GTac warning about giving ships multiple orders

[Lugh]

Davin,
I am very much enjoying my solo game of Galac-Tac!  Thank you for all the wonderful tips/advice you have given me since I started.
Normally, I would just shoot you an email with the following question.  However, I am going to post it here so others may see and learn from your answer.

I want to order the two starting skirmisher ships to form a fleet and defend my home system using the following actions.

23 Join 2201 2202
24 Defend 2201 2202

When I told GTac to check my orders, it said...
"Ship #2202 has been given multiple orders in action #s 23 & 24"

Do I need to create the fleet on this turn and issue the DEFEND order next turn?  Or since 2201 is my flagship of that fleet, do I simply order it to DEFEND (deleting the 2202 entry on the DEFEND order)?

[RktSci]

You only need to have the flagship do the defend order.

[Lugh]

You only need to have the flagship do the defend order.

Thanks!

[Davin]

This is great!  I don't even have to answer questions when the other players can do it for me!

RktSci is quite right, of course.  If you gave those orders then 2202 would be removed from the fleet just after joining it and placed on Defend separately.  That's how you break up a fleet - give parts of it separate orders so it's no longer following the flagship.

[Davin]

Normally, I would just shoot you an email with the following question.  However, I am going to post it here so others may see and learn from your answer.

Thanks - that's the best way!

[Davin]

FYI - sometimes you WANT to do something like that.  For instance, I've occasionally joined a bunch of cargo ships together, loaded them all as a group, and then given each one a separate destination.  Be sure and do that in the order you want it to happen, however.  (You don't want to do such things with movement orders though - only the last one will be effective.)

[Lugh]

FYI - sometimes you WANT to do something like that.  For instance, I've occasionally joined a bunch of cargo ships together, loaded them all as a group, and then given each one a separate destination.  Be sure and do that in the order you want it to happen, however.  (You don't want to do such things with movement orders though - only the last one will be effective.)

Understood.  Thanks!

[Davin]

Fleet management is its own minor topic.  For instance, you can have fleets of fleets (of fleets...).  When I'm running around with a mixed group of ships I'll typically join together all the ships of each single type into fleets, and then join those fleets together to a main flagship.  Then I can give the main flagship orders (such as ATTACK) and all the ships go on the attack.

But each subfleet might want to get into the combat in a different, specialized way.  For instance, you might want the destroyers going after platforms and the drone ships shooting down incoming missiles, etc.  For that you can give each separate sub-fleet a different COMBAT order, even while they're all still joined to the main flagship.

You can also break up the fleet if, at a later time, the faster ships need to get over to a hot spot while the slower ships are following up.  If the faster ships are all in one (or a few) sub-fleets, those sub-flagships can be given independent orders to run over and help out while still maintaining their own fleet structure and without disturbing the rest of the fleet.

Many possibilities abound!