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[orost]

AI on escort assignment tends to stay to the sides of their escortee, which is normally good, but fails completely when the ship in question uses broadsides. Turning a Conquest to the side causes the escorting ships to swing around, getting in between the Conquest and the enemy. Meanwhile, escorts on the other side swing back behind the Conquest, becoming unable to provide fire support.

Since the Escort assigment is the only way to make ships stay in formation, it makes using a Conquest in a fleet context very difficult whenever a cohesive formation is needed. Amassing large amounts of command points and micromanaging the escorts is necessary. Perhaps an AI hint that indicates that a ship is designed for broadsides/circling engagements and that its orientation should be interpreted differently is in order?

[Alex]

That's a fair point, but I don't think escorts staying in front or behind the Conquest would be without its own issues. What it boils down to, I think, is the Conquest is not a good ship to be escorted. Maybe one escort behind... hm.

[Wyvern]

Or maybe calibrate "beside" based on direction from Conquest to its target*, rather than the literal facing of the ship?

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*Or, if lacking a target, some sort of weighted average of nearby enemy ships' locations?

[senor]

Or maybe calibrate "beside" based on direction from Conquest to its target*, rather than the literal facing of the ship?

_____
*Or, if lacking a target, some sort of weighted average of nearby enemy ships' locations?

this seems like a good solution actually.

[orost]

@Alex

You're right that the Conquest isn't a good target for an excort, but unfortunately the only way to keep a fleet from spreading all over the battlefield without locking it in place is to assign it to escort the flagship.

Perhaps a general "stay in formation" order would be helpful? We already have "Full retreat" and "Search & Destroy", this would be another of this type, ordering ships to stick together and roughly maintain distance from each other. It wouldn't be necessary to use the Escort command for this not quite intended purpose then.

[Gothars]

Or maybe calibrate "beside" based on direction from Conquest to its target*, rather than the literal facing of the ship?

Then again, the nature of a ship with two broadsides is that it can have two main targets at the same time... while moving in a third direction. That, combined with the high turn rate of the Maneuvering Thrusters, makes it really hard to escort a Conquest.

Maybe if the escort distance were increased significantly?

Perhaps a general "stay in formation" order would be helpful? We already have "Full retreat" and "Search & Destroy", this would be another of this type, ordering ships to stick together and roughly maintain distance from each other. It wouldn't be necessary to use the Escort command for this not quite intended purpose then.

That sounds very interesting. Ships pretty much search&destroy as a default now, this could be a reversal of that behavior.

[Alex]

Or maybe calibrate "beside" based on direction from Conquest to its target*, rather than the literal facing of the ship?

_____
*Or, if lacking a target, some sort of weighted average of nearby enemy ships' locations?

It's a possibility. The thing is, these types of AI behaviors take a *very* long time to get working right. I actually messed with the escort AI for about a day this past release and ended up backing out the changes. The math for figuring out where a good place to be is relatively simple, but the problem is making ships get there within the constraints of time, their maneuverability, current threats, not getting in each other's way, etc. Basically, pathing with complications.

Perhaps a general "stay in formation" order would be helpful? We already have "Full retreat" and "Search & Destroy", this would be another of this type, ordering ships to stick together and roughly maintain distance from each other. It wouldn't be necessary to use the Escort command for this not quite intended purpose then.

In theory, sure, but it's the same sort of thing as the above. Actually, if I did manage to find time to dedicate to this, I'd probably rather go for a generally-better escort behavior, since it covers both use cases.

[SafariJohn]

For my Vigilance fleet, the way I discovered to bunch them up is to order an Assault or Defend command about halfway across the battlefield and to one side or the other, then canceling it once they were nice and bunched. Seems to work well; I generally don't have ships wandering off and dying alone.


I do think it would be cool to see ships fighting in tight formations with proper unit cohesion. I could give examples of what I mean from the Greek Hoplites to the Roman Legions to medieval pike troops and beyond. I would love to see at least some fleets working with that level of discipline.

It would allow heavy differentiation of a well-trained fleet from a bunch of pirates.
A squadron of Hegemony Lashers overlap their shields in a semicircle to protect themselves from several Pirate Buffalo Mk. 2s' first wave of missiles, then move into a line formation, concentrating their firepower to blow the Buffalos apart one at a time.
I doubt we'll ever get anything like that, but I can dream.