Fleet Management Interface
From SOTS
The Manage Fleets Interface is used to set up Fleet and Flight Group formations, as well as create an arrival list for fleet reinforcements. Ships will try to maintain formation whenever possible and will return to that formation unless assigned to a new formation.
To set formations for different fleets, click the star next to the Fleet name to change which fleet you are working with. The fleet that has the filled in star is the currently Active Fleet.
To set up hotkey groups, right click the ships on the grid. Use the Squads buttons at the top right to designate what group you want a ship to belong to, then right click on the ship and the little number will change to what the button is set to.
To access the Refuel Interface, click on the Fuel Pump icon at the top right.
To access the Repair Interface, click on the Wrench icon at the top right.
Contents |
Reinforcement Queue
On the lower left side of the screen is the Reinforcement list. This will display all of the ships of the Active Fleet not currently on the formation grid. You can sort this list either manually or using one of the automatic sorting criteria. In either case, ships that are placed at the top of the list will enter combat before ships that are placed further down the list. The only exception to this is that CnC ships are auto-sorted to the bottom of the in-battle reinforcement queue. They will enter battle last unless the currently active CnC ship is destroyed. In that case, if you have another section with the CnC ability in the reserves, then the ship with the best CnC section ability is automatically placed first in the reinforcement queue.
Multiple Fleet Reinforcement
When you are dealing with multiple fleets at a planet, there are some specific rules that will effect the order of reinforcements in Tactical Combat:
CnC ships are auto-sorted to the bottom of the in-battle reinforcement queue, regardless of which fleet they are in prior to combat.
The rest of the reinforcement queue is by fleet with the designated primary fleet first then other fleets in alphabetical order, with original fleet sorting as per the player assigned via Fleet Manager listing.
If a fleet did not have a CnC ship, then the ships from that fleet appear in battle in alphabetical order.
Defense Manager
Before AMoC, when multiple enemy fleets arrive at a defending players world on the same turn, the game would randomly select which enemy the defending fleet would be facing when combat began. With the addition of a Defense manager screen, players are now able to pre-position fleets to face anticipated threats. While this will allow a player to set up a defense fleet facing the likely direction of a sneak attack (say a human world down a short node line), the down side is that any fleet placed using the Defense Manager will stay at that facing even if an attack comes from a different direction.
Another thing to pay attention to is when a player places a fleet using the Defense Manager, and there are support ships in it (Refineries, Repair Ships, extra CnCs, etc…), that means these ships will appear before any combat ship in another fleet; and if you try to retreat them, they will just reappear again! So if you use the Defense Manager (and have more than one fleet at a location, of course), be sure to only have combat ships in it.
Screenshots
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