Formation pigpile.

[brucesim2003]

Destroyers and other ships on 'screen' orders need to stop barging through the battle line. I've just aborted a battle because the AI destroyers do just that, and force the big boys to drop out of line, then they take an age to get back into place. If they want to swap sides of the line, they should either pull far enough ahead that they can swap sides, or drop astern.

 

Pickets and scouts shouldn't be making the line react to them.

[Steeltrap]

I don't use formations simply because the AI isn't very good at manoeuvring as a naval formation ought to.

Indeed manoeuvres generally could be tinkered with, as a ship ought to maintain its speed through a turn IF there is sufficient engine power not being used at cruising that can be applied to offset the loss through the turn. I do that manually, but would be better if the AI did its best to maintain speed if that is achievable. If I can do it, the system can. Of course I understand this particular aspect won't be a priority.

Formations, however, I think ought to be on what I imagine is a very long list of things to look into.

[Absolute0CA]

Right now the formation system is a steaming pile, and can't handle ships of various speeds or battle damage very well if at all... It also handles large groups extremely poorly like i had a group of 80 ships on the one mission, admittedly they were steaming piles of shit, but that wasn't the point the point of it was testing the system and well they can't maintain formation because every time you need to reelect the entire fleet the lead ship changes causing the fleet to turn into an invincible furball, and the same happens if the any of the core lead ships are damaged or you make too tight of turn, with said 80 ship fleet I never even saw the enemy as they were so confused they actually couldn't plot a course where they needed to go and I only managed to get about 10 ships out of that furball with manual control. If they expect this to work in the campaign where there might be 100+ ships in a larger battle they are sadly mistaken.

[DeiLwynnA]

the ai for the screen and even ships in a single battle line is why i prefer to use a single, large, powerful ship instead of several smaller ones

[Cptbarney]

11 hours ago, Absolute0CA said:

Right now the formation system is a steaming pile, and can't handle ships of various speeds or battle damage very well if at all... It also handles large groups extremely poorly like i had a group of 80 ships on the one mission, admittedly they were steaming piles of shit, but that wasn't the point the point of it was testing the system and well they can't maintain formation because every time you need to reelect the entire fleet the lead ship changes causing the fleet to turn into an invincible furball, and the same happens if the any of the core lead ships are damaged or you make too tight of turn, with said 80 ship fleet I never even saw the enemy as they were so confused they actually couldn't plot a course where they needed to go and I only managed to get about 10 ships out of that furball with manual control. If they expect this to work in the campaign where there might be 100+ ships in a larger battle they are sadly mistaken.

Think we need to hold their smoll hands, cus they seem to get confused quite quickly and start screaming.

Even had ships just smack into each other cus the AI had a fit lol.

[Steeltrap]

It can be pretty funny watching the enemy fleet turn into a huge floating Charlie Fox, lol.

[Steeltrap]

20 hours ago, Absolute0CA said:

Right now the formation system is a steaming pile, and can't handle ships of various speeds or battle damage very well if at all... It also handles large groups extremely poorly like i had a group of 80 ships on the one mission, admittedly they were steaming piles of shit, but that wasn't the point the point of it was testing the system and well they can't maintain formation because every time you need to reelect the entire fleet the lead ship changes causing the fleet to turn into an invincible furball, and the same happens if the any of the core lead ships are damaged or you make too tight of turn, with said 80 ship fleet I never even saw the enemy as they were so confused they actually couldn't plot a course where they needed to go and I only managed to get about 10 ships out of that furball with manual control. If they expect this to work in the campaign where there might be 100+ ships in a larger battle they are sadly mistaken.

Yup, been saying this for a while as well.

I have little doubt it's on their list, and AI can be notoriously difficult to get correct on what "appears" to be a "simple" matter.

I imagine a good number of us might remember Creative Assembly's decade or two of incompetence when it comes to pathfinding in most Total War games (granted the TW: Warhammer games are significantly better in this), with TW: Empire being the stand out for bang-head-on-desk levels of stupid. In fact I was so disgusted with the broken AI of that game and its state at release it's the last 'historical' TW game I bought.

So, yes, they'll certainly need to devote some time to it as it's rather vital in combat to be able to go where you intend in the formations and speeds you want.

Edited November 4, 2019 by Steeltrap

[brucesim2003]

13 minutes ago, Steeltrap said:

it's rather vital in combat to be able to go where you intend in the formations and speeds you want.

...and NOT have them disrupt their charges activities.