Hot to set task force leader

I am not sure you can the only thing you can do is chose ships which wont be the leader as as far as I can see the leader is always one of the ships designated as core.

If you do work out how to I would very much like to know

This is one of those things you get theories about while you're in battle and then, forget about the moment you have 10,000 other things to fix in your empire...

but it seemed to me the compy was making whichever ship was most experienced the leader?
You could check that - i never remember to.. But it is a theory.

BTW: If command and control interests you, please check out that forum - some interesting suggestions got posted.Troll? No, Sir, I am a BADGER!

It's whichever ship was built first in the history of the game. Which is annoying, but not unworkable - I've designed essentially a mirror image of my custom formation just to accommodate the fact that sometimes, it's my heavy defence PD ships that get chosen as Task Force leader.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

that would explain it.

no doubt in my last game, my oldest ships had the best experience - evn if just by 20 a turn or whatever it is.

i would like the effects of fleets to be DISTINCT from the effects of crew eperience.

Troll? No, Sir, I am a BADGER!

As of SEV v1.20 I haven't really played with the Task Force formations that much. Half of the time they start all formed up, but the formation is pointing away from the enemies!

I play with the Balance Mod and I notice all the tactics I use are set to break formation immediately, so my ship formation degenerates to a blob quite quickly. Unless you have something very specific in mind with formations (like a capital ship surrounded by a screen of PD ships) I believe this setup is preferable to keeping ships in formation, otherwise the outer ships in your formation will remain out of firing range most of the time.

This is what has worked best for me so far. Have you guys had much success with keeping ships in formation?

hmnnn the point about formations and fleets has come up...
twice today...

once with Pikachu (point defense weapons)
once with grendel & rendell (communications & control topic)

i'm afraid that i agreee with you that fleets and task forces don't do much you can't do better yourself -

but...

Troll? No, Sir, I am a BADGER!

just a quick aside:

i have a huge problem with all my other ships trying to Bombard planet i want to take with troops-
will this be preevented if i tel a ship in a formation to take the planet?

I really get irritated when my ships try to send 'em back to the stone age!

Troll? No, Sir, I am a BADGER!

Had the same problem... I think it has to be done in waves. And you have to do it manually. Do not let the computer do it or eveything will get blasted to heck.

Me

Edit the strategy your ship/fleet/taskforce uses and set the Planet target type to Do Not Engage.

Hmm doesn't seem to be a core ship for me, I keep ending up with my oldest escort frigate as leader. In SE4 it used to be easy to set which leader you want and what is the point in all these formation and task force options if you can't set the fleet leader?

Little Hope it will be fixed soon...

Yep. I keep encountering AI fleets with transports as leaders - the whole formation turns and runs. We need to be able to designate leaders, and so does the AI.

For the strat problems: set your ships not to engage planets, but be sure they engage weapon platforms. A low pop planet with WP's could get depopulated, but it beats not shooting at those things. On defense, you can get into the types list and set your units to target troop ships first, but you probably want to make a custom strat for WP's & stuff if you get extreme about it.

If we get the leader thing fixed, and the other causes of inappropriate retreating, tactical combat will be so much better! I've been very much tempted to play with "no retreats". I forget if it's an option in the game setup or if you have to alter a txt file, but I think it can be done.

Flying V's the best formation of the bunch. For TF's, "wall" and "artillery" are good, and the one that makes a big oval is just junk.

Are you sure the WP targeting priority is not only for ground combat?

Not entirely. It's not convenient that ground units and space units employ the same strats. I don't think it's very practical at all.

I have got ships to target armed planets and on other occasions decline to shoot unarmed planets, but the decline to shoot situations could be the result of some retreat bug.

Certainty at this point is only an illusion, in matters like this. And the new patch is going to change these things considerably (I don't expect 100% fixed, but a good amount).

Just manually order the troopship to drop troops on the planet as soon as you enter the battle screen and all other ships will not fire on the planet.