Wing Formations

[Sirrobert]

I'm trying to setup a few wings/fleets, and I'm a little confused by the different formations.
Does anyone have a list or description of the different formations, and pros and cons or something?

[ancienthighway]

Wings or wingmen? Having wingmen follow you around is an accident waiting to happen, and usually the wait isn't too long.

As far as flying in formation, I tend to stick with the delta. It seems to provide the best maneuver space for all the pilots, but accidents do still happen. Unlike your lead ship that flies pretty much in a straight line, the following ships tend to dance all over the place.

Btw, the formation is dictated by the wing commander. Set the formation for him, and all the others fall in position.

[RAVEN.myst]

Actually, wingmen are EXTREMELY useful, but if you keep them on board a carrier of some kind - most often, a TM or M7C in my case. Then they are safely tucked away, and can be summoned with Shift-6 and Shift-7 as necessary, which cuts out some command console usage (handy in fast and tense situations.) Then, once the fight is done, simply get them back on board and (this is important!) make sure to clear their commands - last thing you want is for them to launch at their own discretion - because then, as ancienthighway says, that's just tempting fate.

As for preferred formations, I usually just stick with the default X-delta - it uses 3D space more efficiently than the flat formations, so it is tighter and therefore the ships cover each other, while the fact that the formation is swept backward affords the ships a bit of wiggle room and good firing fronts. I've never had any hassles with ships bumping into each other, not in thousands upon thousands of hours of play. I avoid the flatter, more strung out formations (line and delta) because they take up more room, affording each ship less cover and resulting in straggler situations, and additionally making the formation more cumbersome and "floppy". The straight X is frontally aggressive but weaker to the forward flanks - it's a flat formation but in a vertical plane instead of horizontal, and I avoid it too. Pyramid is similar to X-delta but more compact and defensive, shield and dragon-claw I have no experience with (if I were to GUESS, the dragon-claw is a swept-forward formation, basically an inverted X-delta, intended to concentrate fire on a single target - highly frontally offensive but weaker on defense, though if all ships have at least rear turrets then the anti-missile defense should be quite strong.)

And now, thanks to your question, I am curious to take a proper look at the more exotically named formations, the two I have least knowledge of, as I suspect there may be good uses for them.

Oh, important note: if you want your formations to retain cohesion as much as possible, make sure your lead ship is the slowest and least maneuverable of the lot. If it isn't, your formation WILL still slow down to the speed of the slowest ship, but then you'll have subordinate ship/s flying at its/their maximum speed, and that causes straggling when the formation turns. If your lead ship is the slowest, then all the subordinates have some speed headroom, and so when the formation wheels, the ships on the outer edge have some spare speed to help them maintain their relative position.

[Sirrobert]

Wings, not wingmen. I'm flying an M7 with docking ports, and 5 Eclipse Prototypes at the ready to unleash (so no problem with different speeds). They are very useful, easily tearing through an M6 while I'm busy with bigger fish
No problem with accidents, because I use Bounce. Unless I personally ram them during takeoff, there is no ramming involved.

How much influence does formation have in the middle of a fight?

[RAVEN.myst]

Well, in my experience, formation affects the initial engagement - so having an aggressive formation gives you an initial edge, for example, but once the furball is in effect, formation basically goes out the window

Btw, if your Eclipse PTs can equip them and you haven't tried this yet, try them with Energy Bolt Chainguns - you will likely find they become even more savage (assuming, of course, you're not already using that weapon choice) - good range, good damage, excellent rate of fire and shot speed (therefore good accuracy), and because they don't drain the laser generator (much), excellent stamina (and those Eclipses have good cargo holds for ammo.) Just a thought

[Sirrobert]

I'm running LU, so my EBC don't use Ammo (and all weapon stats are different)

[RAVEN.myst]

Ah, fair enough