Making fleets

i had this problem b4.... that's why i never use the Create fleet option anymore.... i slected them all... and i press TAB couple of time to get the good ship....... and Shift+ TAB to go back

Wow, thanks!  I don't know how I didn't figure that out.

In the first instance, if I set an LRM as the fleet and everyone else hold position and tight (I found that in another post) would everybody move to the firing distance of the assailant and then attack what's in range?   Then I only need to micro the sc, right?

This actually sounds like a proper fleet wasn't formed. Here's how fleets and its related settings work:

- When you create a fleet, all ships are put in formation. Close range frigates in front (Cobalts, Kodiaks as TEC), anti-fighter/scouts in the middle, and long range/supports/carriers in the back. Capital ships also have these roles, so a Kol will be up with the cobalts/kodiaks, while a Sova or Akkan will always hang in the back.

- For that reason, battleship types make the best fleet leaders since ships form up behind them. You can also control which ship is made the fleet leader before forming the fleet by using tab to cycle through your selection to set the "primary" ship (the one with the whitest selection circle).

- In a fleet, ships will never be left behind, they'll always try to fall back into formation.

- The "Cohesion" setting for the fleet determines how tight or loose the formation is. A tight formation will see ships return to it after a short distance away, and a loose setting will allow them to chase/get targets a bit more liberally.

- Cohesion still works with the engagement range settings (Grav well/local area/hold position). Think of it this way: engagement range determines which targets are valid for auto-attack, and cohesion determines how far the ship can move from the formation to attack it. So a ship set to Grav well engagement can pick any target in the grav well to attack, but if it's in a fleet, its cohesion setting will prevent it from leaving formation to chase it. On the flip side, a ship set to Hold Position will never leave formation because it only attacks whatever is in range of its guns. Ultimately, the grav well engagement range only matters for the fleet leader, because for the fleet member ships the formation will not allow them to chase across the grav well anyway, so they'll pick local targets.

So, for example, you can set your fleet leader to Grav Well, and the rest of the ships to Hold Position. As long as you don't give the member ships manual orders (which override all auto-settings until the manual orders are executed), the fleet leader will lead the fleet to any target in the grav well, but the followers will never leave formation to attack randomly once they stop.

So:

This is basically correct, though with Hold Position the cohesion setting doesn't matter since the ships don't move at all. Cohesion mostly matters on Local Area/Grav Well settings, since it just determines how far ships can stray on their own. If they try to go too far, they'll cancel attack and fall back.

I sort of touched on this already above, but basically yeah, just use shift to make the Kortul the primary selection before forming the fleet. Once the fleet is made the only way to change the leader is to reform with the leader you want (which also cancels any waypoints set to that fleet).

Hope this helps a little

Yeah.  That rocks, thanks.

Annatar, this is the best explantion of fleet creation I have read so far.  So how do you create mine clearing fleets?  I thought Gardas would be good but they rarely have an opportunity to use all their banks.  How about lrms or lfs on hold position with a scout ship as leader and tight formation?  Would having a few mine sweeping fleets made up of about 5 or 6 ships work best?

Thanks

To be honest, mine clearing fleets don't work quite as well as advertised. In theory, you would want a scout as the leader, with a few flak-types in tow. In practice, the flaks don't do a very good of quickly engaging the mines once the scout detects them. I've played around with cohesion and engagement ranges, but they're just slow at it.

If you can spare the fleet points, I'd actually recommend you throw in a few carriers along with the scouts instead of the flaks. Fighters themselves aren't restricted by any fleet setting and they're always on the ball with shooting down mines. I haven't tried LFs, but that's an interesting idea as well.

I am experimenting with putting a scout in every fleet so any fleet can sweep mines.  The nice thing about lrms is their range.  Once a scout gets near the field the lrms can reach multiple mines.  You still have to watch them though as they do not have much resilancy and can mosey off into the field.  I think the problems I have had with this in the past you properly dianosed as having set the engagement ring improperly to grav well.

In my main fleets I usually put 5-10 scouts, mostly so that when the ships line up the fleet's flanks are covered. When you have enough ships in the fleet, you can just give a move order straight into a minefield and they will have enough firepower to clear it all and maybe only detonate 1-2 mines if you're unlucky.

My above post was talking about the specific little "mine sweep" fleets that just have scouts and damage ships and meant to be left on auto

If you put scouts in your main fleet, it works really well.

This thread rocks. Now I won't look like a total idiot with fleets.

Thx for explaining it Annatar11.