Micro managing LRMs vs defense platforms

from Sins Forums

Once the enemy fleet has been bashed, if you leave your LRMs and defense fighters to AI control then they rush the defences and get battered. And given LRMs have a long attack range that seems unnecessary.

But I have struggled to get the LRMs to take out the defense platforms from a distance. I group them into a fleet, and stop them from moving forward past a safe seeming distance using fleet orders. However they are about as likely to shoot at an extractor as a defense platform.

If I use the targetting icon to tell them what to shoot at, then they start moving towards it even though they have been told to stop in fleet orders. Is there a recipe to get them to stay where you want them, and fire at what you want them to ?

Thanks

strategy
2,882 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Step 1: set lrms to hold position

step 2: hold shift and click on the nearest structures in the order you want them destroyed(ie closest to furthest)

IF your units are still getting smacked by turrets, then you simply do not have the range to hit them without being hit. If you hold ALT and mouse over one of your lrms, you can see its maximum attack range as a circle, if you mouse over a turret you can also see its attack range. Then compare.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

The problem is that they may not attack the closest target, and instead attack a more distant one, moving into range of another turret in the process.  As Deceiver says, you can queue up targets manually to ensure this doesn't happen.  Scouts can be bad about choosing which mines to disarm, and can run into other closer mines in the process... they're particularly bad about Advent homing mines and basically NEED to be manually managed.

Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Brilliant - thanks very much

Even if the defensive range is about the same as the LRMs it should still be possible to roll up a clump of them from one end of their line, with all your firepower hitting just some of theirs. I will be trying this method out in my test game.

Interesting to hear that scouts aren't too clever either - I've been more worried by 20 or 30 LRMs and 10 defense ships imploding themselves on the defensive line but I must look closer at mine clearing too.

 

 

 

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

This has all worked very well thanks - but I must say I find fleets clumsy

It woul be very nice if each fleet was colour coded in the ship list, so you could see at a glance which ships were in which fleet and which ships were not in a fleet

And then if the tactical fleet markers showed the same colours you could tell instantly what you had where. I find myself looking for the sentinals fleet when I need it, after another a new batch of homing mines appears etc

The mechanics of Sins have been done very well, except that tactical combat is harder to operate well than it needed to be.

Any thoughts, have I missed anything?