[bug] New attack orders dont cancel previous movement orders for certain ships

from Sins Forums
While a fleet has an exisisting  movement order, and you give it a new attack order, the support-type ships(flak/command cruisers/etc) will ignore the attack and continue to the old movement destination while the attack-type ships are moving to encounter the enemy.
Only after they have reached the old destination(which may even have been a different planet) will they attempt to move where their fleet is fighting.

This results in much of the fleet not engaging the new enemy at all, instead going off to the old movement destination.

The workaround is to always click the stop order on the fleet , prior to giving the attack order.



My suggestion is that attack orders should auto-cancel previous move orders to avoid this happening.
3,915 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
I've not noticed this, so I'll check when I get home. In the meantime, do you have any replays/saves/video/something like that of this happening?
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I dont know where/how to upload saves yet :(

But its easy to replicate.

Just have a fleet in a G-well that contains an enemy ship(s).
Give them a movement order to the opposite side
Then give the fleet an attack order back towards the enemy ship.

Watch as your fleet seperates into 2 , with the Cielos/Flak/Hoshikos/Light carriers all continuing to the opposite side while only the remaining fleet engages the enemy.

The support ships will not try to come back to the fight untill after they have reached the original destination.
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
are you using shift to queue up these attacks?? I am not having this problem with the beta. Or at least I hadn't noticed it. Tell you what I will try it when I load up my save game in a bit to continue the game I was playing before I left to run errands. Will report back on what happens to me with it.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
I wasnt using shift queue or anything, so I think its definitely a bugged behaviour

It did take me a while to spot, because what happens is the support ships go off to their original destination, then start doing reform fleet thus come back into the fight, so it depends how far away the original destination was for whether its a noticable problem.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
I'm wondering if this has something to do with support ships not having auto-attack on by default while your combat ships do. I believe I had noticed a while back that ships with it off were refusing my orders to directly attack something.

If that has nothing to do with it, I'm not sure what's causing it. Just a guess here. I'm interested to see what comes of this.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Perhaps the auto attack settings are also buggy and causing this.

I notice that even when I select a fleet(or manually select each ship type) and change then to all auto attacking, the support craft dont always seem to behave with auto attack.

So it could be the support craft are constantly resetting to default non-auto attack mode, and while in this mode, they dont react to attack orders, thus continue on old movement orders?

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
One other thing (jsut got home gonna load up game in a minute) is it only when your TEC? or all races? I am advent in my save game I am about to go finish up. So it might be tomorrow or later tonight before I get in a TEC game. Depending on how long it takes me bring the other two races into the Unity, one way or another.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Hmm I've actually only noticed it when playing TEC which is all I've played recently.

I'll try an advent game and see if it arises.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
I am not able to duplicate this. Even with auto-attack turned off, my Hoshikos and Cielos attack as they are supposed to.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Same I can't duplicate it with any of my 3 races...Only thing I can think of is go ahead and play another game as TEC, and get the problem to happen. Then save the game after its been happening for about 15-20 seconds, and send in the Game Save to the problem. That way they can analyze whats going on.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
How are you guys trying to reproduce it?

Technically speaking, what's in the OP is what's supposed to happen. IC made it so that in a mixed fleet (it has to be a fleet), support ships like Cielos, Hoshikos, Subverters, Subjugators, etc ignore direct attack orders - this was after many complaints from beta that people wished the support ships wouldn't attack and instead focus on what they do best (repair, disable, etc) because while attacking they don't do anything else while the target exists.

So, IC changed it so that the support ships do not obey direct attack orders unless they are the only selection. So if you select a fleet of 10 Hoshikos and show them to attack, they will. If you select a fleet of 10 Hoshikos and 20 Cobalts and show the fleet to attack, only the Cobalts should.

This does have the side effect described in the OP, that if the fleet had previous movement orders and you show it to attack without cancelling the move, the support ships will finish the move order, even if it's a jump, and then try to reunite with the fleet.

Note, I have not actually tried it myself in 1.09, but I have definitely had it happen, and posted about myself :P
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
That might be my problem and why I can't recreate it. For micro reasons most my ships are broken into their own fleets and key binds since its much easier that way when you have hundreds of units on screen and want different things working on different priority tasks.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
They're supposed to do that?

Anyways, I stuck everything into a fleet (At least 1 of each type of TEC ship), gave 'em a move order, then gave 'em an attack order. Only the Percherons continued with the move order and everything else moved to attack. Tried with auto-attack on and off with the Hoshikos and a Cielo.
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
They might've tweaked which ships take orders and which don't. Technically, the light carriers don't even have weapons :P