Formations

hmmm... has this been discussed before?

for some reason I think it has, but can' find the former post...

its because it was in the old boards.

Well, I have two views.

If your talking about hoding a formation(more or less) in a physical sense( ie arrow formation or block, or sphere) then I think that it would be a hinderance most of the time. The enemy in with a more loose and fluid approach will be able to flank and cunduct assault on the rear of your postion. Even if ships used their thrusters to compensate and turn around, they would still get hit from the income ships of other directions.

What I think you ment in you post was with regards to more or less hold a given area. Sort of like a defensive stance but with more rigidity. Overall, your would want your ships to be able to move around, but still keep the general line position of ringed position or what ever. If that is the case, it wouldnt be a bad idea, just make sure the the ships to the rear/inside of your formation have good close in systems because your biggest threat would be the ships that make it through the lines and try an attack from the flanks or the rear of the formation.

It would be nice to be able to set up a blockade, a defensive line to screen enemy ships.

As far as physical formations go, I would like to be able to set up everything from pincer attacks through flanking maneuvres to all out charges. There could also be a "Disperse" option, which would cause your ships to spread out, making it more difficult for their fleet to stay together and/or destroy groups of your ships with a BFB (big f*****g bomb). There could also be a "Disperse enemy" option, where your ships infiltrate (by which I mean force open the gaps in a fleet) and duke it out ship to ship, forcing them into a retreat and scatter them across vast areas of space.

While we're on the subject of strategy, how is ramming gonna be handled? It would be nice to capture an enemy ship and ram it into another, or load it up with nukes and remote pilot it into the midst of the enemy fleet.

agh, you cannot capture (this has been completely and repeatedly rejected)

and I dont think you can set purposefull ramming (although I think there is ramming damage)

this can be done with three clicks, I dont think you need to remove this from micro. besides its much better than saying "disperse enemy", and then your fleet just picks at the edges.

yeah you guys are starting to want a little to much non-interaction, I agree with the 3 clicks and a fleet is broken up method.

Effectively, if I send a fleet out against an enemy I want to make sure of a few things

1) Bombers are protected
2) Capital Ships with limited defenses against fighters are protected

I typically hold these units at the back of my lines till I have broken through an enemy's defense. I therefore set up a formation that would support these two goals. Last thing I would want to happen is to see the fleet's formation fall apart as soon as a move order is given or if a squad of fighters sees an attractive enemy target and leaves the escort.

This is just one thought on formations.

yeah, ships should remain with a bit of a pack-mind.
they shouldn't break formation with ships near them because you told them to turn left.

I guess what I'm saying is that if groups are ordered to move they should try to stay in the same relative positions, giving some liniency for differing ship speeds etc. but they shouldn't be GLUED to the spot. (like in HW2)