A security guard does not engage the bad guys he just calls the cops.

how does that apply to the game? what 'cops' can your military call? seems to me they are the 'cops' , and there for it would fall to them to take actions that the 'cops' would take, like, ohhhhhhh i dunnow, attack and remove the invader?

im not in the least bit suggesting that units on guard should TAKE action and launch an auto attack

seems to me they are the 'cops' , and there for it would fall to them to take actions that the 'cops' would take, like, ohhhhhhh i dunnow, attack and remove the invader?

Both of those are your statements Knute. I think you are arguing for the sake of arguing.

not really, dont know what you dont grasp about this, a ship on guard is on guard in a given square, if an enemy ship attacks that square then the guard ships take action. not rocket science here is it?

perhaps if i say they counter attack then it would become clear?

if an enemy ship attacks that square then the guard ships take action

Why didn't you just say so? That's exactly how it works in the game! If an enemy moves into a parsec populated by one of my ships there is a battle.

However, if the enemy ship merely moves near my ship, the game is set up to inform us an enemy is near so we can take whatever action we deem necessary.

Yes guard works. It activates the ships when enemy is in range. It is up to you to move them

*shakes head*

now we move back to the original complaint, that a ship on guard is NOT the first ship to defend a square. if i put a ship on guard with a fleet of constructors (all in the same square) that ship is not the defender of that square as it should be. same with starbases, or other ships.

envision a staging area, you collect non combat ships, and select combat ships to guard the area (much as the north banks were in WWII) if an enemy attacks that area then the guard ships move to engague, NOT the merchants. now granted the luck of the draw might suggest that the odd enemy attack could succeed in supprising the guard ships and pick off a merchant, but seldom. the majority of the time you would find that the enemy would have to take out the guards ships first then go after the merchants.

by puting a ship on guard that ship should be on alert. and should be the FIRST ship to engague in the event of an incursion into the square its guarding, reguardles of the combat power of any other ships in that square. stronger or weaker. that ships duty is to be the first to fight for control of that square. even if there would be a fleet of 10 more powerful ships in the square with it.

THAT is what a guard does after all. mearly hiding in a dust cloud and sneaking back warning messages to HQ while your entire fleet of merchants is destroyed or your starbases are slaged, gos against the very meaning of the word GUARD. guards dont hide and report they attack and defend. if they hide and report then they are sentrys NOT guards.

If you've got a bunch of ships just "stacked" in a square (and not setup as a real fleet), the targetted defending ships get picked at random.

So, if you've got 9 constructors and 1 guard with weapons stacked in 1 square, that's 10 possible targets for the attacker to hit. That gives a 10% chance of the first target being that guard, and 90% chance of the first target being a mostly defenseless constructor. That's why it's usually a constructor that gets hit first.

Stacking in the same square does not make a group of ships a fleet. You've gotta have enough logistics to turn them into a fleet.

What you could do, is surround your stack of constructors with fighters, or at least put enough of them in the way that the enemy will not be able to reach your constructors in one turn without taking out enough fighters to make it too risky for them.

With the way the game works, if you don't have enough logistics to make an actual fleet out of the constructors and defenders, it's a bad idea to just stack them if you're sending them into harm's way.

Put your sentries and guards out ahead of the staging area, with some around the perimeter, so they have a chance to wake up and keep the "Turn" button from going green until you move them to attack.

on the other hand if a ship could actualy be set to guard a square as the name implys all the logistics in the world wouldnt matter since the guard ships would be 100% assured of being the ship/fleet attacked first.

as it should be.

i dont loose merchant ships or starbases to the enemy, i also dont use either the guard or the sentry functions since they have no real use. but i WOULD use a guard function that would make the ship an actual GUARD of the square i stationed it in.

no matter how you try and spin it a ship on 'guard' in the game as it is isnt guarding anything it is mearly a more advanced sentry.

i know how to play the game, i know all the ins and outs and work arounds. my issue isnt that i cant defend my constructors or starbases and i hate the game because its 'broke'. not at all, in fact i like the game and this issue isnt really a major one when compaired to all the other things that are REALLY wrong and need to be looked at.

but it is missleading, and it leads to confusion for new players. a ship on guard should be the first ship attacked, period. its not , a ship on 'guard' in this game is just a sentry with a different name.

I agree these two commands are a bit problematic. This is why:

1) It is difficult to remember which one does what because the words "guard" and "sentry" are synonyms. They should be named such that each one's name plays up it's difference compared to the other. Maybe "Wait" and "Defend" would be better names, but if you can't immediately tell which new name corresponds to which old command, then I did a bad job renaming them. (The should be renamed whether my names were good or not)

2) The effects of the 2 commands are similar. Scratch that.
They are nearly identical. Scratch that.
Unless you already know the difference between the 2 commands, they are so similar that it is unlikely you would ever figure out the difference until you ask someone who knows.

On the other hand, there is a command which actually would be highly useful and easily distinguishiable that the game doesn't have- "Guard Forever". It would make a unit never show up again in the "to move" list until the "Guard Forever" command is unchecked. It's especially convenient on lower difficulties when the player may still be overwhelmed by the game, or if you're trying to do something weird like research every tech in the game (and don't want distractions).