Titans' behavior and affecting sorrunding ship movement

from Sins Forums

Hi all,

Last night I was playing my first round of Rebellion and decided to give my favorite Vasari a try, I went with the loyalists.

I rushed to try out some of the new abilities and the Titan. Once my Titan was built, I made it head of fleet and added several other capital ships to its ranks. Usually I don't micromanage the movement of my fleet unless I sense the need take advantage of moving units around to shake up the AI a bit. However, I absolutely had to move my ships separately this time.

It appears that my capital ships had trouble flying around with my Titan among them. I tried to zoom in and pay attention to what was going on and often found that capital ships were stuck in a stage of movement. They had trouble getting around the Titan if that was necessary, instead of path-finding around they would just get stuck looking at it and not moving even though their green arrow indicated a queued up move.

EDIT: I also observed what I'll coin as "formation-retardation" during phase jump prep. Cap ships get stuck moving around the Titan, delaying phase jumps by seconds sometimes.

This doesn't appear to work as intended, so I'm hoping it will get addressed. I'm curious if others have experienced these sorts of issues. I was only managing one fleet in a test game, I can imagine the headaches this would cause if I had units all over the place.

A second issue I noticed when actually engaged in several fleet battles was that my Titan did not appear to be very aggressive with its attacks. What I mean is, my fleet was doing its own thing and I was paying attention to the Titan. It seemed to be taking a nap while over a dozen pirate vessels were right next to it. Then I ordered it to explicitly attack an enemy vessel and it suddenly unleashed a torrent of death and vaporized the ship. I then attacked another ship and another and the death seemed pretty constant and intense. But left to its own devices the Titan again preferred to take numerous naps. I'm wondering if this has something to do with ship navigation getting in the way of combat. I tried to leave it on its own, on the opposite side of my other ships in a Titan -> enemies <- Rest of Fleet kind of formation... and it still sucks on autopilot. Was I just delusional because it was 1am? Anyone else observe similar behavior?

Appreciate any feedback :)

Thanks

3,643 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

My rule of thumb since purchasing rebellion is to never, ever, under any circumstances, ever, ever, ever make your titan the fleet leader. It should always be a cap ship, and  preferably the one that you really want to make sure your ships stay near. It should be part of your fleet, just not the leader.

As far as it sitting there an not attacking, the only time I could see that happening is from one of two reasons. (1) The auto cast of the attack command was accidentally clicked off. You know this because the little white arrow that goes in circles over the button is gone. Right click on the attack button to get it back. (2) When you made the Titan part of a fleet somehow the attack range of the fleet was set to hold position. To check this select your fleet, click on the index finger button on the bottom right where you issue commands, and in the next window check the far left button which i think is called engagment range. Make sure its not set to hold position (small red circle)

Bad behavior that I do notice comes from the facing my Titan chooses. I play as TEC Reb exclusively, and that ding dong shaped Titan will turn to bring its missle batteries to bear on targets if there is nothing it can shoot at while pointing its snipe at its main target. All three its its main damage abilities come from the tip of its hog, and during cooldown sometimes will just suddenly start turning to bring other weapons in line. So I have to spend time keeping him from turning.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Thanks for the reply Codan. I did check my autocasts, attack orders, and even fleet spread, so that didn't appear to be the cause. I'll take your advice and not set the Titan as fleet leader (it just seems so epic though!). I know ships benefit from sticking together when it comes to buffs and such, so I don't want the big ships floating around separately. I'll play a few more games and observe the behavior more.

I didn't quite notice the effective range difference of the Titan vs other ships, but I'm sure it's in the longer end of the spectrum. Does it make sense to keep it in the back of the formation? As a related inquiry, do people generally control their fleet as a single swarm and get good effectiveness without micromanaging smaller groups? I suspect the strategy differs based on AI or Player opponents, with the later requiring more work possibly.

Thanks

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Yup I have noticed this too, however I use it to my advantage by using to the titans mircojump ability to jump in front of enemy caps trying to leave the system. It often gives me enough time to fire a grav warhead from the space egg, thus trapping them and allowing me to deal with a trouble hit and run fleet.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

I had a lot of trouble with a Titan in fleets in the beta where the whole fleet wouldn't attack or halfway through a battle would start moving to the other side of the system. Now I just don't include my Titan in fleets and micromanage it (not that hard when it's one giant ship) and haven't had problems since.