Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: July 01, 2012, 02:40:25 PM »Ah.. thanks, that cleared up some of my questions regarding this and I also think I just mixed up "Defensive Fire" with "Final Fire".
And while we are on the subject of formations... what do the "Superior Formation" selection actually do. I can see a list of them in the box of the parent. But what do I use that for, I guess it has to do with giving order to subordinate forces... or?Example -
Carrier Squadron 1
|- Cruiser Squadron 1
|- Cruiser Squadron 2
|- Destroyer Squadron 1
Carrier 1 is the superior formation for CruRon 1 & 2. CruRon 2 is the superior formation for DesRon 1. I am not sure if CarRon 1 shows as superior formation to DesRon 1 though.I really don't know exactly what you mean about it being impractical. It is fully automated and the ships will take this formation once I have found a threat and I do extend my missile tracking ability quite extensively so I can fire more at incoming ordnance. The picket will also change once a threat vector has been detected so they can engage it with their full diameter (not radius) with defensive fire, should provide some more intensive fire than just relying on final fire from one core group. I have not tested this in battle yet, but I hope to do so soon.
Well, there's not much wrong with the formation as devised, except that its pretty much unnecessary to spread out like that - you can set up 'dynamic' formations using facings and offsets pretty readily which automatically adjust to the direction of enemy ships. The main problem is that beam area defense against missiles is almost wholly impractical - you're almost always better off in a final-defensive-fire empire state formation. IMO, only planetary fire controls can get enough to hits at reasonable range to conduct effective area defense.
Putting AMM escorts in interdiction position works, as long as your AMMs are significantly faster than the incoming missiles. But it's only actually even useful if your problem is volume of incoming missile salvos instead of your AMM magazines.
The kick in the knickers is that often the escorts will get targeted by incoming fire and you just don't have any depth of defensive capability to protect them. "Empire state" formations solve these problems without any real weaknesses.
Your area defense looks to be protecting only one ship.
What I'd do, is take your formation, and instead of single ships put squadrons there. Then I'd count it as a good formation.