Fleet starting formation

[Majickthyse]

I don't suppose there is some way to set a starting formation before battles take place?

I have a fleet of 2 battleships and the AI has an annoying habit of staggering one slightly behind the other, which means they can't cover each other properly with PD.

[weregamer]

Unintuitively, you pick your formation at the stage where you are choosing whether to engage, not when the battle starts.

The default formation for a small fleet is "line", which works pretty well. The default for a large fleet is "convoy", which is also pretty ok.

You also pick how close together the ships should be - tight, etc.

The trick is the second setting pair, the override that says how to distribute one particular type of ship. The default is "archers, dispersed" which means ships whose design says "long range" will be spread out a bit more and I think behind the main line. You can probably get closer to what you want by fiddling with those two.

[Soul]

yeah you pick your formation in the pre battle screen. I highly suggest using the tightly packed 3 high wall, heaviest ships center or forward. Using this formation will almost always allow your fleet to punch above their weight and provide the most dense point defense bubble to protect your fleet. Combine that with Plasma noseguns and green phasers and you will knock out Alien fleets at a 1humanship:2alienship ratio easily with very few casualties

[Majickthyse]

Ah right thanks - defeated again by the end boss (the UI) :)

[corisai]

Originally posted by Soul:

Combine that with Plasma noseguns and green phasers and you will knock out Alien fleets at a 1humanship:2alienship ratio easily with very few casualties

Be warned that once dev will fix AI and it start to use proper end-game loadouts - plasma guns could suddenly stop working :)

You could compare current alien designs with their top-tier one in Skirmish.

[Soul]

To be fair alien plasma will also go straight into your ships without PD protecting you so fair game and all.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Soul:

To be fair alien plasma will also go straight into your ships without PD protecting you so fair game and all.

No. We're using much more frontal armor then aliens will do even on their best designs