Task forces are broken!

[star mouse]

I broke task forces. Here's how.

I have a number of Reserve ships. I see a small fleet heading for a border world that looks like it's up to no good. That border world can create task forces because it has a Mobilisation centre.

So I create a new task force at that border world. Next turn, the task force pops up there and says a big HELLO to the invading fleet. Had I been at war, it would have been a slaughter. Had this happened in a multiplayer game, I would not have been popular.

So what's broken?

1. The ships in my reserve fleet were built on the other side of my empire. Had they travelled to the border world under their own steam, they would have taken about 12 to 15 turns to arrive. Instead, they arrived the *next turn* simply by being in the Reserve, and by subsequently being assigned to a task force.

2. The creation of task forces from reserves does not take into account where the ships were built. Ships in reserves can be deployed anywhere, at any time, simply by creating a task force at a mobilisation centre.

To fix:

1. Task forces created in a specific system should only include ships that were built in that system.

2. If it is not already possible, task forces should also be able to be demobilised at a system with a mobilisation center, so you can increase the size of the reserve pool at that system. Ideally, that process should happen straight away or at most take one turn to complete so you can create larger task forces from many smaller ones. This second fix is needed to compensate for the removal of the empire-wide reserves pool.

[vmxa1]

This is a potential problem and could cut both ways. If you remove that feature, then I will be punished for ships I make in a given system, but are now in reserve elsewhere.
I suggested that they move Mobile down the tech tree so that it is analogous to a Star gate. Now the next turn function is not a big problem and it works for all so it is already balanced.

[star mouse]

Mobilisation centres (I won't called them "mobiles" because that's a type of ground troop) and stargates should be separate techs. Indeed, having to build an expensive mobilisation centre just so I can make task forces in that system seems to be a bit of a workaround for the fundamental flaw in the concept of task forces.

Task forces should be a means of ordering ships around, such as moving ships from A to B, or attacking an enemy at a certain location. Ships shouldn't jump around the map for no good reason.

[Proteus_MST]

Or, as someone already mentioned in another Thread:

You should add a Delay of maybe 3 Turns to the time you have to wait til your Taskforce is assembled.

It would still be somehow unrealistic, because you cann assemble Taskforces at Points where they couldn´t get within 3 Turns,
but it would make it more difficult for you and the AI to use the "mobilize Taskforce" Tactic to defend certain systems against an enemy attack, because most of the time, if you see an enemy Taskforce it is less than 3 turns from your Systems away.

Maybe the same thing would be helpful for Groundtroops, so you can´t just assemble a large Army if an enemy is one turn away from your System.

[BlueO]

I like the way mobilization centers work in the game. It gives the defender an advantage by being able to react fast to invasions. However, I think they should have a delay added to moblization based on how far the mobilization center is from the HQ. So it might take up to 10 turns, to mobilize a force that's very far from your HQ.

And it defeats the purpose of moblization centers and reserves, if each center can only moblize ships in that system. Then why even bother with the concept of reserves at all?

[pnakasone]

How abought this you have sevreal grades of moblization centers that you have to reaserarch.of course give each level a fancyer name.

moblization center 1 5 turns to assemble a task force or ground unit.

moblization center 2 4 turns to assemble a task force or ground unit.

moblization center 3 3 turns to assemble a task force or ground unit.

moblization center 4 2 turns to assemble a task force or ground unit.

moblization center 5 1 turns to assemble a task force or ground unit.

[vmxa1]

pnakasone that is another idea that maybe useful. There are several methods that could be employed, if they feel the way it works now is a problem. I am not sure that all agree that it is though.

[Jamski]

It has to be said that there's already a lot of waiting involved in MoO3. I, for one, don't want to have to wait to use my spaceships as well.

BTW, you can get you taskforces even faster (I've found) by deploying the taskforce, zooming all the way out, pressing "B" a couple of times to cycle through to showing the civ-colours and zooming back in. Ta-daa ! Your taskforce is there already, without waiting till the next turn. Now this is broken.

-Jam

[Proteus_MST]

You don´t have to zoom out.

Just pressing B twice is sufficient

[Jamski]

Really? That's great.... umm I mean that's bad?

-Jam

[Harry Seldon]

Sweet! Now I don't have to remember which planet I created the task force on when I start my next turn five minutes later!

If they decide to fix this, I wish they'd at least let us give orders to the task force while it's forming so I don't have to go and look for it later or forget it entirely and only remember when I notice the fleet sitting over the same star system for several turns without doing anything.

[Cabbagemeister]

Well that's not a bug, I don't think. Think about it. You've got your ships all nice and built. Given that you do have this Mobilization center which can magically transport ships across your empire (which I think is unrealistic but necessary for playbalancing purposes), then there's no reason why you should have to wait a turn after you tell them to organize for them to organize into a TF. I think the bug is that they DON'T just show up right away, and that you have to push B twice. This is silly and inconvenient. The TF should just appear.

[smellymummy]

actually you only need to press the border button (B) once and you can see the newly formed task force. You can also use this to see task forces you send to antaran X expeditions... which is a ship icon but no details (weird). Also, anyone notice how colony ships set to colonize automatically (either through AI or by flagging a planet) get sent out on the same turn they are built?

I half agree that the bug is that ships don't appear right away: compared to colony ships.

But I also half agree that the bug is that they do appear right away if we press the B button: look how you can see the antaran expedition and how it looks, thats not normal, and consider that the siterep notifies you the following turn, unlike deploying ground troops, the siterep automatically updates and the ground troop creation message is at the bottom of the siterep.

I've read posts that claim the AI can build and deploys on the same turn, and suffer no delay penalty. So thats something else to consider, if it's fair to the player, or if it's a way to give the AI an edge.

As for MOB centers, these should be available to build a little later on in the game. Maybe tech level15 instead of level 7 (or is it 8?), but comparing MOBs to stargates I think is wrong. The ships are in reserve, so the abstract is that they are kinda going all over your empire, behind the scenes, and happen to be available whenever and wherever you need them. How these abstracted ships manage to bypass chokepoints and enemy fleets is unknown however

Maybe putting new ships in the delay box for a few turns would be a good idea, but then for those without tech slowdown mods would really feel the "build a ship and its already outdated" effect.

As for disbanding ships, the delay before they get back into the reserve should be exactly how many turns it would take to get back to the nearest MOB center.

And finally, deploying ships at the same system where they are built would become a micromanagement nightmare. That's how it was in Moo2, and it was such a pain to get all your ships and send them to one point for grouping.

So... I think these are good fixes