Fleet Formations

[Joe Jinis]

Hello there,

I'm looking for some help about them, the real placement etc, can't find a single clue about it.

Thanks

[Sticky]

I think its hard to answer this post because its a general question. We have no idea how much you know or understand about the game to know where to start to give you advice. But Captain Skill Matters. Higher the skills the cooler the patterns they can make.

[Asmosis]

I've only tried and use one formation, since it does exactly what i want from my destroyer fleet.

The "Circle" formation is a vertical circle with the Command ship in the middle. The other ships form a ring around it. This means none of them are in the way of others firing arc's and any approaching Capital ships will come into range of all the destroyers at approx the same time.

Aside from that, get a bunch (say, 7) of small ships and assign 6 of them to "attack with.." option and they should form up. then just move the lead ship around and see what the formation looks like.

[HoloByteus]

I can't even get the formation I selected to stay, it's as if the Leader is picking the formation. This use to work at one time, I had point guard which has destroyers lead the carrier on point. I pick it now and X-Cross is selected or some other formation.

Made a L-Transport the leader of a fighter wing and I can't even pick a formation it just shows a blank after choosing one. I can assign a formation to the fighter wing but again it's doesn't pick what I choose but some other random formation. Anyone else seeing this?

[JoKir]

Formations are really cool if you stagger leadership through out the fleet. I usually run Triangle on my Command Vessel's Defense Squad so they Surround him with 3 Walls, then I have the actual Command leader in Circle because of the OP above, it makes a sick kill-wall with Destroyers or Bombers. Then they have their own Formations with their Defensive Squads

[Joe Jinis]

Thanks Asmosis, I will try the circle one then !

In fact I'm trying to find anything possible, strat, formation etc to FORCE my destroyers to attack from max range, because they are all 5 stars pilots but keep raming to melee to bombard half the time....

[Wraith]

Something seems off with your destroyer 5 star pilot then because Mine like to stay back.
They will at moments shift left/right and be annoying but they mostly just stay back and shoot.

What ship are you using?
If it a rattlesnake that probably why they like to get close.

[Joe Jinis]

Doesn't seem to have any difference, rattlesnake, behemoth, but also some ships coming from mods.

Half the time they shoot from afar, the other time they rush in to be destroyed in 15sec ><

I don't have any IA mod :/

[Raivek]

One thing I found that works when attacking stations is to set the formation to inverted V, move the fleet near the station, and set turrets to attack all enemies. You might need to manually move a few of them closer, but this is the only way I've found to have them all reliably attack at a good distance.

Otherwise in my experience at least one goes on a suicide run and parks itself right in front of the station and another 1 or 2 just derp out and won't do anything at all.

[Joe Jinis]

Haaaaaaa I'm not alone then !!
It's really sad to make fleets and being forced to manually move ships -_-

[Sticky]

The Bohemoths are station destroyers with a range of 10k they can attack stations from far off. Depending on what you are attacking a Pirate station or a Xenon Defense Platform. The Bohemoths by themselves in a group of 5 - 20 of just Bohemoths no other ships in the group. They will wipe out most stations. And you do NOT want to be in the same sector with 20 Bohemoths attacking 1 target, they will wipe each other out. However a Xenon Shipyard you do not want to try to take these on with any amount of Ships, they are deadly, and you should wait until the other factions to intervene. To attack a Xenon Shipyard you might need 100 Bohemoths and expect to lose half.

[Asmosis]

Originally posted by Wraith:

Something seems off with your destroyer 5 star pilot then because Mine like to stay back.
They will at moments shift left/right and be annoying but they mostly just stay back and shoot.

What ship are you using?
If it a rattlesnake that probably why they like to get close.

Mine are 3*, and occasionally one of the phoenix pilots will completely overshoot the target (like 1km on the other side from everyone else). So i can't trust them when im OOS doing other stuff.

The formation works great when im with them though. I jump them close to the target, about 15km out then get them to slow boat in by driving the flagship myself sometimes.

The Circle formation (and others i assume) are basically like a brick wall of destroyers moving towards the target, so there's no chance of friendly fire as they are spread out vertically in 2 dimensions with no ship infront of another.

All the destroyers have 10km range on weapons, except rattlesnake which is 6.8km. They make up for it by having 4 guns instead of two, so are a good player controlled ship as your still outside the L turret range.

I only use ~8 destroyers and they are fully capable of taking down Xenon defensive stations etc while I'm OOS, the problem is one will occasionally overshoot (mentioned above). You don't need dozens or hundreds. OOS you will lose a few that get too close, in sector you wont lose any if you teleport around them to prevent captains who are breaking formation.

[Joe Jinis]

I already destroyed a Xenon shipyard, they are not different from any station.

My only issue is my ships coming too close ><
I'm speaking of situations when I'm present of course. When out of sector it's a blood bath ^^

I am wondering if having a carier as fleet master in each of my fleet is causing my issues :/

Edit : How is supposed to be affected the carier in a fleet ? Can you make it a supply role? is it better to make it a defend role ? Then If the fleet attack, do their fighters join in?

Edit 2 : Nope can't affect a carier to supply.

Edit 3 : In fact as soon as an attack order is given, formation doesn't exist anymore....

[Asmosis]

I think it depends what command you gave the ships when you created the fleet. My destroyers maintain formation when on the "attack with commander" command, although i imagine it might go awry if i told them to attack a S ship.

[HoloByteus]

Shipyards only have drones in addition to any other station defense and they look worse than their bite, not a concern at all. Took my first shipyard out with 4 Odysseus Sentinels.

At least the Xenon's will react to an attack however, it's a shame factions aren't as aggressive in defense.

If you're really having a problem with destroyers getting to close you can just park them at a safe distance close enough to fire and wait till they weaken a station's defenses. They recently added the ability to fire from a waiting position that should make main guns fire as well, haven't tested that as my wars are done. Even without main guns the job will still get done.

[Joe Jinis]

Hmm ok but it will be boring with a lot of ships xD