[#180]Is it possible to choose no formation, or turn them off?

[LameFox]

I have in my current game a Minotaur leading 6 fighters. They're each around 2-3 stars, nothing special, I use them to kill Kha'ak.

While the fighters are able to keep more-or-less in formation due to all these ships being roughly as slow as each other, the entire formation flies slower than the slowest ship. When they have an attack order, despite the fighters being set to "attack for" the Minotaur, they often trail far behind it doing this slow-flight in formation even after the Minotaur itself has engaged. Sometimes single fighters or groups of them seem to just get left behind for some reason, lingering for quite a while before finally engaging travel drive and returning to the group.

As far as I can tell, these ships together perform worse than if I just box select them and give them the same order. I would just remove them from the fleet, but that's annoying: for organizational reasons, I do want them in one on the map, and I'd like the fighters to attack what the Minotaur is attacking and stay near it.

I find myself wishing I could just select a formation like 'null' where they only worry about keeping roughly nearby their leader.

[EGO_Aut]

Yes would be nice.
But if someone fix the fleet handling and bugs @Egosoft, would be nicer.

[dtpsprt]

You can also put them on "Interceept" (generally works better as it gives them more autonomy). This way they'll attack the Commander's target along with any other hostile S or M ship in the vicinity.

P.S. Definitely Fleet structure and control has a looooooooong way to go for been functional by itself...

[Gimbutz]

If you want to help improve fleet movement, you could upload a save where the situation you're describing is currently visible to any reputable file hosting service like Dropbox or Google Drive and link it in a new topic in the Technical Support forum. That way, someone can take a look at what's happening behind the scenes at that moment and potentially improve it for everyone.

[LameFox]

If you want to help improve fleet movement, you could upload a save where the situation you're describing is currently visible to any reputable file hosting service like Dropbox or Google Drive and link it in a new topic in the Technical Support forum. That way, someone can take a look at what's happening behind the scenes at that moment and potentially improve it for everyone.

I set up a custom game and will try to save when they do silly things, but in this case I do feel like it would be nice to have a no-formation option anyway, since sometimes it's not really desired. Kha'ak are not very dangerous and I'd like the fighters to get there ASAP and tie them down while the Minotaur arrives, because their goal is ultimately to protect other ships.

Here is an early example: the formation when sent to attack some Xenon who spawned here initially is lagging behind the lead ship, which is itself flying quite slowly. Slower than the slowest fighter. This is similar to what I observed before. I'm not sure if it's trying to wait for them, or what, but the end result is that proactively sending them to attack things is very ineffective.

If however you remove the fleet entirely and send all these ships to attack, the fighters will start to catch up and the Minotaur will fly faster, though it is still not using travel drive, maybe as some kind of skill issue.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ekasnw ... sp=sharing



It may take some time to summon any other targets as the miners ramp up Kha'ak spawns.

[LameFox]

Did another test this morning while waiting for enemies to start spawning: moving them around with a protect order (I do this in game because leaving a fleet with no orders, the escorts tend to get killed without the fleet noticing).

Here you can see that one ship dropped slightly behind the others, some 10km outside their defend area. This again seems to slow down the whole formation, and it will take a while before that ship catches up, so they crawl their way to the destination. This appears to be the same issue that has kept them from promptly entering combat in my main game on several occasions, and probably a large part of why removing them from a fleet make them more responsive.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JU0OVP ... sp=sharing



Another quick thing that came up: spawned in some Xenon with encounters, and some of the ships moved to attack while others didn't. They're all in the same 'attack for' group. I think the ones that were slightly further behind in the formation when the order was generated were stuck trying to catch up, despite being right there where combat is happening.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nymqLw ... sp=sharing



Here is another lone ship falling behind and slowing everyone down, but this time slowing them from entering combat:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xHc60J ... sp=sharing



And the formation once again inhibiting an attack order from going out. A single enemy attacker dies, then 1/6 escorts is sent on to attack another enemy by itself while the rest manoeuvre.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tFLvtK ... sp=sharing

[Gimbutz]

Thank you for going through all that trouble to set up these situations. Now, I don't mean to sound overbearing, but if possible, could you create a new topic in the Technical Support forum on this website and concisely state the problem, following the guidelines in the pinned post at the top of that forum, and link only the relevant save(s) below? If there are multiple issues with fleet movement, that you want us to take a look at (and based on what you said, there are at least two here), please create separate topics for them. That way, our AI programmers can look at these issues objectively and in isolation, which may actually lead to results. I know following protocol can be annoying, but this is really the most efficient way.

[LameFox]

I find that lately I am having a related, but opposite problem: sometimes I want ships to keep in formation, when they have a role that doesn't do it naturally. e.g. supply ships, or those set to 'follow' a fleet. In dangerous territory, I do not want these lagging behind. However I also don't want them in a combat role.

Maybe we could get a formation toggle for a fleet's subordinate groups? Or some kind of range setting to control their dispersion?