Fleets and some other comments.

from Sins Forums
Sins is great fun, seems to have the potential to be well balanced. Although the late game needs some work. One method that might work is being able to build a capital size space station neat waypoints. At the moment it is too easy to jump in with 40 ships a destroy a system.

Another useful tool is the concept of fleets. Being able to hook say a set of flak frigates to a capital carrier. When you have a large (30+) mixed fleet with with capital ships and frigates it descends into micromanagement haze. Some tech that allows smaller ships to link into to larger ships and intelligent follow the commands of the larger ships would be great.

So a carrier with a fleet of flak and missile frigates, if it was selected to attack another ship then the flak frigates would not run off and attack. They would hang around and defend the carrier. The missile frigates would stay and defend the carrier (group?) from other attacking ships.
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Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
When you have a large (30+) mixed fleet with with capital ships and frigates it descends into micromanagement haze.


The tactical AI should be doing the micro for ya Generally, I just jump my ships into the grav well and they take it from there most effectively. I need to micro a few things -- like making sure the siege frigates don't jump in until after any planetary defenses have been suppressed, and keeping the flak frigates from haring off after enemy fighters, rather than sticking with the vessels they should be protecting, but for the most part the AI does quite well, and I only need to micro when its a close-thing.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I was initially thinking that you could just change the range at which they engage -- you know where you change it from gravity well to weapons range. But... that would only work in the case where carriers sit at the edge of the gravity well and you could park the flak frigate there.

Otherwise your flak frigates would just sit there while the other ships flew off.

It would be nice to give orders to them to follow your capital ships or certain ships and not go flying around like you said.
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

It would be nice to give orders to them to follow your capital ships or certain ships and not go flying around like you said.


Yeah, I think I mis-understood the original post a little since flak frigates are the only case I can really think of where I want that.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
It would be nice to give orders to them to follow your capital ships or certain ships and not go flying around like you said.


You can just give the flaks a move order on the ship in question, and set them to weapons range autoattack. That should do exactly what you and the OP are looking for; they should stick close to the ship in question and flak any fighters that come near.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Thats something I never considered -- I've seen it in game when you order units to join a fleet as a waypoint, but using it in that way... nice.

Question: Will they automaticly jump with the rest of the fleet that they're following even if they aren't selected in the jump process, or are they going to jump in behind the fleet (making me manually re-do the follow command after every jump).
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
You can just give the flaks a move order on the ship in question, and set them to weapons range autoattack.


How do you do that?

Do you select the flak ships, then Shift click on the target ship? I sometimes get confused as to when to Shift, Ctrl, or Alt click.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
weapons range is right clicking on the attack button, and moving is right clicking
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Oh, I was specifically asking about "giving the flaks a move order on the ship in question" (sorry for being vague). With your flak ship currently selected, is it as simple as right clicking on another ship for them to follow that ship?
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
yes.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
That worked out great, thanks!