[TC] Carrier Questions

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Alatar1313
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[TC] Carrier Questions

Post by Alatar1313 » Sat, 11. Feb 12, 05:58

Okay so these questions aren't really about a carrier but I did just get a Panther M7 which may as well be.

1. What type(s) of fighters should I carry? I carry an Eclipse, a Kestrel, and the Xperimental Shuttle around with me as personal ships but the rest of the space is empty at the moment. I'm not really sure which would excel for AI vs AI fights. Should I grab like a wing of 10 M3+, a wing of 10 M4s and then maybe 5 M5s for the small stuff? Maybe I should just get a wing of 29 M3+? What do you guys use for IS fighting?

2. As sort of a corollary to the first question, which fighters in particular should I carry? I figure they should be something easy to equip and bought in a sector where I can get the most equipment possible on them all at once when I buy them in bulk but wondered if anyone had a suggestion as to which ships in particular or what sector to buy them in.

3. Is there a good way to equip all of the fighters the same way without going through them individually? I know I can buy the L versions but they usually only come with half their gun slots filled and nothing in the turrets.

4. I have like a million FAAs in my Panther's turrets. Will they kill my fighters? Should I replace them with different guns or just set all the turrets to attack my target and make sure I target stuff that isn't near my own fighters?

5. Should I put my fighters in wings or use broadcast commands to control them?

6. Does the command to defend me work pretty well or is there a better way to order them to kill the little stuff?
Last edited by Alatar1313 on Sat, 11. Feb 12, 06:15, edited 1 time in total.

Burnt Pies
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Post by Burnt Pies » Sat, 11. Feb 12, 06:14

I'd probably go for shielding at the expense of everything, so a wing of 10-20 Eclipses/Falcon Haulers (or Sentinels if you have one RE'd) would be good. Then maybe a fast M4 wing for hunting down the last few M5s buzzing around.

To equip them, I'd probably resort to Cloning.

FAAs don't have AoE damage, I think, and they're so accurate they're unlikely to hit anything they're not aiming at.

Given you say you've got 32 slots, I'm guessing this is TC?

Alatar1313
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Post by Alatar1313 » Sat, 11. Feb 12, 06:15

Burnt Pies wrote:Given you say you've got 32 slots, I'm guessing this is TC?
Ah yeah it is. Edited title to reflect that.

What is cloning? Like with a script?

Smart_Bomb
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Post by Smart_Bomb » Sat, 11. Feb 12, 06:28

You want a decent mix of ships for certian rolls, remember they are AI controlled so they cant do it all like a player ship can. I would set up 3 wings of 5 fighters for anti fighter weapons and speed, a group for anti-heavy fighters (m3) and maby a few for anti-corvets. set up your fighter in one wing with relative same speed and turning so they work together better.

Honestly I never had any use so many fighter wings, it gets chaotic but it does look really cool.

I personally went with the tiger and got the pirate bomb lanucher weapons. I have a m6 gurding my tiger with full anti-fighter weapons from all angels, its my Wompa Stompa team can even take out m2's!
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Ozman202
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Post by Ozman202 » Sat, 11. Feb 12, 06:30

No cloning involves using an exploit in the game, when you buy a ship at shipyard you automatically get to buy equipment from the local EQ dock, that dock has a single PRG available to buy, if you buy 10 fighters and then when equipping them all (from the automatic menu) if you purchase that 1 PRG it will clone it so all of the 10 fighters get them, so you end up with 9 more, it costs the same as buying 10 of them, but it allows you to clone scarce weapons.
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Alatar1313
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Post by Alatar1313 » Sat, 11. Feb 12, 06:37

Well I'm fine with that so long as I'm still paying the money for it. The only thing it'd really be saving me is running around and buying the stuff then equipping it one by one. So all I need to do to do it is find a shipyard with an equipment dock nearby then make sure it sells the item I want to put on them? Then it can either have one in stock already or I can sell one to it?

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Morkonan
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Re: [TC] Carrier Questions

Post by Morkonan » Sat, 11. Feb 12, 08:37

Alatar1313 wrote:Okay so these questions aren't really about a carrier but I did just get a Panther M7 which may as well be.

1. What type(s) of fighters should I carry? I carry an Eclipse, a Kestrel, and the Xperimental Shuttle around with me as personal ships but the rest of the space is empty at the moment. I'm not really sure which would excel for AI vs AI fights. Should I grab like a wing of 10 M3+, a wing of 10 M4s and then maybe 5 M5s for the small stuff? Maybe I should just get a wing of 29 M3+? What do you guys use for IS fighting?
My Panther loadout on fighters includes:

2 groups of 5 Strike Fighters (General Purpose Strike) - Nova Vanguards, HEPT with 20 general purpose missiles each. (Forget which ones, there's a fab in my main trading areas that spits these out in decent numbers.)

5 Spitfyres to chase down fast threats.

5-8 Falcon Haulers armed with PAC/PSG and Heavy/Medium missiles suitable for anti-cap attacks.

5 CAP Mambas for anti-fighter cover/defense with anti-fighter multiple warhead missiles. (May change this if they get caught in flak too often. They're not too beefy on shielding.)

At least 2 Falcon Haulers dedicated towards supply/salvage.

At least one or two M5 scout craft, for scouting enemy positions.

Fill in with whatever else is needed. I'm looking for a heavier missile capability in the Panther's flights, so I'd probably stack Falcon Haulers.
2. As sort of a corollary to the first question, which fighters in particular should I carry? I figure they should be something easy to equip and bought in a sector where I can get the most equipment possible on them all at once when I buy them in bulk but wondered if anyone had a suggestion as to which ships in particular or what sector to buy them in.
I'm a Carrier novice, but it would seem to me to be very necessary to give the Panther some "reach" with a good flight of Falcon Haulers armed with standoff missiles and torpedoes. It may also be a good idea to put a few swarming, multiple warhead missiles on your Anti-Cap strike craft, to provide some turret targets so the Falcon Flight's expensive single-warhead torpedoes have a better chance of getting through. Taledi Falcon Haulers can be purchased in PTNI. (M3s with large cargo holds.)

I'd also dedicate at least one of them to e-cell duty/salvage.

3. Is there a good way to equip all of the fighters the same way without going through them individually? I know I can buy the L versions but they usually only come with half their gun slots filled and nothing in the turrets.
There are some tricks you can do with Supply software to get craft that are in Wings or linked by the Follow command in order to outfit them. But, you're going to have to issue all their turret commands and such individually as well as make sure you have all the necessary weapons in the supplying craft. Check this thread: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=3019196
4. I have like a million FAAs in my Panther's turrets. Will they kill my fighters? Should I replace them with different guns or just set all the turrets to attack my target and make sure I target stuff that isn't near my own fighters?
I haven't seen a great number of people complaining about losing CAP fighters to their own flak/fire. But, that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. In particular, I know you need to be careful with Ion Pulse Generators as their fire will arc to any objects within range, including flak bursts and friendly ships. (They come in very handy for creating a screen of shield-deadly flak bursts.)
5. Should I put my fighters in wings or use broadcast commands to control them?
I would possibly put a rapid reaction Wing under a Wing command, just for speed. But, otherwise, IMO, it's better to keep your flights separated by using flight leaders and having the rest of the fighters key off that leader with separate, nested, orders. So, the flight leader of Strike One would be the fighter you ordered and the rest of the flight would key off of that craft with commands like "Attack Target of" and "Attack nearest enemy of" or "Protect ___" etc.. But, to put the most guns on target, like for a Capital Strike Flight, you would probably set them up under a Wing or give them all "Attack Target of - Capital Strike Flight Fighter #1." (The nice thing about NOT using wings is that you can order the fighter's individually, without having to go through removing them from a wing.)
6. Does the command to defend me work pretty well or is there a better way to order them to kill the little stuff?
"Protect ____" tells them to attack any hostiles within 2km of ___, or some range like that. They will go after one target until it is dead, if it has violated your Protect perimeter. This can be good.. or very bad if it's a fast ship that they can't hope to catch. I have no idea how long they'll chase it, though. In a planned engagement, you may be better off with "Attack Nearest Enemy of.." instead, if you're looking for a sort of catch-all defensive command. But, IIRC, they'll go after any enemy as soon as it comes within gravidar range.. In short, experiment.

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Post by empiro » Sat, 11. Feb 12, 09:52

My general rules about fighters in TC: All of them have to be buyable and there must be an EQ in the same sector. Reason: it's a pain to equip fighters individually with software and tuning. The EQ lets me do that for all 10 at once (in AP, you can group equip later, so it's a bit better). I immediately use either the resupply command or equip like command to outfit all my fighters with the same equipment.

I have:

10 Kestrels tuned to 400 m/s to chase down enemy m5s. They have all PACs and Wasps set at 50% launch. I tried 100%, but it led to way too many missiles flying around (but it was fun). They die a lot but are quick and easy to replace because of their cost and the fact that I have a Wasp and PAC factory.

10 Nova Raiders armed with PACs all over as an intercept fighter. They're faster than most m4s you'll encounter, and the PACs are cheap, plentiful and reasonably accurate against most fighter threats. I also give them wasps and set them at 20% fire rate. I've found wasps are the missile that is least likely to blow up and kill your own fighter (because if they get shot, it only blows up 1-2 missiles in the swarm.

10 Falcon Haulers armed with 8 EBCs and a PAC in the back. These are heavy fighters mainly used for anti-corvette and can rip up an enemy capship pretty fast. They're given Tempests at 5% fire rate. They don't fire Tempests that much, but the good news is that Tempests retarget, which makes up for the AI's poor choice of when to fire missiles. The lower chance also reduces the likelihood of missiles blowing up in their faces.

One tip: never use the "Attack all" command in a wing. It leads to your fighters spreading out all over the place and getting slaughtered individually. Either give them a specific target or use the "Attack target nearest" command. Having ships protect each other works well too, but I still use wings mainly because it's easy to put fighters in a wing, give them the same missile loadout and probability, as well as turret order.

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Post by Triaxx2 » Sat, 11. Feb 12, 13:16

Pike. I just can't seem to recommend it highly enough. Fast enough to catch most other M4's, well armed enough to knock out M3's, and well shielded enough to shrug off M5's.

They're just all around awesome fighters. In Sector anyway.
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Re: [TC] Carrier Questions

Post by Aeshi » Sat, 11. Feb 12, 14:33

My Panthers Hangar consists of (grouped into wings of 5)

15 Tenjiins (To take out fighters)
10 Eclipses (As anti-capital ships)
5 Chimeras (for close up dogfighting, as the Tenjiins turn more slowly than other fighters)

Costly, but worth it to see M2s and M1s go down in a hail of Red and Green


I've used the Panther for quite a while and have never seen my FAAs hit a friendly (the same cannot be said for my PALCs, given how sloppy the AI is when it comes to beams)

My Chimera wing was formerly a few Kestrel scouts, but my Griffon holds those now.

When it comes to commanding them I have them all set as wing-men and use the "broadcast to docked ships" to command the swarm as a whole, while using the Wing Commands if I want a particular group to do something.

I've considered just dividing each category of fighter into three wings of 15,10 and 5 but screw it, I've put too much effort into giving each group its own theme.

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Post by Brinnie » Sat, 11. Feb 12, 16:29

Greetings carriers captains, I need some advice and maybe some of you could help me.

When I create a wing, for example Gold wing, and I dock it into my Panther the members of the wing seem to autoset themselves to be Homed on the carrier.
I wouldn't mind this so much but the thing is that when the carrier enters combat its babies come out to fight automatically and that is not something I always want, for instance when I serve eviction notices to Khaak clusters I would appreciate if the fighters would just enjoy the show from inside the Panther rather than come out and get zapped to bits by the enemy.

Is the auto homebase setting normal or am I doing something wrong?

Can it be disabled?

Can homed fighters docked at their carrier be forced to stay put?

Alatar1313
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Post by Alatar1313 » Sun, 12. Feb 12, 05:28

Will it let me equip new ships when I buy them if the EqD is one that I built myself? Can I just stick my own gear in there (missiles, guns, shields) and then buy it all from myself when I buy 10 fighters? If this works, will it let me buy anything off of any of the EqDs in the system (ie, can I get guns from mine and software from an NPC dock if it's all in the same system)?

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Post by Catra » Sun, 12. Feb 12, 05:36

no, you cannot hook up your own EQdock to NPC SYs.
Just saying it forward: I give everyone 2 posts to make good, in context posts(proper english, as always, is optional). After that I'm ignoring what you have to say in that thread that's directed to what we previously were talking about.

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