A line of five ships has the centre ship destroyed, dropping it out of formation in two groups. Define 'the rest of the squadron.' This is a significant difficulty in the official rules which effectively forces the penalty to apply to all ships.
The one with the squadron leader of course. This is either the one with the character, or, if no character, the one with the highest leadership. Or whichever one the controlling player nominates in case of a tie. This makes sense to me. What doesn't make sense is some stragglers stopping the rest of the squadron from going on orders. Hell, a case could even be put forward for the stragglers to go on orders (potentially different from the rest of the squadron) to get back into formation. Picture something akin to the Nid instinctive behaviour table.
I don't think it's convoluted at all. A ship can go on any orders it likes, but not two at once. This means that if any ship in the squadron is on orders, the squadron as a whole may not go on orders and vice versa.
This is still confusing. How does one relate to the other? OK, so a ship can't be on two orders at once. Fine. But why can't one ship in the squadron be on BFI while the rest, say, reload? That's not 2 orders at once.
If BFI per ship is allowed there MUST be a reason to not squadron your ships! If so it gets rid of a tactical decision and dumbs it down!
Why MUST there be a reason to not squadron? Why do we need a nonsensical tactical decision? If you want that then how about we put in a rule for Tag and all like him that only half your ships can fire direct fire weaponry per turn. Hmm, which ones will you fire? Maybe you'll take more ordnance ships. Maybe you'll feel more free to brace gunships rather than carriers. Feel the tactical depth. Absurd.
What dumbs the game down is abstract sweeping and nonsensical rubbish such as not being able to target a 5 km long BB 30,000 kms away because there's a 1km long escort 29,500 kms away from you and 150,000 kms away from your intended target. This is dumb. I don't see you arguing that this particular piece of crapness should remain, even though it adds a tactical layer.
Squadrons should be the norm of the game. The discussions should not be centred around "should I form squadrons?" but rather, "how should I form my squadrons?".
What dumbs the game down is abstract sweeping and nonsensical rubbish such as not being able to target a 5 km long BB 30,000 kms away because there's a 1km long escort 29,500 kms away from you and 150,000 kms away from your intended target. This is dumb. I don't see you arguing that this particular piece of crapness should remain, even though it adds a tactical layer.
I already said that you should be able to target any ship you wish as long as you pass a leadership test. This is how I have been playing the game the entire time anyways. Go back and read my proposed rules.
Why MUST there be a downside? Because that's how the game was intended and in any game there should be an upside and downside to ANY decision you make! When you are making your fleet, how you build it has it's inherit weaknesses and strengths, same with different fleets. As with upgrades for vessels, nothing should be "Oh well this is infinitely better so why shouldn't I take it!", NOTHING in this game should be a no brainer "Derp how am I going to make my squadrons up herp" decision. IN ANY GAME THAT WAS ANY GOOD there is always a consequence to your decisions, and depending on how you play them out will show if it's a good one.
This is a game about Space Fleets, not a game about Squadrons. Squadrons are a part of the game, and NOT the game.
So, this is how I plan on playing the game...
SO affects everyone in the squadron
BFI only affects that ship, however rest of the squadron cannot go on other orders
Spill over for any type of squadron (Still dumb for capital ships but whatever)
Leadership tests to target specific ships. None of this hiding good ships behind shitty ships (Doesn't make any sense anyways)
(Rule test needed here) Only ships that are within 30 cm of a ship that fails a special order are not allowed to try a special order...doesn't make much sense that a ship across the solar system can't reload ordnance just because one other crew is too stupid to figure it out themselves.
