How many wingmen is too many wingmen?

[uk.crow]

Ok so my Split mercenary groups is coming along lovely now and i've amassed 4 Mambas and 2 Mamba raiders as my personal mission escorts, which fly from an elephant and i fly a heavy dragon. Is this too many and they'll spend more time flying into each other than shooting at enemies?

Cheers

[Bill Huntington]

uk.crow, one wingman is probably best. And a wingman should really have a rear turret and be well shielded. Otherwise, missiles will eat them up. So the Mambas don't have a rear turret, and the Mamba Raiders are too light. The Mamba is fine as a personal ship, but has those problems as a wingman.

I used an L as a wingman for a while, but I kept him close with a Protect Me mission and my personal ship handled the missiles. I got something out of him that way.

You are right about collisions. More than one wingman leads to numerous collisions.

I like using a wingman. You have to keep it simple, otherwise they aren't helping.

[Catra]

For wingmen what you want to do is have one designated "leader" for each group of wingmen(like right now, my split force is 1 Tiger(the lead) and then it has a few H Dragons set to attack closest, and some fighters protecting the Tiger), and then have all the other ships escort the leader, this way you don't have all these ships trying to clump into a tiny space around you.

And give the "leader" move to orders, instead of follow me orders (as that would be counter productive) and only issue the "attack my target" command on a target that you yourself isn't actively engaging (if its practical to do so, if you're fighting a cap or a corvette or singular fighter, then go ahead and gang up on it, just take a different attack path).

I got about 4 such wingmen groups flying around with my python (that I fly myself)

[A5PECT]

There's two ways to go about using AI fighters.

If you're looking for a dedicated wingman, something that shadows you at all times, then fewer is better. You're going to be managing these ships constantly: making sure they're stocked on missiles and ammo, keeping them fueled, and issuing them orders during combat. It helps to give yourself as little logistical work to do as possible.

TM's are great for docking your fighters and keeping them armed and fueled.

Ship choice is important, try to use the most survivable ships you can get your hands on. The more survivable the individual ships, the less you'll have to use. Shielding (and to a lesser extent, hull) is incredibly important. The more the better.

Turrets for missile defense are a great bonus. Regardless of whether or not the ships have turrets, arm them with Mosquito missiles and have MDM running on them at all times (requires Fight Command Software Mk2). 20-40 missiles is good, depending on the size of their cargo bays and how often you can afford to resupply them.

Speed is nice, but not essential. Speed and maneuverability allow your wingmen to avoid fire, but the AI doesn't really have the capacity to make intelligent evasive manuevers. More often than not, you'll see your AI fighters fly head first into a stream of enemy fire (this is why shielding is so important). You actually want your wingmen to be slightly slower than your own ship. This will let you get into the battle first and draw the enemy's focus on your own ship, rather than your wingmen. Although if you have a Turbo Booster installed on your ship you should be able to outpace any fighter once you fire it up.

If you plan on giving them offensive missiles, make sure they use ordnance that they can't hurt themselves with. Thunderbolt missiles might do great amounts of damage, but if one gets shot down as your wingman launches it you're liable to lose the ship. For M3's, I never give them anything heavier than Silkworms. If you want to increase their damage output, ramp up their fire probability in their command consoles.

Wasps are absolutely fantastic for distracting enemy turrets, particularly against larger ships like M6's and above.

Strangely enough, guns are last on the list. Personally, I go for battle longevity; the AI is no good at managing laser energy. When an AI ship is on an attack run it will fire all the guns it can until it runs out of energy, then continues to hold down the trigger until its target is out of its line of fire. So I just set them up to go gun-crazy. Loadouts that don't strain your wingmen's laser generators grants them the ability to constantly project damage onto targets.

PAC's are incredibly inexpensive and remarkably effective for their price. They're very energy-efficient and very accurate. They have relatively low range and do little damage individually, but a Nova with 8 of them in its forward bays will be more than capable of holding its own in combat. PAC's are also very good weapons to use in turrets.

If you're willing to put a little more money and effort in, you can get your wingmen some EBC's. They do damage near that of a HEPT, but have faster bullets, greater range and, they use almost no laser energy. The only drawback is you have to keep your wingmen supplied with ammunition. If you only have two or three ships using EBC's, then the Teladi should have enough ammunition forges spread around to keep your ships loaded. Any more and you'll have to set up your own factories to keep your ships supplied.

OR

Forget all of that and just buy up a dozen or two M4's and spam them to hell. Throw them into wing, base the wing to a carrier, and scramble the fighters when you need to blow some stuff up. All of your AI ships are expendable; when they die, just buy more from the shipyard. If you wait until the L variants become available you can buy them in bulk and you don't even have to worry about outfitting them.

This strategy is more difficult to utilize early in the game, but once you have a reliable source of income it's a lot less hassle than trying to micromanage a bunch of high-maintenance fighters like M3's and M3+'s.

[breytac]

Throw them into wing, base the wing to a carrier

Or by using CODEA you can base the fighters to a carrier and let the script handle wing assignments. Granted they won't be in an offiicial wing, but I've had 10-15 fighters in space and they've never crashed into each other when launching or docking.

[uk.crow]

Thanks for all the help everyone, given me quite a few ideas to think about for my fighters, i gave all my mamba's HEPT but they chew through energy so when they hit the target it's great but the rest of the the time they're flying about, i think i have quite a few PACs stockpiled on the elephant which is the wing's homebase.

Forget all of that and just buy up a dozen or two M4's and spam them to hell

I like this idea but ,like you said i will need to get another source of income to make this feasible.

Catra your idea about the tigers being the group leader is also extremely helpful and once i have more larger ships i think i'll adopt this to keep them all together.

Thanks for all the help!

[Knetter_Gek]

I personally prefer to fly an M7 and have a smattering of Eclipses (The Argon ones, not the puny unshielded farty things the pirates fly) with PBG, HEPT and PRGs in the nose and whatever I have lying around in the turrets as wingmen. For preference, docked in the belly of my own M7. If it's a capital, I take it out myself. If there's fighters, simply have your wingmen shred them. The Eclipse's 200MJ shield virtually guarantee that unless it goes head-to-head with an M8 or an M6, it will come out of the first clash alive, and the PBG HEPT PRG mix means that whatever was in front of them before they opened fire is going to be in bits and pieces all over the sector when they stop firing.

The only two major worries are the PBGs hitting other wingmen or making civilian casualties. The former problem is minor, due to the 200MJ shield, but the latter problem can seriously tank you rep on a sector defence mission, as you can begin defending it from Xenon and can end up defending it from the sector defence forces, police forces, a TL and a stray M7M plus escorts. And don't think you'll be in time to catch it, since as soon as the little fluffy Boron go red, your eclipses lose interest in the Xenon and go after the Boron Sick Children's Schoolbus instead...

[Virtualaughing]

4 wingman is ok in the same group

For carriers the best if you have M7 wingman
half the docked ships assigned as homebase to the M1
half will remain docked ships w8ing for your command if the assigned assets not enough:D

[Bill Huntington]

uk.crow, be aware that a wingman and ships in a wing are two different things. A wingman can be controlled with Shift - 7 and Shift - 8 during combat, and its quick response fits with M3 combat.

A wing is very different, and is usually used with carrier combat. Since a lot of ships are involved, it takes a certain amount of time to carry out its assigned task.

[jlehtone]

Even a wing has a leader and others are its wingmen. The important question is: are you part of the group/wing? Naturally, you can only be the leader not a wingman. And an erratic leader, baffling to the AI to escort.

Don't be a leader. Issue commands to leader(s) of (independent) wing(s). You can tag along and save their six, when needed.

[MarvinTheMartian]

I personally prefer to fly an M7 and have a smattering of Eclipses... with PBG ... in the nose ... as wingmen.

wouldn't that result in a roasted backside?

Personally I have an M3 (without AoE weapons!) docked at my Hyperion and just order it to attack as and when needed, saves worrying about it crashing into things, wouldn't want to have more than one wingman though.

[deca.death]

:o wouldn't that result in a roasted backside? :D

Nah. M7 can endure. Guy claimed once that he flies Boreas with PSG fully armed Deimos as fighter/vette bouncer. I believe him. All you have to do is have toughest ship in class above weapon's class : )

[Knetter_Gek]

I personally prefer to fly an M7 and have a smattering of Eclipses... with PBG ... in the nose ... as wingmen.

wouldn't that result in a roasted backside?

Personally I have an M3 (without AoE weapons!) docked at my Hyperion and just order it to attack as and when needed, saves worrying about it crashing into things, wouldn't want to have more than one wingman though.

Well no, my posterior is quite uncharred since I shall be flying an M7 and because my wingmen are going to be shooting at the fighters in my area, not at me. If they do, the multi-GJ shielding keeps me fine. The Eclipse is pretty mucht he only wingmen you can have with PBGs and not worry about them toasting your own craft of course - don't do this with Mambas.

I don't worry about my Eclipses banging into stuff. If they do, they just leave a sort of Eclipse shaped depression in it anyway. If the craft they bang into is an M3, M4, M5, M8, TP or TS the Eclipse's shields are going to be much more powerful than that of the bumped craft, and it's not the Eclipse that needs a trip to the mender's. If they smack into a TM both craft will come away alive due to the Eclipse's relaxed top speed, and since the TM class hasn't got very good guns, the Eclipse should be fine (worst case scenario you recall the craft to recharge it's shields in the docking bay). They never bang into M1, M2, M7 or TL class vessels since I do not want my M3s fighting those - that is what my Shrike is for. The M6 class is the only possible hazard, but I try to have my Eclipses not fight those and bring in the Shrike instead for those. That doesn't always work of course, so sometimes you do run a risk by having the whole wing pound a Hvy Corvette with their PBGs before it can take out one of the fighters.

I've done Xenon patrols and Kha'ak patrols and Pirate patrols and several raids into Argon and Boron space without losing a single Eclipse. It really does work - just give them some Wasps if there's corvettes in the area, to keep the turrets occupied while you bring in the Shrike.