to defend a point there and slowly chipped away the enemy fleet.

It worked perfectly... until one captain at each side of my fleet, decided it was great idea to split off and wander off, the arrows on the map still showed them "going" toward the spot I told to defend, yet they both decided it was great idea to fight alone... one of them ended having to fight 4 onslaughts at same time, I manually clicked that guy, told him to go back, instead he used his ship special to jump into one of the onslaughts and got himself killed instantly.

Thing is, guy wasn't reckless, none of my captains are, yet this happens often, they just... lose track of what they were supposed to do and wander around.

So any way to fix it? Also, any way to tell my ships  to keep a formation? Another issue is the opposite: a few times had some of my fleet ships that can phase decide that the best course of action is phase in front of my artillery line of fire, or outright phase into the middle of my formation and get killed by collision damage with my own ships.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile
Re: How I tell my ships to not suicide?
« Reply #1 on: April 05, 2020, 07:31:07 AM »

Escort has the tightest leash.  Pick a slow ship, or maybe a pure carrier that is inclined to avoid enemies, as the leader ship and order it to rally or defend a point.  Select everyone else to escort that ship.

Also, rally points cannot be set closer than one big square to the edge, which is still too far away from the edge.  (Enemies have enough room to surround ships.)  My loophole to this is to tell my slow leader ship to escort me, and I park near the edge to force my fleet to camp at the edge (enough so enemies cannot surround my fleet, plus quick retreats when needed), since the game makes it impossible to assign points at the edge.
Logged

Mordodrukow

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 275
    • View Profile
Re: How I tell my ships to not suicide?
« Reply #2 on: April 05, 2020, 08:49:28 AM »

Three orders i m using most often are: 1) escort me; 2) retreat (personal); 3) full attack.

Retreat overrides any other orders (works 95% of the time).
Logged
Spoiler
[close]

Kpop

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 87
    • View Profile
Re: How I tell my ships to not suicide?
« Reply #3 on: April 05, 2020, 05:21:33 PM »

Like Megas said, escort is your friend here. You can either sit back and micromanage your fleet not engaging in combat yourself to try to avoid situations where one ship gets drawn in, surrounded and picked apart, or use escort orders to make sure your ships always have another ship with them.

It doesn't have much to do with if an officer is reckless or timid, they will still fall into that trap. Whether they are pressing the attack and get cut off or are constantly backing up until they back into enemies surrounding them, the result is the same.

In modded, there are some ships with certain systems that will make them overly aggressive regardless of the officers temperament  as well(I'm looking at you pirate castella).
« Last Edit: April 05, 2020, 05:24:13 PM by Kpop »
Logged

Daynen

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 413
    • View Profile
Re: How I tell my ships to not suicide?
« Reply #4 on: April 06, 2020, 06:17:02 PM »

Escort will always keep ships from wandering off, though you have to be mindful of the other consequences--namely, if the enemy focuses a ship escorting you, it has nowhere to run.  Also use caution with multiple escorts; the last thing you need is for your fleet to be banging shields into each other, stubbornly trying to push past each other.  Furthermore, escort is a weird behavior: yesterday I had three drovers escorting one of my capitals while I split off to flank; one of the drovers followed me instead, even though the tactical screen clearly showed he had orders to stick with the other ship.

One thing I've put into practice is trying to avoid giving your AI ships with burn drives or similar systems.  Anything that pushes the ship forward and disables control is an engraved invitation for your AI ships to dive into stations and capitals headfirst.  "Jump" systems are usually safer because the AI seems to know how to use those to dodge deadly fire and maneuvering thrusters just make it turn to meet the enemy more readily but I've stopped giving my fleet things like Onslaughts when I can remember to.  More than a few times I've had battles signed, sealed and delivered, only to see one of my idiot captains hit his drive, plow right into enemy ranks, get dusted and then be unrecoverable after the battle...and that's if I still manage to win without my now-deceased, probably important ship.  Intensely frustrating.
Logged

Sordid

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 313
    • View Profile
Re: How I tell my ships to not suicide?
« Reply #5 on: April 07, 2020, 06:12:32 AM »

What I do is I just reduce the battle size to where I can deploy my battleship and a carrier to escort me but no more. That way I only have to worry about babysitting one idiot captain, and the enemy fleet can't deploy all at once. Arriving piecemeal, they are easily dispatched.
Logged

Aereto

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 278
    • View Profile
Re: How I tell my ships to not suicide?
« Reply #6 on: April 07, 2020, 10:19:08 PM »

Escort will always keep ships from wandering off, though you have to be mindful of the other consequences--namely, if the enemy focuses a ship escorting you, it has nowhere to run.  Also use caution with multiple escorts; the last thing you need is for your fleet to be banging shields into each other, stubbornly trying to push past each other.  Furthermore, escort is a weird behavior: yesterday I had three drovers escorting one of my capitals while I split off to flank; one of the drovers followed me instead, even though the tactical screen clearly showed he had orders to stick with the other ship.

One thing I've put into practice is trying to avoid giving your AI ships with burn drives or similar systems.  Anything that pushes the ship forward and disables control is an engraved invitation for your AI ships to dive into stations and capitals headfirst.  "Jump" systems are usually safer because the AI seems to know how to use those to dodge deadly fire and maneuvering thrusters just make it turn to meet the enemy more readily but I've stopped giving my fleet things like Onslaughts when I can remember to.  More than a few times I've had battles signed, sealed and delivered, only to see one of my idiot captains hit his drive, plow right into enemy ranks, get dusted and then be unrecoverable after the battle...and that's if I still manage to win without my now-deceased, probably important ship.  Intensely frustrating.

I normally deploy Onslaughts in the field, as they are especially effective tanks against most ships by letting its armor do the work while weapons take up the flux, supported with an attack escort like a Heron or HE-focused Gryphon. Paragons, I keep at least one as the center of the battle line due to its flux tanking and its threat as an anvil to the hammer and anvil tactics. I keep Onslaughts from using burn drive with Escort command until it is time to close in and eliminate specific targets once its escorts are dealt with. I have to be mindful of the DP, as that can affect how many big capitals and supporting escorts I can field.
Logged