Station Keeping in Formations is Insanely Bad

[mikecash]

I went into the mission editor and created a simple surface group of three ships, set up their positions in the formation editor, then hit Play to see what they would do.

It was absolutely insane.

Three ships, ahead 2/3. Destroyer leading a tanker, followed by a frigate. The frigate immediately turned about 90 out of formation, went all stop, and sat there while the other two ships steamed away. After a good long while, it started up again, went chasing after them, then right as it was about to gain it's station it immediately turned 90 degrees, stopped, rinse and repeat for as far as you care to run it.

I tried opening the following distance, thinking maybe it has rules against following too closely. Didn't matter, same thing.

I tried stationing the frigate ahead of the other two and slowed them down to facilitate the overtaking maneuver. It got up there and acted a fool again, except this time the other two ships started going all over the place as well with no rhyme or reason.

I tried setting a waypoint for the formation leader, turning them all about 90 degrees onto a new heading. After much Keystone Kop running around like chickens with their heads cut off, the finally kinda-sorta got into a formation again.....line abreast.

Station keeping is basic seamanship and kind of a key thing for warships to be able to do.

(Try it yourself. Speed up the game so you can better see the effect)

[mikecash]

Another point;

In the mission editor, within the formation editor there seems to be no option to specify "relative positions", which is odd because that IS an option in the formation editor during game play.

Opening the formation editor immediately after starting the game and checking the "relative position" box helped a lot, but maneuvers are still wacky. Tried swapping in a third warship in place of the tanker and that made no difference. Only thing I haven't tried is swapping out the misbehaving Knox class for something else, but I can't imagine this is just a fluke of the Knox class in the game.

[Wagon Wheel]

Originally posted by mikecash:

Another point;

In the mission editor, within the formation editor there seems to be no option to specify "relative positions", which is odd because that IS an option in the formation editor during game play.

Opening the formation editor immediately after starting the game and checking the "relative position" box helped a lot, but maneuvers are still wacky. Tried swapping in a third warship in place of the tanker and that made no difference. Only thing I haven't tried is swapping out the misbehaving Knox class for something else, but I can't imagine this is just a fluke of the Knox class in the game.

Is that what the 'postion locked' box is for? I wanted to ask about that.

[mikecash]

Originally posted by Rabbit Ears:

Originally posted by mikecash:

Another point;

In the mission editor, within the formation editor there seems to be no option to specify "relative positions", which is odd because that IS an option in the formation editor during game play.

Opening the formation editor immediately after starting the game and checking the "relative position" box helped a lot, but maneuvers are still wacky. Tried swapping in a third warship in place of the tanker and that made no difference. Only thing I haven't tried is swapping out the misbehaving Knox class for something else, but I can't imagine this is just a fluke of the Knox class in the game.

Is that what the 'postion locked' box is for? I wanted to ask about that.

I think I tried that and found it made no difference.

Most of the time in real life vessels in a formation tend to maintain the same relative positions, especially close in to the high value unit. But there are times where certain assets might be kept between the main body and the direction of any perceived threat, necessitating having at least those units not maintain relative positions. I spent pretty much my entire time at sea on a Leahy class cruiser whose position was usually 50+ miles away from the rest of the task force, on the "threat axis" (between them and Russia, essentially). We saw the other ships so rarely it felt like we were independent steaming.

[ODA571 Reaper Six Actual]

It is true, station keeping in this game is HORRENDOUS. It was so bad, weaving port and starboard that it eventually collides with the tanker it was suppose to escort and sank.