How-To Fleet Posture

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Ssharsted
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Joined: Mon Mar 21, 2016 3:03 pm

RE: Posture and Pirates

Post by Ssharsted »

Hi all
The year is now 2016. New player here and having problems with fleet postures. Can you tell me if I understand this correctly.

1: Fleet posture only matters when fleet is automated
2: Defensive (shield) Means your fleet will automatically attack ememies within the BLUE circle
3: Attack (sword\line) Means your fleet will automatically attack enemies within the RED circle
4: when chosing targets your fleet takes its own strength vs targets strentgh into account - regardless of wheter defensive\attack posture is chosen. This will cause it to avoid suicide missions.

I play with manual fleet formation and design my own warships - the posture thing doesnt really Work very good. Have I misunderstood something?
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Retreat1970
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Location: Wisconsin

RE: Posture and Pirates

Post by Retreat1970 »

1. No (auto means fleets go back to base)
2. Sort of (fleets generally ignore pirates)
3. Yes (primary target first)
4. No

tm.asp?m=4017807

Some other info in the above thread.
Ssharsted
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Joined: Mon Mar 21, 2016 3:03 pm

RE: Posture and Pirates

Post by Ssharsted »

Thanks alot for the reply!
Your reply has given rise to new questions
1: What is the purpose of the BLUE circle, what impact does it have? Does it mean the fleet will return to homebase as long as it is inside the blue circle?
2: When would somebody ever use defensive posture? What is the idea behind it?
3: How do I set up a fleet to f... up enemies that comes into my domain. I need an enemy base to use "set target" - So I can only get the RED circle centered inside enemy territory.
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Retreat1970
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RE: Posture and Pirates

Post by Retreat1970 »

Blue circle is the range from home base the fleet will engage. Automated postured fleets will return to home base. Manual fleets will not.

Defensive posture works best when at war. Long range scanners pick up incoming fleet. Defense fleets move to intercept.

Defense posturing works very well, but not so well against pirates or single targets (one ship). Attack posture (red) is for just that, attacking. Set a target, set a range, then when you go to war that fleet will attack (set target first then anything in attack range).
Aeson
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Joined: Fri Aug 30, 2013 7:36 pm

RE: Posture and Pirates

Post by Aeson »

1: What is the purpose of the BLUE circle, what impact does it have? Does it mean the fleet will return to homebase as long as it is inside the blue circle?
Each blue circle marks the area of operations of a fleet in defensive posture. The area of operations is centered upon the home base of that fleet. A fleet in defensive posture will, at least in theory, respond to attacks made on things belonging to your empire within its area of operations. A fleet in defensive posture will not normally leave its area of operations except to refuel (if the nearest location with enough fuel for the fleet is outside the area of operations); if the area of operations is small enough (<= system) or the fleet is very close to the edge of the area of operations, portions of the fleet may leave the area of operations when attempting to escape destruction at the hands of an overpowering opponent, if the ships are permitted by design engagement stances to flee. The area of operations will become undefined if the home base is lost or destroyed, at which point the fleet will behave as an automated fleet with no home base or area of operations set.
2: When would somebody ever use defensive posture? What is the idea behind it?
3: How do I set up a fleet to f... up enemies that comes into my domain. I need an enemy base to use "set target" - So I can only get the RED circle centered inside enemy territory.
The idea behind defensive posture is the the idea embodied in the first part of your third question. A fleet in defensive posture will, in theory, attack any hostile targets which attack your empire within the fleet's area of operations. Note, however, that defensive posture is largely reactionary.

Because fleets in defensive posture are largely reactive rather than proactive, defensive postures tend to work better when the things being protected are nearby, reasonably tough relative to the strength of the attacker, or both. If you intend to use the "nearby systems" (anything within a radius of 0.25 sectors of the home base), "sector" (anything within a radius of 0.5 sectors of the home base), or "anywhere" (anything belonging to your empire anywhere in the galaxy) settings for the area of operations, you need to ensure that the targets can hold off an attacking force long enough for your defense fleet to arrive. Especially early in the game, this essentially rules out areas of operations larger than "nearby systems" if you plan to use only a single fleet to cover the region, except perhaps if that region is under very little threat; at normal game speed, ships equipped with fully-upgraded Gerax Hyperdrives or the initial versions of the Kaldos Hyperdrive, Equinox Jumpdrive, and Calista-Dal Warp Drive take at least 40 seconds (including jump initiation time) to reach a location 0.25 sectors away, and all earlier hyperdrives take longer. Any attacker which is a credible threat to a target can do a lot of damage in 40 seconds; 40 seconds at normal game speed is probably enough time for an average size-300 warship to cripple or destroy a standard-template mining station or for a decent fleet to seriously damage a medium space port. At 0.5 sectors' distance (maximum distance from the center of the area of operations using the sector setting), ships equipped with the initial versions of the three midgame hyperdrives or fully-upgraded Gerax Hyperdrives will take over a minute at normal game speed to arrive and will probably arrive too late to stop a serious attack on anything short of a heavily-fortified colony. You can use local defense fleets or invest more heavily in station defenses to buy more time for fleets with large areas of operations to arrive, and you can use multiple fleets with overlapping areas of operations to make it more likely for a defensive fleet to be available to respond to attacks; regardless, I would not recommend ever using the "anywhere" setting, and I would not recommend using the "sector" setting for defensive-postured fleets equipped with any hyperdrive much slower than the first upgrade of the Equinox Jumpdrive.
FFCecil
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RE: Posture and Pirates

Post by FFCecil »

I've been playing this game awhile and always trying to get postures to behave correctly but fleets just randomly sit there sometimes and other times the Homebase of a defensive postured fleet will get moved to another base in another system and then I find my fleet guarding another system even though my initial base is perfectly fine. I normally set planets as the base of operations. I don't have any attacks automation in settings. Just the fleet auto set to defensive posture.

Attack posture behavior is even more bizarre, unless it's totally just ineffective against pirate bases. I'll set attack posture to pirate star base and turn on auto for fleet and they sit there unless I manually right click to tell them to attack base.
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Retreat1970
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RE: Posture and Pirates

Post by Retreat1970 »

Posturing doesn't work against pirates. Attack or defend.
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