Formations turning

While playing through the SACs, and being annoyed about people using corner deployments, I figured out what feels so wrong about them: If you use a formation (eg: tank in front, artillery behind, flankers to the side), then the corner guys will run into your flankers first, kill them off, and then distribute their fire between your two lines. While I was busy shouting at my guys for breaking formation, I realised that they actually did not. They held a formation, but not correctly. Instead of keeping a position relative to the leading ship including its orientation, they just assumed that they had to be “left”, even if the leading ship turned around. Now this cannot be right, in real life, formations do not work that way. A fix for this would also really take out the oomph of cheap corner deployments. As it is right now, corners are a lot better, since they work against center AND far-corner deployments well and (can) have problems against same-corner ones, whereas center deployments usually suffer from anything except center.

You can take a look at this on my Flanking Demonstration vs some of the SACs with corner-deployment.

you`re absolutely right and i support this
the formations should align with the formation leader and stay aligned,right now theyre pretty much useless unless the enemy is directly in front of them in a straight line
would be nice if we got this as a variant to the non-turning formation that is now however… the non-turning ones can be very useful in specific situations

I agree. The nice thing about corner deployments is that it forces your ships to remain in formation. An actual, working formation. Not using a corner deployment and instead relying on the formation order results in your ships doing all sorts of weird stuff. Its almost better to not use the formation command than to use it.

Also the ships do lag behind the lead ship, often times by several full ship lengths. This means if you’re trying to do a simple line abreast formation, you’ll end up with a line abreast of ships, with the lead ship being way out in the front by itself, where it will promptly be vaporized.

Hear, hear!

now this is “really” annoying… even if they have the exact same speed there seems to be a significant lag between the moment the leader engages engines and the moment the formation elements do the same

Agreed in full. I have always hated this. Why, in the name of all that’s holy, does the Formation order function in this counter-intuitive and even dangerous way? Better still, can this order’s logic get overhauled to remove the weirdness in question?

Please, Cliff, we’re begging you: review the Formation order once you get Campaign Mode out the door. I’ll fill your garage from floor to ceiling with bottles of Laphroaig if that’s what it takes. :slight_smile:

I take better gameplay (more sensible formations, smarter AI (torpedo fighters), more sensible command combinations (viewtopic.php?f=25&t=4832) over more gameplay (campaign mode) any day.

I have noticed this thread, and I share your views. Its all a matter of time,…

Yay! Three cheers for Cliffski!

You should really write your name Cliffsky though. That’s way more edgy.

edgy?
“i” is way sharper than “y” if you ask me… besides,i call him “Cliff” anyways so meh :smiley:

and yeah Cliff,awesome stuff,keep up the good work :slight_smile:

take your time; most of us arent going anywhere