Are you allied with the race doing the attacking?

No, I am not allied with either of the warring races; I have a "Warm" relation with the attacking race and am "Friendly" with the other.  When I set my fleets to "Auto Attack", I get a message saying that nothing could be found to attack.  According to the manual giving my fleets the "Sentry" command is supposed to get them to challenge any ship "friendly or enemy" that are near, but they don't see either the raider or the freighter and so just sit there and do nothing.  Any ideas?

Yes, I have tried a couple of times to move both fleets directly onto the spot where the raider is.  Originally, I had 3 fleets before I combined two of them and set one to "Auto Attack", one to "Sentry", and tried to resend the third fleet to the same point after it got there.  In all cases, my fleets would not attack the raider, and as I said earlier, the "Auto Attack" fleet triggered messages that nothing could be found to attack.  Basically, my fleets won't attack the raider no matter what I have tried and I cannot declare war on the raider's race.  Because of my inability to destroy the raider, the victum race has destroyed one of its trade routes that was a significant source of income for my alliance.  How can I get my fleets to attack the raider and prevent the loss of anymore trade routes?

My fleets stop just short of the raider.  They don't actually stack on top of the raider like my own ships do.  A one point, the raider actually stopped in place for about three turns after it destroyed one freighter and was waiting for another.  At that point my fleets caught up to it, but nothing I tried would get them to either attack it or even stack on top of it.  Any more ideas?

My fleets cannot find the freighter that the raider is attacking either.  The "Sentry" command is supposed to allow your ships to challenge any other vessel including friendly ships, but it ignores both the freighter as well as the raider.

It could be a bug in the software as I have noticed other errata -- parts of the application that just don't work properly.

Version:  1.5

Weapons:  All 10 of my ships had weapons.

Isolation suggestion:  Unfortunately, the raider is faster than any of my ships, so surrounding it will be extremely difficult.  However, at one point it had stopped for 3 turns and I had fleets on three sides of it, but they wouldn't do anything and the raider simply moved onto its next victim.  I also tried putting 3 fleets along the raider's intended path and gave them to "Sentry" but the raider simply avoided them and they never detected it.  Any more suggestions?  It is frustrating to have built up this great fleet that refuses to attack anything!

That'd make perfect sense.  But no, it should show up as Team, rather than Warm.

Also, DL doesn't have an option in the diplomacy screen to declare war.  Period.

One last thing-can you invade one of their planets?

As a test, you may want to give a ship or so to the race they are fighting just to see if they can get the ships to engage. You don't have to save it when you do this, but just see what happens.  Keep in mind though, what the AI does whith ships it gets can be hard to predict; they may just keep them in one place.

Also, i never really use sentry, but I  don't think it will get your ships to challenge the AI or anything, but it just wakes them up from a guard position when a ship (enemy only ?) comes near. 

I always wanted an option to follow and AI ship or get it to attack a specific one even if it moves after i set a destination for my ship.

Okay, here is the scenario:  The raider is a Drengin ship, the victim freighters belong to the Altarians with whom they are at war.  I (leader of the Terrans) have "Friendly" relations and Trade routes with both races.  At this point, the Drengin raider has destroyed about a half dozen Alterian freighters in and around Earth and the Altarians have discontinued use of two of their trade routes as a result, significantly reducing my income.

Strategy failures:  All Drengin planets are heavily defended by large fleets, so planetary invasion will not be an option anytime soon.  If my apparently impotent fleets cannot get rid of one lone raider, they certainly won't be able to do anything to the fleets defending their planets.  Also, I have broken my fleets down into smaller ones with a minimum of three vessels each, but I have been unable to get them to surround the raider before it attacks its next victim.  Because of its speed advantage, the raider simply flies around my fleets to do its deed.

Game play failures:

1)  I find it unacceptable that I cannot declare war on an alien race that is devastating my economy.

2)  I have discovered that the "Sentry" command does not work in my game.  My manual has the following description:  "This tells a ship to be idle until another ship - friendly or enemy - comes near."  The italics is mine for emphasis because that is the only difference I see between that and the "Guard" command.  So, a ship or fleet under a "Sentry" command should challenge both the raider and the freighters, but they don't.  In fact, I have discovered that the "Sentry" command does not work at all -- the "Guard" command persists through multiple turns until I change the command, but the "Sentry" does not.  Whether I give a fleet or a single vessel the "Sentry" command, it is nullified programmatically when I click the "Turn" button because its check box is unchecked the next turn.  This is a significant failure as the "Sentry" command is the only one listed where a ship or fleet can be ordered to react to a non-enemy vessel.  Would someone check to see if the "Sentry" command is enabled in your versions?  I want to know if this is a failure just in my particular version or if it is a global failure in all versions.

I am still struggling with the issue of not being able to declare war on anyone.  All of the planets of the race I want to attack (Drengin) are guarded by their fleets.  If my (Terran) fleets were unable to attack a single lone raider in my space, they are going to be even more inept against alien fleets in their own space with military starbases nearby.  Since I first reported this issue, an alien race (Torian) who is an "Ally" has declared war on the hostile race and fighting has broken out between them.  However, I still cannot attack or declare war on the hostile race.  I want to send my fleets to assist my weaker ally, but because the "Sentry" command won't allow them to react to non-enemy vessels as I had expected, there is no other command to get my fleets to challenge a non-enemy vessel, and I cannot declare war; my fleets are useless.  Any more suggestions?  It is frustrating to build up a large, powerful navy but then not be able to get them to attack anything or defend an ally.

Yes, this is my first game (the default) in Dread Lords.  I have already made several mistakes -- as one would expect -- which I only discovered with hindsight, but want to continue in order to learn from my mistakes and be wiser for the next game.  It may well be that I am simply not doing something or doing something wrong due to lack of knowledge -- which is why I am asking for help.

At this point in the game, the Drengin raider has been destroyed by an Altarian warship and all the alien races are at war except mine.  So, my inept fleets are the only ones left who aren't at war.  I had tried to surround the raider with my fleets as Loupdinour suggested and to put them between the raider and its victim freighters as a blockade, but the raider always either went around or through my fleets.  Before the raider was destroyed, I had over a dozen war vessels chasing it but could never get them to engage or provoke the raider to do anything except ignore them.  As for starting a new game, I am reluctant since it took me so long to get to the point where hostilities began in the current game.  Concerning sending a saved file, I have no idea how to do that and don't recall an option anywhere in the application for doing that.  If there is a procedure for submitting a saved file, I'd appreciate it if someone would provide it to me or point me in the right direction.  In the meantime, this large navy I have built up is apparently ineffective.

Upsizing and building vessels in the Shipyard isn't the issue.  The manual was very helpful and I played around with it a bit and figured out how to use it quickly.  In fact, after the Alliance "Defender" and "Star Fury" vessels became available I designed upsized versions of them; since these core vessels came with beam weapons, I put missiles and mass driver weapons on the upsized versions and added some armor to give some "balance" to my navy.

The problem is that I can't get my fleets to engage any alien vessels and I am unable to declare war on anyone.  All the other races in the game are at war, but the only thing I can get my fleets to do is move around the galaxy ineffectively.  An image won't help, the problem is with the application's execution -- I cannot get my fleets to attack.  How do you declare war?  If I could do that, I think most of these problems would go away.

Gee, that was it!  I never thought to right-click on the raider; I would create a rally point on the raider, move my fleets until they couldn't advance any further on it, and then try to get them to attack using the check box commands.  The "Auto-Attack" command doesn't work on non-enemy ships, I kept getting a message telling me that there was nothing to attack when I tried to use it on the raider.  In any case, right-clicking on a vessel to attack it should be included in the "Combat" section of the manual since it is not intuitive.  Anyway, very much appreciated, Shwepie!

The raider had a speed advantage over my fleets, so most of the time it would simply go around them.  A couple of times it appeared to pass through them, but may have just been exploiting any "cracks" between my fleets.  It is difficult to determine if the fleets are close enough to prevent any "seams" between them.

I still don't understand the purpose of the "Guard" and "Sentry" commands.  Ships with these commands do nothing until a foreign vessel comes withing range and then does more nothing?  In the real world, the purpose of a guard or sentry is to challenge any unauthorized person who comes near.