Fleet

This section is in need of revision. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. The reason given is: New features. Needs formatting. Just creating the page now so it exists. See: Update 2024-05-09 Fleets...

A ship can be designated as a flagship of a fleet. Any number of ships can be joined to that flagship's fleet. An empire can have more than one flagship thus more than one fleet.

A new Fleet order was added to the Mission Orders list. Using a Fleet order, you can order a ship to become a flagship, to join a flagship, or to depart from their fleet. Ordering a fleet ship to become a flagship promotes it to the flagship and the previous flagship is demoted. Ordering a flagship to exit the fleet dissolves the fleet.

A new Fleet page was added to the Spacecraft window tabs. There are some fleet management controls to designate the ship as a flagship, to join a fleet, and to exit a fleet. Fleet ships check in with the flagship periodically. The flagship lists those ships in a table with information about them on the Fleet page. Right click them to manage them.

One handy action that is not obvious is that you can select multiple ships in your fleet and right click on the one that will be the new flagship. Then select the Make Fleet menu option and they will split off into a separate fleet with the new flagship.

The Fleet page also has a combo box to select the fleet formation. This determines where the ships in the fleet belong relative to the flagship. Formation changes happen instantly; locked ships immediately change positions rather than have a gaggle of ships trying to rearrange themselves.

At the helm, you see a box indicating your ship's position in the fleet when it is not locked into position. Once you are close enough to that spot, you can use a helm button to lock your ship into its formation position. At that point, your ship is slaved to the flagship and it will move in sync with the flagship until it is unlocked, which the pilot (or the flagship) can do at any time.

NPC pilots of fleet ships always try to reach their formation position so they can lock in to the fleet. They are more successful when the flagship is not moving. Some formations, such as column formation, make it easier for the ships to get locked into their positions.

I tried having NPCs fly in formation and I tried it myself. That was a fools errand with ships that accelerate or decelerate at hundreds of meters per second constantly and that lack the ability to achieve that fine of control. Airplanes and navy ships can easily move at the same speed as each other, making formations a bit easier. Not so with spacecraft trying to go the speed of light as fast as possible all the time.

The locking mechanism proved to be the answer. It might not be super realistic but it gets the job done and it looks pretty good. It also keeps the fleet together very well through wormholes and at warp speed. The NPC pilot of the flagship considers the radius of the entire fleet when avoiding obstacles.

The fleet ship checkin information shown in the Fleet table is used to limit the maximum warp and maximum acceleration of the fleet to the slowest ships. If anybody can't warp the flagship will not go to warp. Likewise, if anybody can't wormhole the flagship will not go through wormholes.

When flying to a space station, the flagship moves the fleet next to the station as if it were one huge ship. All the locked ships in the fleet are considered to be in range of the station for trade purposes.

Fleet ships are free to have their own individual missions. They just can't move if they are locked. There are a few mission orders that become the current order for the entire fleet when they are the current order for the flagship. They are: Attack, Plunder, Hide, and Stand Down.

I haven't tested every possible situation with fleets. Beware of "Land" orders. I'm not sure how that would go. If you have trouble with fleets, avoid using them until the next update. I'm sure there will be improvements between now and then.