How do you organize your navy?

[spoongoon (OP)]

I have divided my ships into two fleets, Military and Colonial (commercial).
My problem is that having ships, fighters, pdc´s and such it´s hard to keep track of everything.
I´m using the naval organization tab to create new fleets, but it doesn´t work so well.
The organization is not updated whenever i change things from elsewhere and i have to go back and do it manually, it´s a pain.

It would be nice to have fewer larger task groups that i could split, regroup and so on.
I´ve wanted to create for example a geosurvey group that would have subformations for individual ships so I could copy orders.
Unfortunately it seems i have to have a separate group for each ship.
Could someone give me the rundown on how to use this window for best efficiency (pretty please).
Other tips and advice relating to organizing are welcome.

[Vandermeer]

I am not perfectly fluent in this, so I would like to see some detailed advice as much as you, but for the problem of the geosurvey group: If you have a carrier for those geo probes, you can just go to the "special order/organization" tab in the carrier task force after launching them all, where you will find the means to set a default order (like survey) and then the ability to copy those default orders to all sub formations (which the geo probes are automatically since they come from this carrier).

You then probably want to set the default order to neutral again for the carrier, unless he is meant to help, but the rest of the group will now start exploring automated. Only works for one kind of automation however, so if you do geo and grav survey simultaneously, you either have two carriers, or survey craft that can do both (though you will then still need to do it one after another).

If you are asking to quickly separate your survey craft from a carrier, read the tooltip for "divide TG" on the table just right of that.


Otherwise, if you don't use a carrier at all, then I fear I have not understood what the problem was. There is nothing that can possibly lighten the burden of micromanagement when it comes to single ships. Well, you could of course form groups by hand in the said "special order/organization" tab by assigning any number of ships to a leading one, and then just copy orders from the leader if you want to fly in several autonomous survey crafts to some system and then work automated. That would work.
If you are making a task force organization chart you could probably generate that relationship with such a structure (I just created a pseudo one to show it, and have not tested this):


The procedure would be to first detach "Branch+Sub" on the survey leader, and then head over to the other tab do use "divide TG". The leader then probably has the rights to copy his orders still ( can be checked by selecting any of the subordinates). If that doesn't work, then you can try to first make a "Branch Only" split right after the branch+sub step first. This formation will surely have a connection to their leader, so if you do a "divide TG" on those, it should be taking the flag over.
I have not tested any of this though, as I am perfectly fine with the state of affairs and sending out craft one by one. (and I am one that always seeks to minimize any micromanagement burden e.g.: by making ships large instead of many when resources become abundant) I guess it would really help if you do omnidirectional advance though, which I haven't done since my second game anymore, because indeed of complications in overview and management.

[spoongoon (OP)]

Ok, that did help a bit, thanks.
If it´s not a micromanagment nightmare it´s not aurora.
Maybe I´ll do the survey carrier thing or have couple of big ships with lots of geo and grav sensors.
Or maybe probes, I´ll think of something.
I´ll be spending the next few hours reorganizing the fleet.

[Erik L]

If you see where it says "Secondary Order", you can put that to Survey the three locations. If it has no more bodies to survey, it will do the grav survey instead.

[Vandermeer]

I tested a way for me now that works. The above double separation in leader and subordinate group does not work. Instead you simply have to set up this:


It does not matter if this is for survey carriers or independent explorers. When you need them you just press "Branch Only" on the group so they detach from wherever they are (if in same location). Next you head to the "special order" tab where you select the leader and then do the "divide TG" thing like this:


The leader you selected will automatically be in charge and able to transfer orders:


So now you only have to order the "Geo Survey Group" around. You can however not transfer default order routines to subordinates if your normal orders are empty.(kind of unnecessary shortcoming of the game here) But you can just give the leader the order to move to wherever he already is (jump point maybe, or carrier, or shipyards) or do something else redundant, so no time is lost if anybody executes those.

I really use this method now, because it allows survey-fighters to detach without being subordinate to their mothership automatically, thus I can still let the mothership send out copied orders to others without scaring up all the busy explorer bees.

[83athom]

Sorry for bringing up an old topic but it goes with my question as I couldn't find the answer anywhere else (and this was the closest it got). *Refer to image at this point* Is there a way I could split my force (relativity) easily into the detachments already made into the Organization and then recombine them later without the need to have an additional ship stay as the main TG and launch as escorts, have to fiddle around with the names and organization every time, or have to return to the same point of detaching to recombine.

Edit; Nevermind, the divide into new task group based on currently selected Branch (Create Task Group: Branch button) works for splitting and Using the Branch + Sub button works good for recombining.