Hi Cliff,
Not sure if I’m alone in this one…I’ve been trying to set large-scale formations recently with all my cruisers attached to one lead ship. However, this sometimes results in the lead ship refusing to move once the battle starts. The formation order seems to be working in one sense, in that the other ships also refuse to budge, but there’s definitely something weird going on.
This has happened on two seperate maps so far, and I’ve tried assigning and unassigning a variation of orders to the lead cruiser to no avail.
Any ideas? Cheers!
well, if the lead ship doesn’t have engines, or it has a formation order with one of the cruisers that has a formation order, it will not move. no bug in that case.
Hybrinoid,
Ship has engines, isn’t in formation with any other ship itself. I’ve eliminated any ‘oops, forgot to plug it in’ solutions mate.
Orders can be as simple as ‘attack cruisers 100% range 250’ and it still won’t budge.
hmm… yes, i guess it’s a bug then… oh well 
This happens to me sometimes, but I can’t tell if it’s really a bug or a side effect of the AI’s pathfinding behavior. Is the “lead ship” in the front or the rear of the formation? If it’s in the front, try keying the formation to a ship near the back. This will also help keep the formation together longer, as those are often some of the last ships to die.
Admittedly, the pathfinding/target selection AI gets a little goofy sometimes. I’ve seen some of my small formations drift down to the bottom of the map to kill off an enemy ship or chase down some fighters, kill their target, and then wander around aimlessly at the map’s edge rather than re-engaging and getting back in the fight. And sometimes it’s the behavior of the entire formation that bogs things down. Instead of one big formation, you might want to try using 2-4 smaller ones. Yes, they’ll break up a bit during the engagement, but the AI usually handles small groups better than large ones.