Fleet Manager Reinforce Fleet Command?

[Baldrik3505]

Hi,

When I use the FM to Reinforce a fleet it build ships in a lot of different ship yards, sometime later I get an alert saying they are in transit and will return in a few months, but I can't see them anywhere on the map nor are they listed in the Military Ships list. So where are they????? I saw them being built at close by shipyards but now then are gone!

Is this a bug or a feature? It seems very unrealistic to just disappear them until the date they are due to arrive, I may want to divert them or something in the meantime.

Anyone have any ideas on this?

All the Best
Dave

 

[Ryika]

So where are they?????

Well, they are...

in transit and will return in a few months

Ships that are constructed as reinforcements for existing fleets via the fleet manager enter the state of being "in transit", which lasts a certain amount of time depending on the distance between the place they were built at and the fleet they're reinforcing. Ships "in transit" don't exist on the map, you simply have to wait for the timer to end, and then they'll spawn in the system that the fleet they're reinforcing is currently in.

Afaik, this was implemented to avoid the performance loss from having hundreds of individual ships move through the galaxy, and it also avoids the annoyance of having a large stream of reinforcements intercepted one at a time. However, this only works if there's a safe passage between the starbase that constructed the ship and the fleet it's reinforcing at the moment the ship is produced.

 

[Baldrik3505]

I can see the performance issues, but IMO its naff! What if I want to move my fleet before the reinforcements arrive? Will the ship change course and meet wherever the main fleet happen to be? Also, if I do it manually quite often I change their corse and meet them half way if I want to more the reinforced fleet somewhere else anyway.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Will the ship change course and meet wherever the main fleet happen to be?

yes

 

[Bezborg]

I can see the performance issues, but IMO its naff! What if I want to move my fleet before the reinforcements arrive? Will the ship change course and meet wherever the main fleet happen to be? Also, if I do it manually quite often I change their corse and meet them half way if I want to more the reinforced fleet somewhere else anyway.

yes but it's frequently bugged to hell. Such as if your fleet is in a battle or in the middle of a hyperlane at the exact moment the reinforcements come out of the Warp... all sorts of trouble arises. The whole system is buggy and primitive.

I wish the reinforcement orders are grouped in a fleet, it takes the funds necessary, and it builds a reinforcement fleet, and sends it out once it's done. A FLEET.

Not sending out ships one by one like a damn fool, in a hostile galaxy

 

[Ussnorway]

Unless you move to a location that doesn't have a safe travel path... Note the Ai draws a direct line to determine if the path is safe so for example jumping into a key planet will likely make sure you don't get reinforced unless you take a jug with you

 

[Baldrik3505]

Like a lot of things in Stellaris the FM is just isn't implemented well. As a newbie you think that you just don't understand the interface, but after a time you realise its just naff!

What I don't understand is the reinforcers are hidden while en route (e.g.) not on the map and then they appear in the system where the main fleet, so if you move the fleet, surely it will just make them appear in the system where the fleet is currently. Also say you move 20 systems away, does it then extend the time they appear?

I guess I won't be using the FM much anymore, at least until it works better than it does.

 

[Ryika]

Also say you move 20 systems away, does it then extend the time they appear?

No, it's a static timer that is set when the fleets are being produced.

 

[Baldrik3505]

I thought so, I think this is a terrible choice in the way of doing things and basically makes the FM useless IMO.

 

[Ryika]

I thought so, I think this is a terrible choice in the way of doing things and basically makes the FM useless IMO.

How so?

 

[Foxosaur]

My take on ships in transit is they simply don’t use hyper lanes. Like the technology that simply lets them float over by line of sight, forget the name- not jump drives though. It would be great to see fleet reinforcements, just like it would be great to see ‘routed fleets’ as they head to a star base but it could get really cluttered in some of the larger wars.

Although if fleet merging was more a priority for AI, which undoubtedly is a cause of many pains.

 

[Baldrik3505]

Well what does the FM give you? The main attraction (for me anyway) is that automates the reinforcing, but, I can do it manually and get a better (exact) result without having to worry that my ships will turn up in drib and drabs, and (BIG PLUS) I can see where they are on the map and therefore re-route them if necessary. Beside everything else it just feels more realistic this way.

Someone earlier said that the reason for the disappearing ships that turn up at some point in the future was for preformance issues, but surely that's because it sends them out one at a time, if it waited until the ships had been built and then sent them as a real Fleet (not a one ship fleet, which again feels wrong, single ships should need to be in a Fleet but that another issue). So it overcome a failing in the way ships are dispatched they came up with a crapy way of doing things that doesn't quite work and just feels wrong.

I can do everything else without using the FM so like many other windows I just won't be using FM very much until it improves.

The FM is one of a number of windows that feel like they have a "that will do" design, and, it might have been true at one point, but now it needs an overhaul.

Wish List for a revised FM.

Have 2 fleet sections and icons representing ships and allow ships to be dragged and dropprd between them.

Reinforce fleet should give you the choice to:
Optionally build the ships at a selected shipyard or yards.
Optionally Group the ships into fleets before sending them.
Always show the fleets on the map.
Auto-reinforce options.

This would allow the following:

You have a big fleet a long way from a home shipyard and lose a lot of ships in a flight. You could have a auto-rebuild option, that was soon as a ship is lost a new one starts building at the nearest or specified shipyards. That what if the main fleet ever returns it will have a lot of ships already rebuilt and if it doesn't make it home (the fleet get destroyed) then you have a whole new fleet built or in the process of being built.


Add a Fleet Template system that you can use to:
Build a new fleet or
Form a fleet from a number of existing fleets (or a combo of both).

There's probably a lot more you could do, but I'll leave it at that for now.

Cheers
Dave

 

[Baldrik3505]

My take on ships in transit is they simply don’t use hyper lanes. Like the technology that simply lets them float over by line of sight, forget the name- not jump drives though. It would be great to see fleet reinforcements, just like it would be great to see ‘routed fleets’ as they head to a star base but it could get really cluttered in some of the larger wars.

So the ships in transit have some miraculous non-researched form of movement, that takes the same time as hyper lanes to travel and disappears the moment the ship arrives? This way of thinking about things is even more unrealistic IMO

 

[Foxosaur]

So the ships in transit have some miraculous non-researched form of movement, that takes the same time as hyper lanes to travel and disappears the moment the ship arrives? This way of thinking about things is even more unrealistic IMO

By the same response, how realistic is a lot of the games core functionality to a future that none of us live in? The answer being a mixture of guesses, ‘probably’s’ and ‘yes’s in a age that people are still challenging and trying to evolve-onward the basis of some of our most fundamentals of our existence and the universe?

At times we have to forgo practical answers to the reality of it being a game. Whether or not we want too.

If it’s due to performance I don’t mind but there is a tech that exists in th game to forgo hyper lanes. It just doesn’t exist until maybe mid game. Again though the galaxy could become really cluttered and hard to read if we could see reinforcements and routed ships.

However I’d love to see and try it at least before saying no but still I think there is a lot worth forgiving in the game, even this one ^^

 

[Baldrik3505]

By the same response, how realistic is a lot of the games core functionality to a future that none of us live in? The answer being a mixture of guesses, ‘probably’s’ and ‘yes’s in a age that people are still challenging and trying to evolve-onward the basis of some of our most fundamentals of our existence and the universe?

At times we have to forgo practical answers to the reality of it being a game. Whether or not we want too.

If it’s due to performance I don’t mind but there is a tech that exists in th game to forgo hyper lanes. It just doesn’t exist until maybe mid game. Again though the galaxy could become really cluttered and hard to read if we could see reinforcements and routed ships.

However I’d love to see and try it at least before saying no but still I think there is a lot worth forgiving in the game, even this one ^^

Surly if it grouped the ships into fleets before being sending this wouldn't cause a overload? Also you could display reinforcing fleets in different style or color on the map so you could see where you ships are.

It just seems to me that a lot of fun is taken out of the game by having to micro so much, one answer to this to create things like the FM but I think it should done well if its going to be done, not the half way house we seem to have now.

 

[Foxosaur]

There is an emphasis on AI at the moment so fleets do merge and I think it potentially could be awesome if it happened. Hopefully with the custodians initiative, things like this are possible.

you can already see how things are being polished, addressed and enhanced, no doubt some horrible bits of code have been uncovered and ditched to already get to where we are now.

We all got high hopes ^^

 

[Baldrik3505]

Me too! I'm a Mac software engineer and was thinking of doing a mod for something like this although I'm not sure if it possible. Also I'm not sure about if the modding tools will work on the Mac so I'd have to get a PC (not a real problem if I do). Just wondering if its worth the effort.....

 

[Baldrik3505]

The other point is that it puts off newbies, the game is already VERY hard to grasp but in terms of the mechanics and the UI (windows/options hidden deep inside other windows). FM is supposed to make life (or the game) more bearable it does go some way in doing this, but it's clunky and just seems to have been done in rush without much thought as to ease of use or much in the way of functionality.

No doubt the developers were under pressure to deliver something and this all they had time for. Maybe the game has evolved elsewhere and this part had suffered.

It seems to me that empires that can travel FTL and colonise other planets cannot do a simple thing like just updating the cruisers in a fleet without a hell of a performance, (the only way I've seen to do it, is make a new fleet with just the cruisers, update them and then merge back into the original fleet!).

Also I've found that if you are updating a fleet with multiple shipyards is doesn't generate an optimal update order, e.g.

3 Battleship
27 Cruisers
30 Corvettes

With 5 ship yards at a Starbase.

If you keep 2 Longest-time ships in and 3 Shortest-time ships in the Star base queue at all times it is faster than if you add them randomly.

 

[Foxosaur]

The other point is that it puts off newbies, the game is already VERY hard to grasp but in terms of the mechanics and the UI (windows/options hidden deep inside other windows). FM is supposed to make life (or the game) more bearable it does go some way in doing this, but it's clunky and just seems to have been done in rush without much thought as to ease of use or much in the way of functionality.

No doubt the developers were under pressure to deliver something and this all they had time for. Maybe the game has evolved elsewhere and this part had suffered.

It seems to me that empires that can travel FTL and colonise other planets cannot do a simple thing like just updating the cruisers in a fleet without a hell of a performance, (the only way I've seen to do it, is make a new fleet with just the cruisers, update them and then merge back into the original fleet!).

Also I've found that if you are updating a fleet with multiple shipyards is doesn't generate an optimal update order, e.g.

3 Battleship
27 Cruisers
30 Corvettes

With 5 ship yards at a Starbase.

If you keep 2 Longest-time ships in and 3 Shortest-time ships in the Star base queue at all times it is faster than if you add them randomly.

I agree with you. A year ago FM was a lot worse than it is as well, it’s only gotten better recently but has some way to go

In respect of new players, it also includes casual / regulars, like me, who still use it all the time and have a dependancy on it.

I think an FM overhaul (and tutorial) are must haves. And whilst some people consider them optional and even obsolete, they are key elements to any game.

I’m sure with the unravelling of the spaghetti code , it leaves room for once abandoned plans to come back into play, that is, they always wanted to do a lot more with Stellaris but they have worked until recent times on a very revenue chasing way, or PDX way.

 

[Baldrik3505]

I agree, I've been thinking about it a bit, it seems to me there needs to be a Combined Fleet and Starbase manager for it to be excellent. The two are connected but they are not treated that way at the moment. There also seems to be (at least) two different ways of using the Reinforce Command, one when a fleet is away from a star base and one when it's docked in a star base, they should be treated differently.