How fleet combat need to improve

[Falcrack]

Here are a number of scenarios in a 2.5 100% vanilla game, where I have a fleet with a carrier with a full wing of fighters, and several battleships. I will describe what I did, what the observed result is, and what the desired result would be if it was working properly, IMO. I really, really hope Egosoft reads this, and considers carefully ways that they could improve fleet combat in general.

What I did:
-I click on the wing leader (carrier with docked fighters), and give an attack order to a non-hostile destroyer that is travelling through sector
What I observed:
-Wing engages travel drive and flies directly towards where target was at the time I gave the order. When it reaches the location, it then turns toward where the target is now (halfway across the sector) and begins travelling at normal (non-travel) speed towards the target, even though it is now half a sector away from the target. Ships in wing travel at different speeds, and become widely dispersed en route to the target.
What I would like to happen:
-Wing engages travel drive and flies toward the current target, changing course continuously to head directly towards the target without disengaging travel drive, until it arrives at the target. Ships in the wing attempt to maintain formation or at least close proximity to other ships in the wing, so that the entire group flies at the speed of the slowest member.

What I did:
-A wing of 4 fighters is subordinate to a carrier. I order the wing leader to fly to a position. I then issue a recall all subordinates command on the carrier.
What I observed:
-Fighter wing takes off from carrier, all 4 travel to the designated position. When they arrive and I issue the recall subordinate command, only the wing leader returns to the carrier, the other 3 fighters in the wing remain stationary. I try to give manual orders to the remaining fighters to dock, and it works, somewhat, but they are extremely unresponsive, sometimes seem to forget or ignore the order to dock. Takes a very long time and a lot of fiddling to get all my fighters back on board. Even worse, sometimes issuing "recall subordinates" caused all the subordinate fighters (not the wing leaders) on board the carrier to take off instead of remaining on the carrier, undoing all my work trying to make them land. In short, ships are very unresponsive to recall subordinates.
What I would like to happen:
-When issuing the recall subordinates command on the carrier, all fighters in the wing, not just the wing leader, respond and return to the carrier. Fighters do not need to be told multiple times to land, they do not forget their orders. "Recall subordinates" does not cause fighters within a wing to take off from the carrier.

What I did:
-Carrier with 40 fighters containing 10 subordinate wings of 4 fighters each, plus 7 destroyers directly subordinate to the carrier, is ordered to attack an enemy destroyer. All fighters were landed at the time the order was given
What I observed:
-Carrier moved towards target, and when it got close, each of the flight leaders for the 10 wings launched and attacked. But the subordinates to each of these wings stayed on board the carrier. 1 of the 7 destroyers moves forward to attack, but for unknown reasons, the remaining 6 destroyers stay stationary and do not move in to attack, and I had to remove them from the group and reassign them to defend the carrier to get them to join in the attack
What I would like to happen:
-All fighters within a wing, and not just the wing leaders, respond to the attack command given to the carrier. The order to attack a target given to the wing leaders is propagated down to the subordinates of the wing leader. Subordinates should be much more responsive to a direct attack command given to the wing leader, so the 6 stationary destroyers should have started to move in to attack when the command was given.

What I did:
-Tried to disband the 10 fighter wings of 4 fighters each, which were in turn subordinate to the carrier.
What I observed:
-When selecting all 40 fighters, the option to remove assignment, or remove orders and wait, was not available. I had to go through each wing, one by one, to remove the assignment, which left me with 10 wings of fighters unassigned to the carrier. But I wanted to disband each of the fighter wings as well. Unfortunately, when I select all the fighters within the wing, I still do not have the option to remove the assignment, or remove orders and wait. The only way I can accomplish what I want is to click on each fighter, individually, and remove the assignment. So to fully disband all 40 fighters, I have to click on each one, select remove assignment, go to the next one, and reapt for all 40 fighters. Such a pain!
What I would like to happen:
-When selecting multiple ships, the option to remove assignment is available. So I could disband all the wings of fighters by simply selecting all fighters, right click, and having the option to "remove assignment" for all of them at once.

What I did:
-Gave attack order to a carrier group to an enemy station in sector with carrier groups full of fighters plus destroyers
What I observed:
-Plasma shots from destroyers missed their stationary target most of the time. Shots were slow an unimpressive looking.
What I would like to happen:
-Better aiming for plasma turrets, faster shots for plasma turrets, longer range for plasma turrets, better impact effects for plasma turrets. See the VRO mod for a good example of how it should look.

What I did:
-Murder HOP assets continuously for a long time, starting with a faction rep of 30
What I observed:
-After about an hour of murder, my rep had gone down from 30, to 26
What I would expect:
-Murdering ships, deliberately, should be an act of war, and would immediately lower my rep to enemy status, especially at the rate at which I was killing their ships.

What I did:
-Try to order defense drones from a ship to do any command (ie attack a specific target, return to dock,
What I observed:
-No such commands for giving direct orders to defense drone exists
What I would like to happen:
-Options to order drones to launch, drones to return to dock at the ship, order them to attack specific targets.

I think I'll stop here. What I hope Egosoft realizes, is that fleet operations, especially with carriers and their assigned fighter wings, could use a lot of work.

[Alan Phipps]

Duplicate of a thread in the main X4 forum.