Point defense ship question

dunno java...i gave up on all-point-d ships back in SE4. I always put at least 1 offensive weapon on every "attack" ship...

...then again, up until recently I thought fighters sucked...but they've been giving me a run for my money in stock 1.33.

Actually, I think the AI defends itself much better in 1.33. Lost quite a few fleets to it once it got big enough to field some serious firepower. I've been using more PD than I ever have before...

Add a single cannon to your PD ships that can attack ships and planets. They'll stop running away entirely.

Ships switch to "cowardly bastard" mode the second they can't fight anything on the map that might shoot back. Missles are technically shots.

Other than that, you will just have to tweak strategies, or manually direct the offending cowards where you need them.

"Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and will always long to return." ~Leonardo DaVinci

I think you could best use a 'bomb' as a weapon for those ships.

Then; they would retreat when the enemy has no fighters and no planet. But would attack when a world is involved.
Also; a bomb is pretty small to carry.

~Myrath

What the combat really lacks is a guard strategy for ships. So a ship would stay near the object it should guard.
That would not only be relevant for PD ships, that stay by attack ships. Ships that would stay near their planet, base,... would be also very nice.

You can do that with task forces...

OK, tried it out. Never used Fleets until now. It was really not necessary against the AI.

You can defend a landing ship this way.

But you can not put Bases or Planets into a task force.
Only an already launched satellite (set as leader) can be used for a stationary defense. Which is a little bit limiting.

By the way, how can you set an other ship, than the first one in the task force, as leader? Looks like I missed some point.

PD ships were a regular design for me in SEIV.

I haven't really felt the need to have one yet in V.

But yes, add one basic offensive 'gun' to get your PD ships to stay with the rest.

( haven't used task forces for a few weeks so I'm rusty on what can be done there)

There is a setting for "retreat to planet" which should keep them in guard range, but I have yet to get it to work.

BlueTemplar wrote:

Quote:

By the way, how can you set an other ship, than the first one in the task force, as leader? Looks like I missed some point.

NO, and it is REALLY annoying, kind of defeats the purpose of the fleets...

Oh, then Aaron missed some point. Another one for the bug List.

Sounds good.

But could this be modified to "retreat to map center" or "retreat to next stationary object"?

So an attacked Satellitelayer would stay near the Satellites he launched. Or a Repairship stays near a base.

I'm don't believe that to be a reliable solution. In the simulator, at least, you can never be certain that the task force formation will be correctly oriented at the start of combat, and if it isn't, then the whole thing is a mess because ships don't WAIT while they are shaking down into formation (they just move at full speed toward the enemy as soon as they are at their programmed formation point), so ships end up being strung out in something closer to a line than in the formation you intended, and usually out of decent PD support range.

It also doesn't help that ships don't always proceed at the speed of the slowest ships, so your smaller ships in the task force often end up getting ahead of the slower, more heavily armed ones. Again, out of mutual support range.

In any event, task force formations need some more work before they can be used for anything important.