Formations in general ...

[Grim]

Beyond being aesthetically pleasing and maybe giving a tidy person a good feeling
is there something else to formations?

I've played around for a bit with them and ok the combat stance settings are inheited. But I've never noticed any actual change in behviour. The ships always seem to do their thing as they see fit.

Is there a way to make them stay in formation under attack?

[chaosavy]

Formations are more for positioning (outside of combat) and inheriting orders than for sticking close together in combat - as in - staying in a formation during an attack run. Instead every ship has their own attack run so they might diverge.

Positioning is important for behavior too - so there's a variety of reasons for formations.

So while for fighters - this means ships tend to do their own thing, cap ships are a lot less mobile so formations might make a bigger difference - again in terms of positioning. I'm guessing you are talking more about fighters here though.


You can have ships stay in formation under attack - if you tell the leader/ships to "do not engage" (its in tactical mode - on the lower right hand corner - when selecting a ship - so you'd select a fleet leader so that the rest of the formation inherits this setting) - they'll stay in formation and not respond to attackers (turrets will still fire on enemy targets).

Even if a ship is set to "do not engage" you can still issue an attack command - the ship will then go after the target and once destroyed will go back to not responding to ships.

[rayden_solo]

Would it be possible to have a formation of identical fighters act as a single unit? Most fixed weapons have a small zone in which they focus on a target, so for small formations with about 5 fighters, aiming should not be a problem. I think having a close formation doing attack runs would look really cool!

[chaosavy]

General - Listen up men! From now on when doing attack runs stay in perfect formation.
Pilot - But Sir! That will make us less combat effective and make it easier for the enemy to predict our flight path.
General - Don't you think I know that! Nonetheless, do it, it will look cool.

[rayden_solo]

Alright I get what you're saying, but those two could also have a discussion about secondary weapons, or why some ships use their missile launchers while others don't.

My guess was that picking off one target after another (starting with the most dangerous ones) with full firepower would be more effective than having single fighters go into dogfight duels.

Actually getting out of overworld and sending a group of fighters to totally wipe out a target with the first attack, is one my favourite things to do, hehe feels powerful man.

[chaosavy]

Alright I get what you're saying, but those two could also have a discussion about secondary weapons, or why some ships use their missile launchers while others don't.

Heh heh heh... you got me on that one :)

The missile launcher thing is tied to the secondary weapons thing.

[rayden_solo]

chaosavy lähetti viestin:

The missile launcher thing is tied to the secondary weapons thing.

I know but this keeps bugging me, so I keep bugging you
I started over again to see how the recent changes to economy work in early game - and became a pirate (by friendly fire accident) now I prefer the raptor corvette over the rhino, simply because it has a functional missile launcher (which means better defence against fighters)

Having visible weapons that only the grand admiral himself is allowed to use, it feels weird. Using the main weapon for a different crazy fire mode like the MU figthers with flamethrowers or hidden weapons like the missile mines - stuff like that is designed for special tactics, so not allowing every pilot to use these seems thoughtful.

I am sorry to bother you with this again, I hope you're not fed up with my bickering. If you want no more critique about this, please tell me.

[chaosavy]

I hope you're not fed up with my bickering

No worries.

Sooner or later I'll go through all secondaries and hopefully come up with more unique ones, so we'll see what they end up being.

[Spirit of Liberty]

I know this is probably a dead thread, but I have to agree with the op on this. Not for any asthetically pleasing views but rather tactical concerns. I tend to set up my attacks well in advance of the battlespace and accelerate to at least 1500 to 2000 KPS to conduct high velocity attack runs on the intended targets. I fleet up with the same ships with the same engine, and thruster passive tunings. Theoretically I should be able to order my wingmen into formation and have them accelerate with me to the desired velocity and launch ordnance at either targets of opportunity or at a designated target. In practice it doesnt work. If you can get them to follow you into the battlespace at all it wont be until long after you've gotten there since they wont accelerate past their cruise speeds, or so it seems need more testing. I know the pirates will accel to try to catch you but my own ships seem restricted to low speed maneuvers. The other problem is once battle is engaged they wont stay in formation and follow you out for the next run. Instead they hare off seeking fame and glory and invariably wind up gettting their expensive brainless butts shot off. I wind up having to do any high vel runs alone while my other ships play escort to my trade hulls. But it would be nice to be able to actually utilize my wingmen as I think they could turn even a frigate or better to high velocity junk in only a couple of runs if they'd stay in formation and hit the same target.

Anyway I love the game and am impressed with what you've done with it so far. Thanks

[chaosavy]

Thanks for the feedback.

--

Technically - there is a way to do this under some conditions/restrictions.


Have ships with turrets (this is important for later) - eg: Taurus fighters
Form them up
Toggle "do not engage" (so that ships stay in formation versus engaging other ships)
Take control of the lead ship
Hit F5 to go into "command mode/camera"
Hit SHIFT + S - to toggle SPROG fire mode (the player controls the fire of all other ships in formation) - turrets will fire where the player is aiming (cursor).

Bonus info - hit M to use "mouse turn to maneuver" while in command mode.

[rayden_solo]

can we use SPROG mode and mouse flight at the same time or do we need to switch everytime we want to change directions?

[chaosavy]

They are independent so you can have both on at the same time.