This is a "fork" of http://www.gamedev.net/topic/658143-how-to-greatly-reduce-fleet-micromanagement/ discussion. Quite a lot of people raised the concern of controling the speed of fleets (like being annoyed by one outdated ship that slows down the whole fleet, or an option to control the speed of a whole fleet). So I think it deserves a separate topic.

Personal request, if possible make it usabe to turn based since that's the one I make :)

Well I am not much into space games except I still play 1996 made Fragile Allegiance time to time (It would be wise to check if you didn't yet imo). Their solution was using Command Cruiser ships carrying certain number of smaller ships and greatly increasing range.

The simplest solution is that the speed of the fleet is determined by the speed of the slowest ship. The same goes for the range.

If you don't do this, then it's not really a fleet, more a collection of ships that happened to be at the same point at some time.

I'd say it's up to the player to determine what ships he wants in the fleet. He can always give a command to break it up into two or more fleets if necessary.

I don't really know the official conventions of space games, so this may not be useful to you... but... why is speed a factor in space? Can't you just keep speeding up as long as you have fuel? The real problem then becomes having enough fuel to slow down at the right spot. Couldn't you have one big engine ship that the entire fleet connects to that could propel all of them at one single speed to their destination?

Space is a weird environment and all I know about it comes from physics classes, some Stephen Hawking books, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Not sure if those things make for great game design.

Make entire fleets move at their combined averaged speed.

Alternatively, have the entire fleet move at 0.6 of the difference between the fastest and slowest ship. If the slowest ship moves at 7 speed-units, and the fastest moves at 20 speed units, then the entire fleet together moves at (7 + ((20 - 7) * 0.6)) = 15 speed units.

Make entire fleets move at their combined averaged speed.

Alternatively, have the entire fleet move at 0.6 of the difference between the fastest and slowest ship. If the slowest ship moves at 7 speed-units, and the fastest moves at 20 speed units, then the entire fleet together moves at (7 + ((20 - 7) * 0.6)) = 15 speed units.

This solution makes the most sense to me. Simple, easy to implement, and very logical -- the slow guys are somewhat rushed and the fast guys are somewhat held back.

Make entire fleets move at their combined averaged speed.

Alternatively, have the entire fleet move at 0.6 of the difference between the fastest and slowest ship. If the slowest ship moves at 7 speed-units, and the fastest moves at 20 speed units, then the entire fleet together moves at (7 + ((20 - 7) * 0.6)) = 15 speed units.

While I do think it's an elegant way to prevent fleets from moving very slowly, I don't think this would be very realistic (as far as space travel of this sort is currently realistic). The slowest ship can't move faster than its maximum speed, can it? Unless it has an overdrive of some sort, but then I'd apply some damage while this is active to show extra wear and tear.

Or just highlight why the fleet is going slow, and allow for fleets to be broken up easily / updated easily.

As for unit speed, I've always thought it would be interesting to have variable control of unit speed using the mouse wheel (or something of the sort). It would be interesting to be able to push ships beyond their engines capability at the risk of a meltdown. The variable control of the mouse wheel could be case sensitive as well. Cursor over friendly ship to adjust shields, cursor over enemies to adjust power to weapons, group select and micro a squad of starfighters to "set shields double front" or "go in full throttle this time, that should help keep those fighters off our back", etc.

You can select the speed of the fleet (on the fleet panel), all too slow ships will be automaticly excluded and no too slow ones will be allowed to join.

And/or make tankers & "overspeed". Like a ship can go faster but it require a presence of a tanker in the fleet (1 tanker per +1 speed for one ship), these takers automaticaly boost the speed of the slowest ships in the fleet.

And/or make fuel usage or some sort. Like a ship can go faster but it uses up more fuel, which is a resource (have a too slow fleet, build more refineries so they can catch up).

Also, there could be two speed designated on the fleet panel, "cruise speed" and "full speed", you set the cruise speed only, the full speed is automatic (uses max fuel to gain the best speed - of course only the too slow (relative to others) ones use up fuel).

I think the problem is (again) the assumption that speed is an ever-expanding technology (every few turns, your capabilities increase by, say, 25%). I believe this is largely unrealistic, and even more importantly, not that fun.

Exponential and linear progression within the tech realm are hard to balance in a fun way. I tend to prefer games where upgrades get harder and harder to acquire.

For example, in many RTSs, there are few updates, and they tend to increase your capabilities by a very small margin, but the costs increase much faster.

I've discussed this in one of your earlier threads (last year I believe) but I'm much more into 'logistics' than 'science'. I assume that all of the techs already exist, and its always just a question of investment.

Can I live with a scout that goes at 50% of the topspeed? Can I live with even slower freighters? What are my interceptors?

Ultimately, my choice of engine on each ship supports its key role. Trying to fit the best engines on all ships makes you more mobile but drastically reduces your capability to build more ships.

why is speed a factor in space?

Technically, you could accelerate 'forever' but rocket science actually determine there's a 'topspeed' which is determined by the amount of fuel you have, its mass, and how burning that fuel grants you speed. Until we use a different source of energy that is infinite and doesn't have mass, we're bound to these rules. That being said, there have been interesting experiments that use other forms of energy (stars' light). The problem is that these generally tend to provide much less maneuverability over short distances, making them less ideal to be warships, but perhaps good enough for cargo...