Jump Formations

I can't edit the original post, but I nearly forgot. You also have a problem with large groups having singletons not waiting for the group, causing them to jump in ahead of the "main fleet"... with unfortunate results.

And since very large games (once systems can support say 10+ stars?) will involve very large fleets, this issue will probably come into play at some point (other than artificially).

This was talked about intensively. And extensively.   We don't know if (3D) formations of any kind will be implemented. Jumping is just a step forward from this.

I think they will be added, but add very little benefit to the game, other than more eye candy...

I disagree. I can see quite some merit for some true 3D formations.

I would love to have a true wall formation, instead of the default line. If you've large fleets, you get a very long line of ships which isn't very tall. This wastes quite a lot of firepower.

I could also see the use of a tight packed cone like formation for breakthroughs through enemy fleets and subsequents attacks from behind.

I zoomed in to one of my battles last night to watch my 21 frigates that I set to take out a gauss gun and I was surprised to see that they were in a wall formation of 5 long and 4 high. The 21st ship was in front of the wall. I would like the ability to set the formations similar to how it was done in Homeworld. With the current engine it doesn't look like it should be too difficult to implement.

Are you sure you have them set to 'all grouped' rather than 'some grouped' (if you added more to the fleet since last setting it to group jump mode).

Yeah, that happens to me too. They are all grouped and like 2 or 3 of them jump ahead, I've even had several groups of 2-3 wait for the others in their little group before jumping ahead of the rest. It usually isn't too bad for me though.

I have this happen and even to a point where they wont jump, if 2 cap ships (out of a fleet of 2 cap ships and a bunch of other ships) get stuck behind each other they will just sit there infinitely (waited for 15 minutes once) until you manually move the ship that is stuck behind the other.

I have also had the "jump" ahead thing happen and yes - all with move as a group chosen.

First off, why are you guys assuming that I'm asking for a formation control of some kind? I'm referring to the automatic "all-in-a-line" formation that the game already has in it, which is less-than-optimal when a REALLY large fleet lines up to jump in / out. You end up with half the line outside the star, and still "clearing orbit", while the other half is inside. And the half inside ends up jumping from inside the grav well, because the formation "as a whole" isn't clear. From what I can tell, the game calculates the center of the formation, and uses that to determine whether every single ship in the formation can jump. Which, (with artificially large fleets) can produce some VERY odd graphics.



Quite sure. I hadn't added anything to the fleet in question in a while.

If you just right click on the move/group button, you can force the selected group to jump all together. This way they all jump at the same time and arrive at the same time.

The entire point of this thread is that it doesn't always work, especially with extremely large fleets.

Actually I have seen the computer make use of 3D movements, and formation, for jumping mostly though.

OK, let me try to explain myself a little more carefully. When you have a (very) large group of ships, and set them to jump "all together", sometimes (not always) one or two will jump without waiting for the rest of the formation -- at all.

Also, the routing of units told to jump separately is a little off. Instead of each ship calculating its own, independent routing to the jump limit, they each go to the SAME point. Which, if your fleet is spread out accross a system and you need it to be in another system right now is a little inconvienient.

I've had this happen too, what seems to happen is that the line is so long, one end or mid point of the formation is just weirdly in the gravity well, and one ship is just kind of fidgeting to make room it seem the AI just sends one of the ships in front of the main armada and into phase jump, clearing space for the straggler.

Thats very annoying... It can be avoided by having your fleet split into 2 or 3 groups instead of 1 huge group, but I hope we don't HAVE to do that, they should simply have jump formations allow to be taller, making more room.

Is that what happens? THe only time I notice it is when the ships in question go "ka-boom!".

So 3D formations ARE in the game? What formations are there?

no they automatically form up into vertical ranks at times... there are no specific formations or commands thereof

Ships will only wait 30 seconds for fleet formation before jumping ahead.  I think Blair posted that elsewhere on the forums.

really? that explains why some of my ships jump ahead at points. thats a wierd little thing, I dont like it.


anyhow I think there should be a +/- 1 second interval for the whole group jump, 1) it would make things look cooler for them not to all arrive at the same exact time, 2) its unnatural for the coordination to be that good.

I didn't know that...

Except... they don't. I've had fleets stick around for several minutes at a time.

Edit: I just had it happen: My entire fleet was waiting to jump from star to planet for about 2 minutes before I gave up, and repeated the order. A bunch of the ships then changes from "waiting for formation" to "clearing orbit", and re-arranged themselves closer to the grav-limit and then jumped. I hope this helps.

I agree, it would look much better if ships had a random jump delay "built in", but it shouldn't be too big.

Otherwise it's not at all unnatural for them to be so well timed that you wouldn't notice any delay, it's just a matter of "coolness". Time measurment is so advanced even today that one should realistically expect not to be any delays when a fleet is gathered and ready.

Just out of curiosity, how so? All the ships have to do is tell their computers to initiate jump simultaneously, and if the computers can't manage it something is seriously wrong.

Yes, but you know, Star Wars do it, Battlestar Galactica does it... It's just much cooler.   

i'll add to this, and say that the visual effect of the smaller ships jumping in, and the heavies rooling in behind em just looks really immpressive.

take the rebel attack on the second death star in return of the jedi, for example. all of the starfighter-scale ships arrived at the rally point first, and then BAM, a mon cal pops in behind em. its a high coolness factor for me to have that kind of a show of force.