Formation Editor

Fantastic just what I was looking for.

Good job on making a useful addition to the SE Universe. Make a note of this tool's existence on the SEWiki: wiki.spaceempires.net

Hi

just a bit of testing feedback. It appears to be missing the position and slots of the last ship added for escorts and pickets.

Sounds really good! I wonder what it would take to be able to use such an animal in a PBW game...

Any ideas?

Look in my signature for the Formations File I posted earlier.

Also, how do you attach files to posts here?

Also, what did I do wrong on the code post? I hit Code above then Code again to close afterwards. Is there another trick to it?

SE5 Files hosted on Filefront (Patches, Mods, Races, etc)

Only suggestion I can think of is to display the grid lines in the editor.

Great tool!
Thank you very much.

This is a great tool and works perfectly.

It has highlighted one thing, the game just can't cope with formations of more than a few ships.

I can get a formation of one core ship plus four escorts to work but any more ships or pickets and you can forget it.
Is anyone else having this problem. Is it possible this is conflicting with fleet formations.

More tools for the tool box, many thanks!!

Ulfar, recently in another thread I posted my custom formation of ~60+ ships. It works fine. Are you defining asymmetric formations? From past experience, formations must be symmetric about the vertical middle column.

---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.

Hi

No, I am putting in exactly the correct number of ships and the correct amount for each category.

I have noticed looking at the files that the order ships are listed in the standard formations starts at the top left and then works down the column, then it goes to the top of the next column. I don't know is this is the reason, i will try a bit more testing once I have a bit of time.

Great tool though.

Edited :

Experimented a bit more with both standard formations and custom ones, neither work properly for the reasons below. If it had just been the custom formations then I would have said that the order in the file might be the reason, however as standard formations don't work that isn't the case. So not down to your tool which is great.

It doesn't like having more than one core ship when you have another type of ship be it picket or escort, core ships on their own are fine.

Having all 3 types of ship doesn't work, with one core the escorts work but the pickets won't join formation they make their own up.

You can have a core ship with pickets and that works ok or a core ship and escorts.

It is intermittent when it comes to having large numbers of ships.

Adding ships and intermixing whether they are core, escort and pickets in the fleet organisation really upsets the formation.

So overall formations are a great idea but they just don't work properly yet, does anyone know if this is on Fyron's radar.

Reply to Psieye

All my formations are symmetrical. Is there a set order you have to add the ships to the formation.

Hi

Just me again I think I have found the problem, apologies to Fyron in advance.

When the editor creates the file it is repeating slot numbers for each different type. Just altered a very simple formation by hand and it works no problems.

Still a great tool though.

Edited : Forgot to mention some of the standard formations have the same problem.

Hi

I apologized to Fyron as in earlier entry I put that formations didn't work and I was wrong.

Since I have changed each slot number to be sequential so there are no repetitions everything works ok.

I didn't test with wall formation but did use bullet and when you completely fill up the formation with enough ships some of them will assume the formation but not all.

Did anybody else notice that the leader is always placed on position X=7 , Y=7 regardless were you placed him in the formation editor?

In the txt file the leader is always in the position 7/7.

Great!
And the new mirror placement option is extremely useful.
Thank you again for this excellent tool.

Great work!
But I fear it would not be fair to use it in PBW games, or am I wrong here? (*hopes so...*)

unfair how?
if everyone is creating their own formations how is it unfair? you can see what formations work against others.

Well, it'd be tricky to incorporate into a PBW game - you'd practically need to ask for your own mod to be made of it (because the PBW server needs a copy of your Formations_TaskForces.txt). Better to create some formations and suggest the official mod authors incorporate them in their next release.

Bottom line is: everyone (including PBW server if you play by PBW) must have the same Formations_TaskForces.txt file.

---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.

oh ya. i thought we were talking about if they were made editable in game. like changing strategies...

If only they were...

Cool program

Now all you need is for the AI to use em...

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