Fleet Formations

Its been asked... Its not been answered... yet...

For what it is worth I'm all for formations and task force (TF) options especially if this game is going to be the epic thing we all believe is in its destiny.

I think fleet formations is a must, if done right,

Fleet formations is a must, period. 3D formations, that is.

Yeah I'd love to see formations but especially as Hadley said, just some option to stop all the faster ships tearing off the second they see the enemy leaving your "fleet" scattered all over the place

I think the game is crying out for forced fleet taskforces.Each fleet with a set number of escort,core,mission ships,and high level taskforce orders making fleet battles the core game.The game has no tactical value as it stands.It is lightweight when compared to 4X games MOO2,SEV,ETC in empire building choices, but is also weak in tactical options when compared to Sword of the stars,Homeworld,Nexus,etc.

I feel no control over the battles in a strategic or tactical sence.I just build.

fleet formations that follow way points for patrol !

Indeed more strategy and tactical options are needed direly, as i stated in another post,
you just build ships and hope youre throwing enough metal at the enemy.

Formations, my suggestion in Travel and Solarsystem revamp thread or if not that then
gravwells that are way bigger than theyre now.

Also the 10-30planet systems are ridiculous with small gravwells (the amount is bad too)
Just mass large pile of "metal" and jump, bomb, jump, repeat all steps wins game

+1 for the inclusion of Fleet Formations and moving in formation as an option.

This has been one of my most thought about idea. Currently with the use of weapon range attack and CRAZY micro you can have fleet formations if you want.

I and other have talked about diff. implementations, i.e. templates, but the real issue is the need for said formations to be tactically significant. I'm not so sure it is at this point.

They simply are not possible without excruciating pains and even then once you really try to move and enter combat it all falls apart. As I said before and another commented on in this post the games at its core is about fleet battles, pure and simple. Any augmentations that are done to it needs to flesh this out.

The trick or magic as I see it will be to tie that element to the stars within the game. They are just so damn beautiful and a near total waste of space at the moment.

I truly believe once this marriage happens this game will be well on its way to being all it can be at least in my mind.

Heh, I've got to admit gameplay is pretty much " Throw as many units as you can" into the mix. I know they wanted to remove as much micro-managment as possible, but by simply not giving us easier ways to get upclose and control our ships individually and in small attack forces, or heck in huge fleets is forcing us to do annoying micro-managment which dosn't give any rewards.


Right now - my fleet movement is a very careful mix of stances, If you let them attack everything inside the gravity wall it's chaos - but only letting them engage in weapons range can get them killed when you aren't looking by a long range unit and I'm not sure how big of an area "local" is but it seems to be best.

I'd like to be able to FORCE my units to keep in formations, rather than willy nilly flying about everywhere.

Other things like... Positional damage and such could help aswell, but again I know the game isn't supposed to be about the micro.

I would essentially agree with Spartan's comments on fleet battle.

That being said, using the HW engine as an example (you could use SotS also, but I think HW is more comparable)- even simple formations could be useful. Fighters screening for capital ships, etc... come to mind.

Now, it could be argued that it worked in HW but wouldn't work here for two reasons. First, the gravity well in Sins is a much smaller area compared to the open-ended maps of HW, hence the need for formations being diminished in Sins. I suppose that argument has some merit. The second being that HW had more ship types, and the capital ships in that game were atrocious at point defense, therefore desperately needing the protection offered by certain formations. I would say that argument also has merit.

But I do think the points being brought up about "I just throw my fleets together, they enter a gravity well, and off they go..." are also valid and somewhat concerning. I honestly feel this will get "old" quick, and some tactical control, however little, would go a long way to appease a lot of folks.

I'm rambling a bit, but I hope I'm getting my point across. I like the idea of formations - and if people have a real reason to use them, all the better.

I dont feel the same way, there are times when i'll have my cobalts rush to shotgun the enemy with a burst of fire, the result usually have them turning around leaving them ineffective and exposed, then I release the full power of my fleet etc. on them.
it just takes some getting used to, and hopefully a little amplification by the final release date.
speaking of which...

GASP!!!

a delay... who would have thought...
actually I like delays for final release, it allows things to be refurbished better. but why such a small delay so early on?

I was going to say this.

in general I think we all know what we want: there needs to be more tactical advantage to microing, and with that there needs to be formations.

one of my ideas was to vary up the weapons ranges of ships, rather than having almost all of them be the same. that way you could either choose to skirmish with light weapons at a range, or charge your enemy and fight an intense, but quick, battle. especially the marza, the LRMS and the Kol come to mind...

This is something I think IC should explore further. Nice idea.

Well I sometimes have my ships form an all-singing tap line for the enemy to leave them entertained and pacified! However, this has little to do with me winning 99 times out of 99 and a half. You may send your cobalts in first but i really think youd get the same result or better if you just throw everything at them :/ I actually went and tried doing what you suggest just for fun and you know what happens? The ai isnt fooled by my frigates because they can see the masses of cap ships behind my frigates, and went straight for them.

In my opinion at the moment there really isnt a lot of room for tactics in ship engagements (excluding my tap-line and your frigate screen) and pretending that there is only going to harm the game in the long run, I dont want to "get used to" going to extraordinary lengths of micromanagement to achieve negligible tactical results when instead we can think about ways to add more to improve the situation? (

i usually send missiles and bombers at the cannons, cobalts at the hangers.

caps at the planet/whatever

fighters a flax after bombers and fighters after the bombers are done

and the kodiak depends on if the ai has lots of hangers or not hangers if a lot cannon if few hangers

but that is becouse the ai isn't building any ships at the moment

and the formation breaks up as soon as it enters the grav well

As I said earlier above, THIS HAS BEEN DISCUSSED!
The problem is not that CRAZY micro into fleets give little to no tactical advantage but rather FORMATIONS THEMSELVES give not tactical advantage. If I have a 40 strong block of colbalts in front of my attack LRMs why would anyone stay information against me.
I have thought further and discovered the problem.

Formations generally help when tactical positioning is at a premium. This is not so in open ended 3D space.

Give me a real reason why we need them as of now and then let's talk about how.

Don't get me wrong, I want them to be used and needed. But currently whatever formation you use against me, I will rush right through with complete disregard.

To be honest I think ships take too much damage, and don't blow up fast enough.

If everything became more fragile, with the exception of some cruisers and all capitol ships I believe thinking tactically would be a bit more required.

Also do things have extra vulnrabilities I understand fighters die quickly to flak, but do capitol ships take alot more damage from missle ships or are cruisers alot more vulnrable to bombers ?

I think if counters became alot more clearer people may start thinking a bit more , we might just not exactly know what's more effective.

I understand that on the website it said that the game shouldn't be about micro , that it should be more about what you bring to the fight and using the right combinations. But I do enjoy my upclose and personal ship managment, where sending in a certain squad will save the day or using ambush tactics and assaulting from 3 sides is actually effective.

The problem with making numbers = victory, is that it always results in overproduction = victory, and to produce alot more than your enemies that results in you rushing to colonize planets - which means the person who can spam out more ships, and rush rather than taking his time to carefully plan will always win as he can field a bigger fleet.

I hope that when they do implement formations, they also add modifiers to damage and defense benefits of ships in formation.

This would reflect the increased effectiveness of point-defense abilities and coordinated firing control that fleets enjoy, thereby allowing a significant advantage over uncoordinated spam fleets.

Yeah, lets say we have a formation of cobalts in a close formation, This allows said cobalts to fire faster and have better armour, but to lack range and mobility While a loose formation has slightly decreased attack speed a farther attack range, a chance to dodge shots but weaker armour.

Thats the sort of stuff i want to see. Oh and autocannon turrets too.. i want them, now.

I don't like the idea of wierd artifical buffs to formations , it dosn't make much sense and is much too "fantasy" for me. It's a poor mechanica aswell, which is only put in for a subsitute for decent gameplay.

What formations should do is simple

If you've got weak Missle boats, they are placed at the rear aswell . They've got superior range but weak armour, so they need protection.

Flak ships can keep between the larger ships to provide firepower and fend off from raiding bombers.

Cobalts form the main fighting force at the centre, with heavy cruisers at the sides to stop the enemy from flanking.

While the Capitol ship is just behind the main force of cobalts providing firepower, and range buffs to all ships around.

That sort of formation dosn't need silly artifical buffs, it compliments each ships ability with the other. To make using such formation useful just make it so the enemy can't fire through the frontline of cobalts, and can't simply fly through your formation, as they're blocked by a mass of ships.

Things like Attacking from the rear and sides increase damage due to lack of armour also makes for advanced strategy - if your shooting into someones engines it should do more damage than blasting there front hull plating.

If you refering to what Neskonlith suggested when you talked about 'silly artificial buffs) then I think youre being a bit harsh.

"This would reflect the increased effectiveness of point-defense abilities and coordinated firing control that fleets enjoy, thereby allowing a significant advantage over uncoordinated spam fleets."

Those arnt fantasy aspects of how fleets work at all and the modifiers hes suggesting for things like accuracy and defence are just a way of factoring these into formations in a fairly simple way instead of actually modelling things like individual ships targeting data and realised point defense Both of the things he suggests ARE benefits of fighting in formation whether you think them fantasy or not.

EDIT: and actually I just noticed what you said about capital ships providing range buffs. THATS fantasy

Nah, It's described on the capitol support ship that it has advanced targetting computers which help other ship targetting in the area, it uploads it's infomation into the smaller ships giving them more accurate fire and range.

"This allows said cobalts to fire faster and have better armour, but to lack range and mobility While a loose formation has slightly decreased attack speed a farther attack range, a chance to dodge shots but weaker armour."

This is what I was replying to, How do ships get better armour, or fire faster? from being close to one another.

I'm alright with things which make sense, which are described logically, but still ultimatly I think ship fromations should give the bonus of combined arms over anything.

Really where formations would become useful (and tactically relevant) is in pairing up the different types of ships to form an effective fleet group. For instance, you could put your heavy frigates to the front, since they're heavily armored, to absorb incoming fire a bit. Cap ships could be the core and flanked by flak frigates and carrier frigates to protect them. In the rear you could have the LRM frigates that basically blast stuff from afar.

Just sticking ships into a wedge formation for the heck of it doesn't really accomplish anything.