Avoiding cruising formation at night?

[generalvikus]

Hey guys,

I'm playing my first campaign of RTW3 and one unpleasant feature which I've re-discovered is the fleet cruising formation. AI controlled divisions will immediately attempt to form parallel lines upon nightfall, which is quite annoying if you happen to still be in contact with the enemy. Other than switching every battle division to manual control, is there a way to avoid this? Is there some line I can change in the save file to un - invent the tech? 

[cormallen]

Jun 16, 2023 4:45:06 GMT -6 generalvikus said:

Hey guys,

I'm playing my first campaign of RTW3 and one unpleasant feature which I've re-discovered is the fleet cruising formation. AI controlled divisions will immediately attempt to form parallel lines upon nightfall, which is quite annoying if you happen to still be in contact with the enemy. Other than switching every battle division to manual control, is there a way to avoid this? Is there some line I can change in the save file to un - invent the tech? 

If you go into the save file you can "forget" the tech.
You'll have to check the research lists in the data folder to figure which one to edit.

[generalvikus]

Which file in the save folder do I have to edit?

[cormallen]

Jun 16, 2023 17:32:10 GMT -6 generalvikus said:

Which file in the save folder do I have to edit?

Open the "ResearchAreas3.dat" file in your "SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Rule the Waves 3\Data" folder.

That lists all the techs in game along with usual dates, costs, chances of triggering etc along with a precis of their effects.

Fleet Tactics is the 13th field and "Fleet Cruising" is the 8th one down within that so you'll need to address tech7 (they start at 0) when we get to the save file.


Open the save file (for whichever game you are looking to hack) in your "SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Rule the Waves 3\Save" folder.

(this is a super handy folder as you can just make copies of ongoing games, renamed to "Game1: Jan1903 RN... whatever" to keep snapshots of ongoing campaigns. I have LOADS of them as I habitually make a copy of most January turns but then I mod a lot and like to double back to see what impact I'm having)

Find the "RTWGameX.bcs" for whichever numbered game you're after (you can sort by size and it's generally the biggest file in there) and open (pretty much everything you need opens with notepad in this game) and find the line in the Research list you want (spoilers: "edit tab" then "find" and "Research13Level7" should help) and change it to "Research13Level7=0" to forget the tech...
Now, the game may (?) re-research the tech all by itself so you may have to do this again occasionally? You could just remove the tech from the research list completely, or set it to a really late date  but then no-one will use it and the parallel cruising formation was very much a thing so prob shouldn't? Ideally it would be an option to tab on/off in game as it's cool at the start of a big fleet action but a pain when it kicks in mid-battle!

[generalvikus]

Thanks very much! I think that the tech may also be responsible for the bug where a bunch of divisions spawn stacked on top of and phased inside one another, so I'll try disabling it and see what happens.

Also, the game really doesn't like it when you set anyone other than the flagship at the head of your fleet, right? The main advantage of a parallel formation within a tactical battle is that it would allow you to deploy in either of two directions instead of just one. But if the flagship can only be at the head of the line, then you can only deploy in one direction anyway, so there's no advantage to the formation.

[generalvikus]

Update: the division stacking clearly doesn't have anything to do with fleet screening formation, as it still occurs without it.