Anybody seen this one?

[Rusty_Nail]

Strange case. I ordered a 9 piece fleet to enter a sector with enemy colony ships with specific fleet strategy orders "do not fire on colony ships" in strategic combat mode (because I wanted to capture them later for their colonization technology. 6 of my armed ships followed orders, but one, which for some reason was classified as "no combat group", proceeded to destroy the colony ships against fleet orders, but following own ship orders (permitted to fire on colony ships). Does anyone have a rational explanation for this, or is it a bug? Shouldn't ALL ships be assigned to a combat group automatically if they have weapons?

[Alpha Kodiak]

Was the renegade ship a different type than the others? Some types are set in the strategies to break formation, at which time they would revert to the ship strategy. Something to check, anyway....

[PvK]

Can your fleet formation not include as many ships as were in your fleet? Maybe ships above that number break formation since they can't be included in it (some formations are smaller than others - e.g. Diamond).

PvK

[Rusty_Nail]

They seven were all attack ships in "hard flank" formation, which can take up to 21 ships. The renegade was the only battleship. The rest were Battle Cruisers.