Managing large fleet in combat - tips?

Ctrl and a number key (ie Ctrl 1, Ctrl 2) will cause your selected unit(s) or object(s) (including planets) to be tied to the corresponding number key.

For example, if I select my Rapture Battlecruiser and hit Ctrl 1, then whenever I press the '1' key I will have control of my Rapture. Subsequently, if I select half of my Disciples and hit Ctrl 2, now I can command half of my Disciples by simply pressing '2'. And so on, and so forth with other units and keys.

As for controlling your fleet, I set my fleet up with hotkeys on capitals and use the empire tree on the left with unit stacking so I can select frigates 10 at a time with a simple mouse click and then give them orders before giving the next 10 units an order (generally attack) on another target or location if performing flanking maneuvers or chasing certain priority units (like a fleeing Capital Ship).

Hope this helps.

OK, roger on the hot keys.  What do you set your units for in terms of attack, i.e. stay put, and then manually assign targets? 

God I wish there was a way to assign units "rules" like e.g. a) protect a particular ship, b) attack a particular class of ship, or (god forbid) a hold a formation.  In the new version of the game having the ability to change formation would be a very welcome fix (like spreading out to avoid the maw).

In the fleet menu (select a fleet, then look at the triangles icons on the bottom of the screen):

- You can set the fleet formation to "tight" so that your ships stay together. It's not optimal but sometimes comes in handy.

- You can set the attack range to "hold position" or "local area" if you don't want you ships to spread out all over the map.

Also, put your carriers in a separate fleet.

Sometimes you need to make more separate fleets. For example putting all your capital ships in 1 fleet is not always optimal. If you place them in different fleets, they are easier to manage, without excessive micro-management. I seldom do that, only sometimes if there's a difficult battle (against AI) ahead.

You can also set ships to follow other ships. I've once done that on an allied AI capital ship and my ships followed it everywhere.

FLEETS

In general DO NOT USE fleets.

Use local area only or hold position.

There is one time I would recommend using fleets in a PvP match. This is where you are in a defensive position and building units in your factory. In this scenario.

1. Create a fleet.
2. Set the fleet to hold position.
3. Set the rally point to the fleet icon.
4. Newly built units will join the fleet and automagically set themselves to hold position.
5. Disband the fleet when you start attacking.

This prevents individual units from suiciding themselves on the enemy fleet.

Another strategy some people use in this situation is to set the rally point from the factory world to the next planet that DOES NOT go past the enemy fleet. This allows you to also build units without them suiciding themselves. A common counter to this approach is for the enemy to move their fleet in the path of the units jumping to the next world and destroying them with FF before they jump out.

EMPIRE TREE

Do NOT use the empire tree to issue attack orders. It seems like you should want to but using the shift clicks on the empire tree has unintended consequences- mainly time related as empire tree doesn't take into account distance, time to turn units etc. The better way is to micro focus fire to limit how far your units move and turn to maximize damage.

The empire tree is good for selecting your units or watching when units might be in trouble. They flash red if they are being attacked. 

SELECTING UNITS

Learn 

Alt+[Left Mouse Button] - Selects all units of the same time

Shift+[Right Mouse Button] - Creates a chain of orders to execute

Hold [Alt] - Shows Red circle for engagement range of Weapons.

Hold [Alt] + [Hover mouse over ranged ability] - Shows purple circle for Ability range. This is good for AOE's like MB where you want to make sure as many units are possible before you micro cast the ability. You should also consider turning off autocast on some abilities to maximise their use with micro.

Why don't you use fleets?

I always use them, mainly to distinguish carriers from other units so I always have two fleets. Sometimes I put torpedo cruisers in a third fleet.

For the rest it doesn't really matter does it? If you select a lot of units and give orders, they'll also behave like a fleet (positioning). And you can make a fleet behave like free units if you set their attack modes to max. range.

But then again I only play against AI and I don't like micromanagement... I suppose it's different in multiplayer games.

Good advice from all.  You know, I've been playing this game since it came out (with several years off) and never noticed that under the fleet menu. I'm such a tool. Thanks

I also only play against the AI. With the Entrenchment (and later) versions I find myself in stalemates (i.e. both sides have max fleets) and I think to myself, there must be some battle strategy I am missing (I can win on "hard", but nothing higher).  I also noticed that when e.g. playing against the Vasari Loyalists that my tightly packed fleet got hammered by "the maw."  I read through the strategy tips on the wiki page and thought "hmm I'm not really optimizing the 'this unit versus that unit' thing" it's usually just a war of numbers.

@zombie -- I am going to try the selecting units thing tonight.  Can you expand on the "creates a chain of orders" thing?

Follow up question for y'all:  I note in the wiki guide that they list "shortcuts" for various units i.e. "R" for Kodiaks.  Is this combat or production related? I tried this last night (while highlighting various things such as the fleet, or orbited planet) and it doesn't seem to select anything.  Is this just wrong in the guide, or is there some key stroke combo I am missing?

Thanks to all for the replies!

Example:

[alt]+[click] bombers

[shift]+[click] 1st capital ship

[shift]+[click] 2nd capital ship

[shift]+[click] etc

works good for cleaning up turrets, too

Fleets do wonky things and it's important to not lose any units unnecessarily in a PvP match.

Hey all, by way of feedback, I experimented with some of these tips (and oh would you look there, a  tutorial on the advanced inetrface I never went through) and this was all very helpful.  Thanks to all.

I could put this in a new thread, but since I have some smart dudes here:  The TEC's new Capital Ship, the Corsev Battle Cruiser, what the heck is the deal with "boarding party"?  The strategy tips are a bit vague on how exactly it works.  I quote "If a target ship would be destroyed while boarded, the ship is instead healed for a portion of its shields and hull and brought under your control."  What the heck does "would be destroyed" mean?  I tried starting with a Corsev (just to try the suggestion in the strategy tips) to take over rebel or pirate ships while expanding and I would launch boarding party, wait...eventually enemy ship explodes...???  So what am I doing wrong?  Do i need to time it so there is a sliver of energy (but not so little that it's destroyed)?  Has anyone had success with this?

Boarding party deals damage, if that damage would destroy the ship you gain control of the ship instead. I can't recall how much damage Boarding Party does but you have to make sure it's timed so that the enemy ship has a low enough health but not so low that you destroy it before the Ability grabs a hold of the enemy ship.

Experiment in the dev exe and just keep spawning frigates for your Corsev to practice on if you're having trouble.

The damage is Damage taken/sec: 35 -> 40 -> 45 -> 50 as you level the ability, with durations of 10 -> 13 -> 17 -> 20.

OK with that in mind, I gather you break off attacking and pray you timed it right?

This is one of those abilties that I wonder if it's worth the trouble.

During the duration of the boarding party, if the ships does reach 0 hitpoints, instead of being destroyed it enters your control. As a ship with 1 hitpoint would quickly die,n it also gets 50 % health regenerated.

In what way the ship does reach zero hitpoints is irrelevant. Be it the boarding party itself or weapon fire.... the ships is all yours.

So you dont have to time that precisly.... just wait until a ship has low hull and then use boarding party on it.

A ship with 250 hull points left

and an active boarding party

dealt 1000 damage by anything

will not die but become your ship.