Wingman Woes

[Mithril Prime]

Well, I have an issue with my wingmen. This is especially in the Terran start campiegn, where you get three scout type wingmen. These guys are so wonderful to have in combat, especially with terran weapons, they chew up whatever you point them at.

They have, however, two problems. First is a glitch, where they always revert to the first command you gave them. (Protect my ship for instance.) So they never attack the target you set them.

The second is, I'm hoping, a glitch. If you fight near a station or asteroid...they seem to IGNORE that its there, instead focusing on their strafe runs of whatever shot at them/you, and end up running right into the friggin station/roid, resulting in the loss of extremely valuable wingmen. (DAMN ROARS!!!)

I was wondering if anyone had a script or modded solution to their kamikazi like ways, that has them maintain at least 3 km from a friggin solid object like stations and roids. Collision avoidance seems to be turned off during combat, so they can shoot at stuff without avoiding it. I'd like it very much if, during combat, they would stay away from everything except what they're suppost to be shooting at.

Ignoring other small ships would be great, but large solid objects are BAD.

(I mean, the friggin AI attacking stations has enough sense to not fly into the thing, why can't my bloody wingmen?)

[Schultski]

First is about the 'roids...
There is MODs or scripts that allow you to erase all roids in the universe or make the sector larger.


Second about the wingmen...
It is a way better to have Cycrow's Wing Command scripts. It allows you to swith tactic and command quickly with just a simple hotkey managing.


Third about how your wingmen [or friendly ships] moves...
It is placed on the gravity effects, which is then why the ships normally attack pointed enemy ship[s] that're adjacent to stations or 'roids WILL never escape the collision course in time. Hell... they even don't use much of built-in strafe drive extension.

About ignoring, it is because of a command lockdown which is I also experienced a lot with. After you gave command to your wings [especially with Protect Me], it tries to protect you from anything that shoots at you, ignoring any large object in your vicinity. Plus is your wings is fast enough, along with slow acceleration and deceleration, it is likely to chomp right through that large objects...

Hope this'll help...


Matsu-Taka
Matsuhiko Takagawa / Schultski Rheindland

[apricotslice]

Wingmen colliding is an old issue. The pathfinder code is badly bugged, and egosoft wont fix it.

Ther is no way of scripting around this.

The only solution is not use wingmen !

[Rangoon]

Is it really true that it can't be fixed? AI seems fixable in many other moddable games (like Total War series, Mount & Blade, etc.). To be honest, I'm so new to this game that I haven't experienced wingmen yet (yep, that new). But I've read enough posts about it here that it's obviously an issue.

Egosoft seems to love this game as much as we do; I wonder why they wouldn't want to fix it - or somehow make it fixable by the modding community.

[Schultski]

Just what apricotslice said, X3TC may me MODed, but only to certain extent. It is true that most of great things in it are the most powerful script editor which can make everything impossible possible. You can edit large corresponding files for your likings. For example, Carriers build fighters for resources? That's a little bit tricky, but it is possible.

"Pathfinder Code" is literally hardcoded, and most people in the forums are trying to fix it up externally from ancient X3R era. Both game uses similar engine, although X3TC is a little bit advanced in handling a lot of processes [there should an example for this, yet I mostly forget where].

TRUE that Egosoft love this game, by making evolved through several game engine and further enhanced it to its absolute. SHould you know the history of X-Universe, where you begin with XBTF, to X2TT, and then X3R, last X3TC. Hell, they even grabbed most guys in XTM team to further upgrade the X3TC!

Hope this'll help...


Matsu-Taka
Matsuhiko Takagawa / Schultski Rheindland

[apricotslice]

Truth the tell, I suspect that Egosoft havent a clue why the pathfinder code doesnt work, and so are incapable of thinking of something that would work.

It needs to be redesigned from the ground up. The ideal time to do that was in the redesign stage for TC, but they didnt do it.

I play minimum ship games. If you dont have many ships, you lose less to to the auto-pillok. I also mod my ships to have shields where collisions are survivable.