Are wingmen worth it?

[Disco Knight]

Just curious to know if the wingmen setting actually helps anything.
Not for protecting the ship I am in but say for protecting one of my transport ships.

I have 3 ships protecting my crystal transporter. 2 m3's and an m4.
I have them set to protect trasnport. Would it benefit to have them set to wingmen? Even if its only the positon of them around my ship maybe that will help.

[Nanook]

The wingman command is only for ship protecting the player's ship. 'Protect' or 'Follow' are the appropriate commands for ships protecting other ships. You can set the formation you want. Just pick it for the lead ship, and the others should fall into that formation.

[Disco Knight]

easy enough ...

thanks Nanook

[jakelucid]

if u have universal traders and they have jump engines it has been my experience that if the trader jumps the "escorts" dont jump and they endlessly try to play catch up to the frieghter...i usually have a nova or something following me withthe protect me command...its nice if you have an m4 or light fighter of any kind to have a computer wingman there with big guns if you get into trouble....just remember if you get in over your head command him to leave first before you leave..if u jump he wont..he may (most likely will) get destroyed first.

[askerer]

If you're rich.....yes..

But if you barely bought another ship......no, because there is a high posability they'll crash into you during combat.

[Scourge225]

The only time my wingman ever crash into me is when I suddenly stop and turn.

Usually they're beating up some Paranid ship with their PAC's

[anneonemous]

If you want to gauge the effectiveness of wingpersons, try carrying some fighter drones. There's a neat script that allows you to set a key to launch them all, another to beam them all aboard if you're carrying a transporter device.

I never leave home without them.

AoN.

[badgerfever]

Wingmen?

Wingpersons? (is it just me or does that sound feminist?)

they're more like WingThings.

I seriously find it hard to see them as persons at all.

they are good for something though, they're good enough to send to their dooms and give suppressive fire before i give the killing blow. even then, thats kinda expensive.

I agree about the fighter drones. I find them more useful than wingmen.

[SteveMill]

The term you are looking for is Wing-Dolts. Much more trouble than they're worth as their AI is so poor. If you get yourself into a fights that need wing-dolts you can be sure you'll soon end up losing one and incurring huge hull repair bills.

And nothing is more frustrating than having an enemy about to surrender and your idiot companions swoop in and kill it.

Having them as escorts for patrol ships is another matter.

I've had two patrols working out of Trinity Sanctum - each an m6 & 2 m3 combo's and they've done a great job (so long as i'm not in sector of course).

[jlehtone]

The wingman command is only for ship protecting the player's ship.

Do you imply that idle ship in same sector with 'wingman' set to 'yes' would react on your ship being hit?


IME, 'wingman' offers the option to broadcast commands to those ships and to "broadcast with hotkey" two commands to those ships. Nothing else.

Thus, one can broadcast to all ships in sector or just to ships with wingman flag. That way you can sort of have two groups of fighters in the same sector. For example, you have your wing and you have sector patrol in the same sector, where M3's escort M6. If you broadcast to all fighters, the M6 will have no escorts any more.

Wingman setting is about how "conveniently" you can give orders to your ships. Only needed when one attempts more complex fleet operations.