Controlling fleet in combat

[amblingalong]

Just starting to get into this game, and really loving the depth and complexity (while also being totally overwhelmed by the same). I never played AI War 1, so apologies if these are super obvious questions!

One thing I'm really confused by is what to actually do in combat. Should I be micromanaging my various units to make sure, for example, that my forcefield is covering my ships, or that my snipers are in the back and my bombers in the front? Do I need to be target-firing each enemy ship in the order I want them attacked, or should I be relying on unit AI to do it for me? Do I need to make sure my shield-piercing units are fighting the heavily shielded enemies, and so on?

One reason I'm confused is that the game doesn't provide many tools to do these things automatically; for example, when I right-click attack an enemy station, my fleet loses cohesion (i.e. the faster units race to attack, the slower ones fall behind, the forcefield ship ends up not protecting anything). But the game also seems to want me to avoid those types of micro-intensive RTS tropes, and doesn't provide the automation tools there either (as far as I can tell), like telling the forcefield ship to guard the corvettes or choosing a 'cohesion' setting.

Overall, I'm just feeling a little frustrated that the fleets don't seem to behave the way I want in battle, but the game doesn't seem to want me to 'micro' them either. Can anyone provide advice?

[RockyBst]

Honestly it's one of my bugbears with the new version, fleets are great for strategic cohesion but it feels a lot harder to muster say a horde of bombers to nip through the wormhole next door and pop a specific target. You can still select individual ship lines from the left hand panel and give them orders but it does feel a lot 'floatier' to nick a phrase from FPS games. An exacerbation of the fleet ball problem from the first game really. I suppose you can technically do things like move the bombers into one of the new placeholder fleets, but then you have to deal with scrapping the entire ship cap and not having fleet xp etc. And I certainly don't find myself doing things like 'oh, fighters are effective against this incoming wave but missile frigates will get slaughtered, better move them to another planet' like I did in AIWC.

One thing to note, there are group move etc orders that can be given to fleets. That'll slow everything down to the speed of the slowest ship, but also ends up crippling say melee ships which need to close in fast. Often the best thing is to just let stuff automatically move to the edge of effective their range and fire.

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

Do I need to be target-firing each enemy ship in the order I want them attacked, or should I be relying on unit AI to do it for me?

If you tell a unit to attack something, then it'll consider that target the preferred one. So if a Pike Corvette is told hey, shoot the Pulsar Tanks, then it'll shoot that unit type before something like Vanguards. Units also automatically prefer to target things they have a bonus against.

Do I need to make sure my shield-piercing units are fighting the heavily shielded enemies, and so on?

For Fusion Bombers at least, their bonus means they'll attack units with enough shields worth bypassing by themselves. For manual control, it's pretty much just Guard Posts, and something like a Tractor Guardian (as Fusion Bombers are immune to the tractor, and it's a very shield orientated unit).

There's code for formations, but it's not usable right now. Maybe Chris'll get it in the future (it has been updated now and then). There is a bit in there for crowding around a Forcefield unit.

The group move orders and the like can be given to the units themselves, rather than to the entire Fleet, so Concussion Corvettes + Forcefield Frigate, but not the V-Wings is fine.

[Asteroid]

Just starting to get into this game, and really loving the depth and complexity (while also being totally overwhelmed by the same). I never played AI War 1, so apologies if these are super obvious questions!

Welcome!

One thing I'm really confused by is what to actually do in combat. Should I be micromanaging my various units to make sure, for example, that my forcefield is covering my ships, or that my snipers are in the back and my bombers in the front? Do I need to be target-firing each enemy ship in the order I want them attacked, or should I be relying on unit AI to do it for me? Do I need to make sure my shield-piercing units are fighting the heavily shielded enemies, and so on?

• Use standing orders (buttons at the lower-right when you have units selected, shortcuts are listed on the keys). Units in Attack-Move or Pursuit mode will automatically move so their distance to enemy units is optimal (i.e. snipers will move away from everything).
• On the offensive a decent strategy is putting everyone in Attack-Move, and move everyone forward little by little. They'll engage every unit in range but won't go aggressively after guard posts which might wake up more defenders than you can handle. (Extra tip: Put any Combat Factory with drones in load mode (L key) so the pesky drones don't come out and wake up extra guard posts either.)
• For units defending a system unattended or when you overwhelm the enemy numerically but want to minimize losses, Pursuit works well. Units will automatically engage enemy units all over the system. I don't know if they pick units they're good against to move close to, but they definitely fire at what they're best against automatically once there (the latter applies at all times irrespective of standing orders).

Personally I gave up on making the forcefield frigate optimally useful, I just let it cover whatever units it covers and that's it. The game could indeed really use a Guard standing order that can be locked so you can't accidentally change it to something else. With the new empty fleets you can build, it might be worth a try putting shield frigates into their own fleet so you can micromanage them to cover a specific group of units or a Combat Factory or Battlestation. Probably not worth the energy cost and the galaxy map-level icon clutter though, which seems to be most people's experience with those extra fleets - from the limited feedback I've read.

Overall, I'm just feeling a little frustrated that the fleets don't seem to behave the way I want in battle, but the game doesn't seem to want me to 'micro' them either. Can anyone provide advice?

You're not alone, this summarizes well my feeling of unit control in this game. See for instance my posts here and here. However following our advice here should alleviate that feeling enough so you can still have fun, given all the other interesting elements this game presents.

[kmunoz]

Personally I gave up on making the forcefield frigate optimally useful

Forcefield frigates are like that big dopey dog your uncle insists on bringing to the family picnic that always manages to find the potato salad, and then take down the whole picnic table to get it.