Patrols, Automatic Reinforcements

[Poko]

Hi, I'm hoping someone has some advice on how to

1) Set up a patrol among several neutered systems (2+) to keep them neutered
2) Automatically reinforce 2+ worlds up to a certain level

For (1), I often have several neutered systems behind my choke point, and, rather than have to worry about re-clearing them every few hours, I was hoping to create a roving patrol of FRD ships that did it for me.  What I set up was a redirector rally post on each system that FRD-rallied to the next system in the link, and I had a stardock FRD-building into the loop to keep them filled up.  What happened was that many of the ships would just go right through the system and not bother AI ships.  I made sure that I had the option set to the correct value to make them stop while FRD, but not all of them did.

For (2), I'll also often have several planets that need some small-medium component of defenders (say 200-400), but take losses on a regular basis.  Is there a way to set space docks to build to a certain number of ships in system?  I've seen the option for patrols to leave ships, but many of these planets are no where near a patrol location.

Does anyone set these up?  Or just micro them as needed?

[Diazo]

I've never really used each function but the Redirector Rally posts sounds like you are on the right path, but I'm not sure what's wrong there.

There is also a "Garrison" option somewhere in the controls screen that might do what you are looking for in terms of keeping a certain number of ships in the system. Again, have not used myself but that is why it was implemented.

D.

[keith.lamothe]

I think the Garrison controls should let you accomplish what you want here.  That said, not many folks use them: I thought it would be cool to do basically just what you're describing, but in practice it's a lot less relevant to the actual game than I thought

[Poko]

Ya, the garrison function seems like it would let me pull troops off of a patrol as it goes by - I haven't tried it because I was hoping to be able to build up to a certain amount and keep the patrol somewhere separate (patrol un-owned systems, garrison owned ones).  I don't want to have a redirector rally post at an owned border system sending troops away because I don't want my main fleet getting caught up in the redirector loop if I send them there.

We'll see if anyone else responds, but it sounds like not many people do it that way.

[Hearteater]

Build Mini-Forts in each neutered system in range of the Command Stations.  Add a few turrets to deal with polycrystal armor.  Only works if you have supply in those systems (so they are adjacent to a world you actually own).

[_K_]

What i always wanted is to allocate some specific ships to patrol duty, so that only those ships are routed using the redirector posts, without any chance that my main fleet gets sucked into this as well.
Is this currebtly doable?

If not, the easiest solution i see would be to make it so that redirector posts only redirect ships of the same control group. Then i'd set all my patrol ships to group 9, all posts to that as well, and those would let me have a nice patrol. You could even get multi-layered or multi-directional patrols with multiple control groups. I could even have a factory dedicated specifically for those ships set to the same control group, so the patrol is self-replenishing!