Stop military fleets from chasing down civilian ships?

[Hyndis]

I've noticed that military fleets love chasing down unarmed civilian ships. A dozen battleships will eagerly rush after a civilian freighter, then another freighter will show up and they'll attack that freighter instead, and repeat indefinitely.

Civilian ships are rapidly constructed to the point that an empire can replace losses nearly instantly. This means that there's always civilian ships distracting military fleets, to the point that random freighters showing up will lock down fleets of battleships and troop transports to complete paralysis.

This happens on default engagement settings for fleets. It makes sense to engage civilian ships when ordered to blockade a planet, or by shooting at them incidentally if they're in range. This is full on aggro, where a a fleet with a combat strength of 100,000 will stop what its doing to chase down one empty freighter.

Chasing these ships causes fleets to linger in an area for a very long time, not moving on to the next military objective. IMO, civilian ships should not be a priority unless specifically ordered to be engaged.

Is there a toggle on fleet orders to have them not aggro on civilian ships?

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by Hyndis:

I've noticed that military fleets love chasing down unarmed civilian ships.........Is there a toggle on fleet orders to have them not aggro on civilian ships?

1. Yes they do and
2. AFAIK no but there def ought to be.

The issue can actually be quite serious, not just annoying, for example when you are invading a planet you will want to have your fleet maintain space superiority at all costs. I have seen this lost 'cos my fleet hairs off the attack some random freighters even with engagement range set to "nearby".

TBH I cannot think of a single reason why I would ever want my warships to murder an enemy's freighters anyway. I mean all it would do it force their private sector to pay their government loads of dosh for replacements with which they can build and maintain more war ships.

[jorgen_cab]

If you set the fleet on manual and order it to blockade a planet it should spread out around the planet and not engage the entire fleet on every little civilian ships but use the ships in the local vicinity.

Otherwise you will need to simply switch the fleet to manual or break the fleet into smaller fleet segments and station them around the planet. Order them to only engage ships nearby.

The AI usually use much smaller fleets and are programmed around that fact, more or less. So, using smaller fleets is an option too.

I always make my fleet only as large as they need to be, very rarely do I use massive fleets. I rather use several smaller more specialized fleets in a single mission rather than one big blob fleet... large fleets are quite unwieldy and quite inefficient most of the time, even when you consider admiral bonuses.

Controlling avenues of attacks and retreats is more important than just drive a large blob at the opponent. It also makes your fleets as a whole more dynamic and easier to operate over larger areas.

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by jorgen_cab:

If you set the fleet on manual and order it to blockade a planet it should spread out around the planet and not engage the entire fleet on every little civilian ships but use the ships in the local vicinity.

Otherwise you will need to simply switch the fleet to manual or break the fleet into smaller fleet segments and station them around the planet. Order them to only engage ships nearby.

Unfortunately that doesn't work. Even with a manual fleet with engagement set to nearby and ordered to blockade a planet they still go chasing enemy freighters and in fact this breaks the blockade order meaning they just go on a roll killing freighters. 'Cos a) no order queue and b) the freighters skulking around a planet qualify for "nearby" engagement range.

[jorgen_cab]

Are you sure you have set the fleet for individual ship behaviour and not the entire fleet... I'm sure I have managed to keep blockading and attacking freighters at the same time. But then I use smaller fleets most of the time.

[Thineboot]

Same her, small blockading fleet enforced the blockade without chasing after escapees in 1.0.5.8 - everything may change.

[Hyndis]

I've had wars stall out and even to the point of losing a war to a much smaller power simply because my fleets will not stop engaging civilian freighters.

There's another issue where civilian ships don't understand a planet has been captured. I can invade a planet, capture it, and civilian freighters of that hostile power will continually show up to offload resources on the planet that I now own.

This endless train of civilian ships suicides themselves against my fleet still in orbit without end. I've racked up 500+ civilian ship kills in a war because they continually fly at a planet I now own, giving me population and resources for free. This has the effect of causing my invasion fleets to be forever locked down because they're distracted chasing these harmless freighters.

My invasion fleets will not pick up troops because that fleet with a combat strength of 100,000 is continually chasing individual freighters with a combat strength of 25.

The only way I can reliably get my fleets to stop being distracted by civilian ships continually flying into my territory is to try to end the war with a peace, then re-declare war. That seems to fix and update the AI so these civvies stop trying to trade with now enemy planets.

I think the fleet/ship AI needs some fixing, because this is a frustrating game experience for the player. Its frustrating to watch your ships continually disobey orders, continually wasting time chasing tiny freighters. Civilian ships should just not be aggro targets, IMO.

[Hyndis]

Originally posted by jorgen_cab:

I always make my fleet only as large as they need to be, very rarely do I use massive fleets. I rather use several smaller more specialized fleets in a single mission rather than one big blob fleet... large fleets are quite unwieldy and quite inefficient most of the time, even when you consider admiral bonuses.

I've tried that by making every fleet type be only 1 ship. The invasion/defense/raid fleets are only 1 battleship and thats it. I set my construction automation to only build battleships.

My navy is vastly more responsive to threats and proactive attacking when doing so, but because there's so many fleets I have to give up any attempt to control my fleets and just fully automate the entire fleet part.

There's also lots of UI clutter from so many individual fleets. Having 150 fleets each of 1 ship each is probably not how the fleet system was intended to work. I think the fleet/ship AI does need some refining.

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by jorgen_cab:

Are you sure you have set the fleet for individual ship behaviour and not the entire fleet... I'm sure I have managed to keep blockading and attacking freighters at the same time. But then I use smaller fleets most of the time.

Maybe it's 'cos you typically got more multiple small fleets involved. I don't 'cos I run them all manually and it gets harder and harder to track them in the UI the more fleets you got, well for me anyway.

But to me the real question is why your fleets are attacking civilian ships at all: can anyone explain why one would ever want your military ships chasing down civilian ships, what do you gain from it?

[jorgen_cab]

What version of the game do you play on... I seem to manage this relatively fine in the latest Beta version of the game.

I do agree that there need to be a threat level to civilians so they avoid certain areas, such as planets under blockade. It make no real sense for civilian ships to try and run the blockade just to die.

I also think that most AI civilians ships should be default be escaping when an enemy is nearby and not when attacked. I always put civilian ships on that setting as it makes more sense.

If you just make fleets on one ship why have them in a fleet at all, just put on a mix of Patrol and Blockade duty as a single ship instead.

The fleet also need to retain the Blockade order... even if it go after the resources in the same location. It seem to sometime remember but sometimes not.

[Nitro]

There might be a need to cripple an enemy by attacking commercial enemy ships to damage their economy. I'd like to see a specific control function to capture enemy merchants and take their cargo for your own. Destroying the merchant ship seems like a waste.

[Thineboot]

... it is and it's difficult to achieve. Your small fleet has to have enough firepower to disable fast enough without evaporating them with your next volley. Every ship has to have boarding capability and you should have a construction ship nearby to repair them once they are yours, especially when they manage to escape have while fighting against your boarding party. All is done by using "Capture...".

[Nitro]

Perhaps a new purpose built class of ship designed for customs, with tractor beam, and boarding party, They can tow the merchant ship back to the station. Disabling engines should be a priority.

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by Nitro:

There might be a need to cripple an enemy by attacking commercial enemy ships to damage their economy.

I tend to find obliterating their fleets and landing whacking great combined arms forces on their planets cripples their economy tolerably well tbh.

[Nitro]

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

I tend to find obliterating their fleets and landing whacking great combined arms forces on their planets cripples their economy tolerably well tbh.

LOL, agreed, but one still can see those pesky buggers traveling around your space with near impunity. Plus, it would help pay for the war costs.

[Hyndis]

Crippling economy is be better done by blowing up mining stations. That kills the main stockpile freighters are pulling from, and kills resource generation. Thats how you hit their economy.

Chasing down individual freighters is something combat ships shouldn't do. They should shoot at it if it so happens to be in range, but they shouldn't change course to follow civilian freighters.

For hurting the economy the loss of a freighter just doesn't matter. Its so cheap, rebuild so quickly, and its paid for out of the civilian economy so the state economy gets paid for this. By blowing up your enemy's freighters you're pumping money into their state economy. You're making your opponent's military fleet stronger, not weaker.