QUESTION - How to create effective carrier for IS and OOS combat?

[noname159]

For several days now I have been testing carrier command softwares.
Basic mod: XRM

I am flying in heavy frigate and bought military transport that has 6 good M3 fighters - for those who know XRM, I am using Advanced Chokaro military transport and 6x Skate Prototype M3+ fighers equiped with 8x Energy Bolt Chainguns for main weapons and 2x2 Particle Accelerator Cannons for their turrets. These fighters have good combination of speed, firepower and shielding, which is quite important in OOS combat.
After few days of testing I have to say, I want to shoot the surviving pilots myself. BTW, most of the time I have spent installing, configuring and reading information about the mods I was trying to use for the carrier command.
Test 1 - Anarkis Defence System (ADS), OOS combat:
Carrier jumped into system and immediately deployed some fighters as close defence. No enemy on radar. In time, two enemy contacts appeared - Xenon P corvette and Xenon L fighter. Several of my fighters rushed in and attacked. This attack was horribly ineffective, they didn't attack as pack but more like 1-2 fighters against the corvette, moving in and out as said corvette ripped their shields to shreds, taking very low shield damage itself. When I saw how horrible they fight, I ordered my carrier to recall them back (ADS: Dock all ships). After ten more minutes, only two fighters were alive, docked, the rest was retreating extremley slowly, they were barely half way to carrier when one Xenon L fighter killed them all, one by one. Complete disaster. Those two surviving fighters are alive only because they never even went after the Xenons.

Test 2 - Codea Weapon System, IS combat:
It took me quite long to figure out how to use Codea, I still don't know where and how to hire engineers to fix damaged fighters. The software is very complicated, with needless details like hiring pilots on military stations, training them, giving all fighters needed equipment, etc. Lots of menu, submenu and sub-submenu. No easy way to command the carrier except through lots of shortcuts you have to configure in controls option.
ADS - 4 shortcuts. XRM - 5 shortcuts. Codea - 23 new shortcuts. You gotta be kidding me...
OK, I finally configured Codea how I think it should be and jumped my frigate and the carrier into low-risk system with only few pirate ships to test it on.
After a while, fighters launched and went after several different fighters all around the sector. Few minutes later, enemy capital ship (pirate guild carrier, but without fighters) jumped in. Two or three of my fighters attacked, again, no organization. They were doing nice job of running away when their shields were down, too. Then one enemy fighter attacked my carrier and after ten minutes, destroyed it. In those ten minutes, carrier hasn't moved, summoned no fighters to defend it, did nothing but explode. By that time, 3 of my 6 fighters were down too, overwhelmed by enemy carrier / few remaining enemy fighters, again, all around the sector.

So, what is wrong with me or the scripts?

What I need: Carrier with basic IQ. Recall damaged fighters, don't send them to be engaged in 1vX fighter combats, don't send few kamikazes to attack enemy capital ships that have more weapons then all those fighters combined. And fifty times more shields. Carrier that docks it's fighters before jumping away from sector (happened when I issued follow me command). Carrier that choose it's target wisely, eliminating small groups of enemies, running / jumping away from bigger groups or big ships. Carrier that summons it's fighters to protect itself when needed. Carrier that repairs fighter damage.
So far, I failed completely and I could really use your help setting such carriers up. I think I am doing something wrong, the software can't be that stupid, right?

For control, I am sending complete list of my mods, maybe you notice some known conflicts I missed. I know, lots of mods, but I used most of them before except Cronos fight scripts, life, phanton, yaki armada, pirate guild and Codea and had no problems.
scripts:
Cronos_Advanced_Fight_Scripts_v._3.1
gates_no_rep_loss
missile_safety
msl_def_mk2
numeric_ranks_tc
ring_of_fire-tc
safe_undocking_gz
LIFE-V0.85b Director
LIFE-V0.85b Scripts
Phanton Corporation
MARS + compatibility patch
dock_lockup_fix
align_ecliptic-tc
XRM + docking resize
Yaki Armada
Pirate Guild 3
Anarkis System Defense
RWT-V3.7.1-TC (Space Loot Teleporter)
Impossible Mission Difficulty (cat/dat 09)
Invasion Defense Mission
enhanced_blueprints_1.5_ap_3.0
Advanced Complex Hub (cat/dat 10)
Marine Training Manager
Mission time Tweaks (cat/dat 11)
Codea
SPK
Cheat collection
Marine Repairs
Traveling Mechanic
Weapon Select Extension -- removed
weapon quickswap

[DrBullwinkle]

That is a good wishlist, noname.

Advanced Fight Scripts could interact with other carrier scripts that use vanilla fight scripts. In the past, AFS was not always better than the vanilla scripts (although I have not tried the latest version).

If you are flying the carrier itself, then I recommend that you do not try to automate the fighters. Instead, assign your ships to a wing or two, and use the wing commands to attack whatever you want. IMHO, that is better than any kind of automation when you are piloting the carrier.

For OOS Defense, Drone Carrier Software 2 (DCS2) is probably the current state-of-the-art. It is still in development and has a couple of known bugs, but it is custom-designed for OOS defense roles in challenging games.

EDIT: DCS2 has most of the features on your list, or alternatives to them. For example, the DCS2 carrier will evade attacks by ships M6 and larger (rather than the vanilla scripts which would cause the carrier to battle to its death).

[DrBullwinkle]

Oh, and to repair fighters on the carrier, use Marine Repairs and Training (in my sig).

[noname159]

Thanks for reply. I will transfer some of my marines as soon as their training is finished, they are working on their fifth stars now, on my frigate. Marine training mod indeed
I will look for a way to uninstall Cronos, if possible, I was wondering if it's combat patterns have something to do with it, too.
If I want to really fortify a sector, I plant covert lasertowers via Ring of Fire on all stargates, that will take care of most big ships. What is left is usually small fighter groups that managed to fly away faster then lasertowers responded in OOS. Of course, with the production of lasertowers and advanced satelites as it is in XRM (don't remember vanilla), such defences are rare indeed, unless I start producing them en masse.
I will certainly try DCS2, haven't seen it before.

[Ferenczy66]

The 1st thing you need to or will realise is that XRM is much harsher on fighters...meaning they go BOOM quickly...

There are a few discussions on the xrm formus about this now...

As far as a more LESS BOOOMY version of CODEA...I recommned a couple of things..

I tried ADS and noticed it sends out patrols in groups of 5...for overwhelming firepower...you can do the same with codea if you are comfortable using the scirpt editor.

in game open: plugin.codea.squadron.size (its a pck file)

edit it (pretty self-explanitory) and exit/save
...goto your script folder...delete/remove the .pck version (leave your edited version.xml) and viola instant overkill squadrons.

I recommend setting the wingman numbers to 4 or 5..that way they go out in groups of 5 or 6..depending on your needs.

next...

Stay away from the attack hanger.
...keep your birds in the Interceptor hanger, that way they have a shorter radius to attack and RETREAT to...

The further away they are..the les likey retreat will be successfull

Next..Get Bounce....dont use a carrier without it

Uese DrB's marines to repair...like he said...
....but if you really want to roleplay your crew....you can retrain your marines with the personnel transporter or on a M1

I highly suggest you read the CODEA page if you havent...then read it agian...a lot of small nuances are in there..

Most (if not all) of what you asked for is doable by CODEA if set up correctly and slightly tweaked to have larger squdrons as outlined above.

[Guest]

Test 2 - Codea Weapon System, IS combat:
It took me quite long to figure out how to use Codea, I still don't know where and how to hire engineers to fix damaged fighters.

... U need an Xtra plugin which is called "Military Transport" (german: "Militärtransport")
<-- what does that plugin do ??
--> it creates some (i think 15) TP-transporter flying around the hole universe, half of those TPs are carrying personnel needed 4 many codea-functions (e.g. to give codea control of some of your M8-ships [U need 4 of them !!])
// to find those TPs there is (of course ) an additional hotkey which opens a window with all destinations of those "Military Transport"
// beside that, U R right, imho there are too many codea-hotkeys ^^ (but the more Xperience U gain with codea and all of its functions the better U like codea + the better U know how to use those hotkeys)

[TheEarl]

Hi there !
I think I can say two things to codea.
The first is, you should give the carrierer a command to move away, if it is needed. The carrier can command the fighters and his escorts. But there is no command running at the carrier that tells it where to go. You can send it on patrol or defend sector or anything else you can do with another ship.
The second is, maybe you set all fighter to attack fighters and none to defend fighter. If you have defend fighters, they leave the carrier, if an enemy is close. But the attack fighters do not come back to help it.
Thats how I understand it, maybe it's not all correct.

[DrBullwinkle]

Also remember that DCS2 is designed to be compatible with CODEA. If you turn on only drone building (not "Engage Enemies" AI), then DCS2 will build CODEA-compatible fighters. The drones have the required CODEA equipment (and none of the forbidden equipment). That is a major time-saver.

If some CODEA player (or interested German-speaker) ever finds out what is required to automatically add a fighter to a CODEA hangar, then I will add that feature to DCS2.