Divisions are Divine and Task Forces are Funky

[Thiosk (OP)]

Does it not stick if you simply put the jump tender in the parent branch?

[Grunden]

How do you ensure that the Jump Tender always remains as the parent fleet? Unless my memory is faulty, I had the problem where Aurora randomly assigned which ship is parent fleet and which isn't.

actually you're right. The parent fleet isn't always the jump tender. It still works though since the whole point is for them to gather in the same spot. In that case it will be one of the GEO ships instead. Can still just hit assemble and go.

[Garfunkel]

Ah, right, your jump tender had geosurvey sensors.

I had a single-purpose Jump Tender accompanying survey ships. When they entered a system, I did pretty much what you did - then I'd manually cancel the Jump Tender's orders and move it to the next JP I wanted to go through. When the geosurvey was done, I had to manually order the GeoSurvey ships to join up with the jump tender. A hassle.

Next time, I'll follow your example. Sounds quite hassle-free.

[Grunden]

Yes, I used to do it that way too. and was sick of having to set the tender's default orders all the time. Having everyone in the fleet have geo sensors make it a lot less troublesome.

Not to mention, since I use the same design for independent grav-survey exploration, having geo sensors lets them check out the habitable worlds immediately when exploring a new system without having to wait.

[ollobrains]

as time goes buy i add a ship with a solarium harvestor a colonizer with colonists and a infurstructure on board and if u have a few a refinery.  Bounce several systems out and setup base.  Rapid expansion and all that.

[Thiosk (OP)]

OK so I've been digging through fleet command windows here.  I think I have noted a few more features that I havent used.  First, escort.  The threat axis is in the direction of the fleet destination.  So you can set up some PD craft to escort at 60,000 km, theres easy buttons to click and select these things on the F12 window.  Suddenly area defense is viable without needing lots of clicking.  

Does anyone use the escort functions?  Would you like to post some tips and tricks?

Escorting opens up a few interesting strategies I might play with.  I tend to build my main PD ships ships pretty large-- generally 4 full-sized quad gauss turrets.  I've noted that in recent games, while the aliens like to hit my giant active sensor platform (he pings loudly) they also seem to really target the 16kton PD cruisers heavily.  In an escorting area defense mode, this would constitute a weakeness, as they wouldn't have the support of the rest of the fleet and the full attention of their brethren.  However, if one were to install a cloaking device on the ship, the escort ships would be less likely to be targeted at extreme ranges.  Missiles would more likely target the core of the fleet, and let the cloaked area defense do their duty.

[HaliRyan]

I use the escort function quite often on my area defense ships.

For Gauss armed PD boats I just leave them with the main fleet in final defensive fire mode, they don't have the range to have it be worth sticking them in front on an area defense setting.

For Laser/Particle Beam ships at higher tech levels I've found they can be quite good. You need significant range tech, but you can stick them several hundred thousand km out in front of the main fleet and they'll get lots of extra shots on inbound ordinance. Of course they can run into some problems if they get targeted.

AMM boats go way out in front, if my AMMs have a range of 2m km I'll often sit them close to that far out front of the main fleet. The only problem I've found with this is that if you're getting absolutely swamped with missiles and some slip past them, then they can start wasting a lot of shots by firing 'backwards' too late to catch their target before it impacts.

[Steve Walmsley]

OK so I've been digging through fleet command windows here.  I think I have noted a few more features that I havent used.  First, escort.  The threat axis is in the direction of the fleet destination.  So you can set up some PD craft to escort at 60,000 km, theres easy buttons to click and select these things on the F12 window.  Suddenly area defense is viable without needing lots of clicking.  

Does anyone use the escort functions?  Would you like to post some tips and tricks?

Escorting opens up a few interesting strategies I might play with.  I tend to build my main PD ships ships pretty large-- generally 4 full-sized quad gauss turrets.  I've noted that in recent games, while the aliens like to hit my giant active sensor platform (he pings loudly) they also seem to really target the 16kton PD cruisers heavily.  In an escorting area defense mode, this would constitute a weakeness, as they wouldn't have the support of the rest of the fleet and the full attention of their brethren.  However, if one were to install a cloaking device on the ship, the escort ships would be less likely to be targeted at extreme ranges.  Missiles would more likely target the core of the fleet, and let the cloaked area defense do their duty.

Using the escort functions you can set a specific contact as the threat axis, so your escorts will maneuver to keep themselves between your main body and that enemy contact. You can set different threat axis for different escorts. You can also protect ships, such as a tanker perhaps, by setting the angle to 180 degrees so that ship will attempt to maneuver to place itself on the far side of the main body from the contact you designate as the threat. Finally, you can set up scouts, perhaps 30 degrees either side of the line of advance, and have them maintain position a few million kilometers ahead of the fleet.

Steve

[ollobrains]

Bring on the point defense cannons for those pesky missiles just need a lot of em

[Thiosk (OP)]

Using the escort functions you can set a specific contact as the threat axis, so your escorts will maneuver to keep themselves between your main body and that enemy contact. You can set different threat axis for different escorts. You can also protect ships, such as a tanker perhaps, by setting the angle to 180 degrees so that ship will attempt to maneuver to place itself on the far side of the main body from the contact you designate as the threat. Finally, you can set up scouts, perhaps 30 degrees either side of the line of advance, and have them maintain position a few million kilometers ahead of the fleet.

Steve

I started putting up some meson-based point defense ships (I had some quad turrets already researched, with some high range+tracking speed firecontrols) for use in an escort role.

Well, one turret ain't enough to justify all the shielding, engines, fuel storage, armor, and crew needed for an antimatter area defense escort traveling at 16 kkm/s right?  Sadly, sticking two on there means I have a 10,000 ton escort.

As a secondary idea, I'm toying with the concept of making really cheap, sub 5k ton ships, if I have to cut to triple or dual cannon from the quads that is fine with me.  The question is: do I have to train these suckers?  They'll have paper thin shields and will be treated as disposable-- I don't want to train disposables!  I normally train fleets up to 100%, but the escorts are separate from the main fleet, so they won't hamper the main flee'ts movement.  Will they have big delays flying in fleet formation even without training?  Otherwise, I'll just craft the area defense cruisers to have four duallies on em and leave it at that.

[Panopticon]

Well, if they are small and have light shields and only AMM sensors they won't have the same signature as your major combatants, so theoretically the NPRs won't target them early during fights, which should offset their fragility.