Ship order in Fleets

[Thom]

One of the most confusing yet simple things about Fleets is the order of the Ships in the Fleet. Due to the way combat works the first ship in the fleet list is the first to take damage from alien encounters. In that light one wants to put the screening ships at the front of the ship list and the more important vessels at or near the rear of the ship list. For building a fleet from scratch ships are added to the front of the ship list as they are built. So for instance if you build 5 ships of DD class and name them DD with the starting number of 1 then the ship list will look like so: DD5, DD4, DD3, DD2, DD1. If the ships are all of the same class probably not too big a deal. But if you have some valuable ships such as your transports they should be at the rear of the fleet not leading the charge. Therefore it is wise to build all your important ships first followed by the screening ships. Then if your fleet runs into unexpected hostile fleets or planets the screening ships take damage first and the ships at the rear may never take any damage or maybe very little.

Now if you're transferring ships from one fleet to another it's important to know the order the ships will be added to the new fleet.

If you're using Action Code 135, Multiple Ship Transfer, that transfers one or more of a particular class of ship (build code) from a fleet to another fleet, the ships go to the front of the new fleet. However if you are merging one entire fleet, Action Code 25, into another then the ships go to the back of the new fleet.

Why is this important. For one thing you don't want your brand new very expensive shiny new carrier at the front of the fleet, nor do you want those fully loaded transports leading the charge into the next battle. So if you have a fleet that you need to merge with another fleet it's important to remember where the ships go in the ship list.

A good way of getting all ships in the proper position from one fleet to another when the first fleet is a mixed list of ships is to:

First use Action Code 135 to transfer all the screening ships to the front of the ship list in the new fleet. Note this might take several actions if you have several different ship classes that need to move to the new fleet.

Then use Action Code 25 to merge the remaining important ships to the back of the ship list in the new fleet.

Now you know.

[nazareth]

thx Thom, that is an awesome hint and maybe saved more than a few lives! Hopefully mine..............

nazareth

[Space Lord]

What about Fleet maneuvers you have assigned to a fleet? If I need to reorder fleets by transferring them into a new fleet this would be important to know.Or any fleet transfers to a new fleet.

If I am transferring ships from one fleet into a new fleet number, will they retain the fleet maneuver, and any standing orders, they had while in the prior fleet?

Or do you have to issue a new maneuver order to the newly created fleet?

Thanks!

[Thom]

The new fleet automatically receives all orders, fleet maneuvers, combat loss directive, and tec level of the host fleet so to speak. Why do I say it retains the tec level, well it does, although for the life of me I cannot find any place where the tec level of the fleet is used as opposed to the ships in the fleet. But somewhere I'm sure there is something that depended on the tec level of the fleet.

[Cestodial Hegemony]

Fleet Movement? Unless I am wrong, movement of a fleet seems to use Overall Tec Level to determine failure rate...

[nazareth]

I also believe the TEC of scouts/explorers is important for scanning and benefits related to such.

[Space Lord]

I would like movement confirmed. I am always unsure if I should be using my overall tec level or just the lowest tec level ship in my fleet when using the move calculator.

Individual ships in your fleet can vary in tec level. So if I try to send my old tec 10 transport or something along on a jump with a newer tec 16 destroyer (as an example), how is your success percentage determined? By the overall tec, the lowest tec in the fleet, or individually per ship.

Thanks!

[Thom]

The overall tec level of your empire is used in determining fleet jumps.

The only reason I brought up the fleets tec level is because it's there and I believe if you do a fleet report you might see that. But again I don't find anywhere in the current game where that number is ever used. So it might have been left over from some of the early development, or maybe discontinued at some point. But it's still there.

[Space Lord]

I have done an action #23 and it reports the tec level of each ship in the fleet. However, I have since learned to log them as I build them so I don't have to use an action #23. It makes it easier to determine when to overhaul ships.

Thanks again!

[exeter]

I do the same thing. I keep an updated file of all my fleets, the ships, their TLs; Maneuvers combat loss directives, etc.

I always used the lowest TL ship in a fleet for my jump calculations. I assumed that was the limiting factor. Now I hear
it's not?