How do fleets work?

from Stardock Forums
Do Attack/Defence ratings combine with the number of ships you put into a fleet? Or does each ship fire their weapons one by one, and what determines the firing order?

Can someone tell me how fleets work, please? Is there any benefit to having them at all?

Cheers,
Stofsk
2,328 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
The fleeting function is basically given to us to reduce micromanagement (ie. moving ships together rather than individually). When fleets fight, the combat is resolved one attacker to one defender sequentially.

Here's something from the manual:

Tip: If a fleet is attacked, the vessel with the highest combined attack and defense values will defend
first. If there are two ships with the same value, then the ship with the highest remaining hit points
defends. On the plus side, this means that the damaged ships will be sheltered by other ships of the
same class. On the down side, you can’t get a BattleAxe commander to throw his ship away
defending a damaged Dreadnaught: the BattleAxe will hide behind the Dreadnaught until the
Dreadnaught is destroyed, and only then fight.

In the current update 1.05.071, there is a bug which allows fleeted defenders to do much better than they are supposed to but that would be fixed in the next update.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm not sure if this was your question, but when attacking with a fleet, you'll need to 'un-group' and attack individually. If you attack while grouped, only one ship will attack. Perhaps this is not the case in a different path, but I'm using 1.05. :p

~SDC~
Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
#2

It is better to stay "grouped" (in-fleet) when you attack under 1.05.071, due to the calculation referenced by RayCSB in #1.

Although the fleet as a whole will spend 1mp to send only one ship out to attack, that ship's combat will be favorably modified by the fleet bonus. In close or evenly-matched battles, this will frequently allow your ship to survive (rather than being exchanged).

I am sorry to hear this is considered a "bug" rather than a feature. I actually enjoy it as an element of strategy. One must choose whether to disband and lose the bonus in order to pursue multiple targets, or stay grouped and engage fewer times overall (when fleet sizes exceed MP's).

~SDC~
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes, that was really funny Dark Rain.

We thought it was a bug. Then it came out in the manual so we thought it was a feature. Then Stardock finally came out to clarify that the manual was wrong and that there was never a intention to have fleet bonuses.

So final verdict - Bug which would be fixed in next update.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Somewhere to the right of the screen is a stacked ship list. Clicking on any ship with bring up a green arrows button there. Click to fleet. Click button below to unfleet.

Keyboard shortcuts to fleet is F. Unfleet is U.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Funny... I think there SHOULD be a bonus when 20 ships attack one enemy, vereus when one ship attacks it. It's the swarm factor - one bee sting will barely hurt you... but a hundred bee stings could kill you.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Hmm - RayChua, just so you know, I actually disagree. I suspect (kind of strongly) that the bug was already fixed (in 071), and there is also a deliberate effect. (Based on Fogboy saying that there would be a deliberate effect.) I know Cari's post said something different. We will see what happens.

In the meantime, I note that I specifically asked Frogboy about this in the context of the manual, and he approved the words that are in there. So until the functionality changes (or I am directly refuted, which Cari did NOT do), I am sticking to my claim that it is deliberate.

Anyway - we'll see what the situation is after the next patch/version...