Small formations, leaders... |
I currently only fly small formations, either 13 or 25 ships max... I like my ships to be in small groups, and close together. The only fleet and task force combo i have found that works to my liking is a fleet with a single task force in a shell formation and all the ships as Core. It looks nice, works great, except when i create a fleet and the Leader isn't the ship that was supposed to be (light carrier). How is the leader picked, or how do i set my carrier as the leader? Anything else seems stupid and a waste of time to use the formation, i always have to break it in tactical so the carrier isn't running circles around some little frigate.
And no, separate task forces or using picket/escort won't work, it spreads the stuff up too much... just makes my 'fleet' a bunch of solo hotshots who get toasted by the enemy blob tactics.
I just want to set a leader...
set all your stratigies to
set all your stratigies to break formation imediatly.
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an se5a is a ww1 fighter, it is also a car.
Specialized tactics
Actually with task forces there are benefits to SMALL formations, for example to keep PD ships tucked in with the ships they're supposed to be covering, keeping an escort with a troop ship, etc.
Oddly...
I find formations extremely helpful, but it could just be dumb luck. Typically (in my current game), I have about 6 frigates make up my first task force (I set my fleet formation to wall/wall). Then I have a 2nd task force w/ 4 destroyers, and a 3rd w/ 2 light cruisers. Finally, there is a fourth with just my supply ship. Now oddly, the supply ship is always put in the front if it's #4, so it immediately tries to flee. At that point, my enemies will begin chasing it. Soon the supply ship passes my walls and the rest of my ships literally close around the enemies like an ameoba and kill them.
Back to the question
I like the discussion on fleet tactics, but as the original poster asked "How is the leader picked, or how do i set my carrier as the leader?"
Formations are useless
Formations are useless, blob tactics rule all. All they do is force your ships to be too spread out to concentrate fire on a single target. Since there are no AOE weapons, there is no penalty for being a blob.