[AP] Wings (how to control their speed and "actions")

[adamantismo]

Ok, first of all I'm not sure if I should use wings or fleets or just ships "following" / "protecting" each other... but wings seems the right choice because it lets me _group_ my ships together so when I view my property it's easier to see what's what and what's where.

1. I've read that I can't get ships in a wing to go at a set speed (or the speed of the slowest ship). Is that true? If there is NO way to do this then wings are useless, a wing should stay together and in formation... this just completely breaks the concept.

2. Is there any way to get ships (or wings) to protect me intelligently? I don't want them to wait for me to be shot, I want them to attack any enemy that comes near me, but they should still follow me (not get too far).

3. Can I somehow tell ships (or wings) to defend themselves as well as protect me? I often have a wing escorting me and they fall being and some little wee pirate starts shooting at my slower ships in the wing. They do nothing to protect themselves. I would expect that not only the ship would turn and defend itself, but that the WING, being one fighting unit, would protect each of it's members... wishful thinking?

[Catra]

1) they do stay in formation, you just cant tell how fast they are allowed to go.

2) one of the fight software gives a command called attack nearest target of...

3) individual ships will protect themselves (unless they have a retreat order), ships in wings cannot due to universal orders throughout the wing.

[adamantismo]

Thanks for the quick reply!

1. Unless I'm missing something my ships don't even stay close together, let alone in formation! I have a wing of ships set to protect me, the faster ones keep up with me while the slower ones trail behind (as in, they are multiple sectors behind me and the rest of their wing).

2. Great, I didn't think of that. I assumed that command was a one shot thing, they would attack the nearest enemy then go to standby and not follow me anymore. I'll give it a try and see what happens.

3. Strange... so an individual ship set to protect me would also protect itself, but in a wing it wouldn't? I don't see any logic behind that.

So in general, what's the best way to get what I want, which is a group of ships travelling close together, ideally in formation, and doing what I command them (patrol, guard, attack, follow) but also defending each other?

And a related question, can I get my non-player ships to use drones? I have a centaur loaded with MK1 and MK2 drones, but he wont launch them when in combat...

[zfotoguy]

I just came to the threads with the very same complaint.

I think the Wing commands and reaction is very poor. I've reloaded at least 4 times tonight due to my wings being incredibly stupid.

I have tried several configurations.
1) just wingmen set to protect me. I fly through a gate. 3 out of 4 follow me. The 4th one stayed behind and because I wasn't in sector the Terrans auto-spawned and starting attacking my 4th wingman and killed him OOS before I could get back there.

2) I set all my wingmen to the Blue wing. told them to go through the gate. I went through first, they quickly followed. All Terrans were quite far away, so I started approaching them. The Terrans then jumped to the gate behind me w/ 2 M7's and a Carrier. One of my ships from Blue wing decided to attack them while the rest of us tried to put some distance between us and the Terrans. That stupid wingman just suicided the M7's. instead of following his wing.

It would be great if there were a few simple controls that all the wingmen followed no matter what.

With my experience tonight, I have little hope I'll be using any wingmen in the future until there is either a script to fix this or there is a fix in the next patch.

has anyone else had success with wingmen? How do you do it?

[quintupularity]

unless I'm missing something my ships don't even stay close together, let alone in formation! I have a wing of ships set to protect me, the faster ones keep up with me while the slower ones trail behind (as in, they are multiple sectors behind me and the rest of their wing).

you actually answered your own question here. the limiting factor here is the speed at which you personally are travelling. the ships in the wing that are following you can either keep up or they cant. the wing is making every attempt to keep up with you. those that cant get left behind. youll have to slow yourself down to the speed of your slowest ship. granted, this wont fix the admittedly imperfect AI, but at least youll be flying more or less together as one unit.

[Catra]

1. Unless I'm missing something my ships don't even stay close together, let alone in formation! I have a wing of ships set to protect me, the faster ones keep up with me while the slower ones trail behind (as in, they are multiple sectors behind me and the rest of their wing).

thats because wings have trouble doing...well, pretty much anything that isnt in the same sector as them. you need a carrier / everyone with jumpdrives if you plan on using wings outside the sector it was formed in. or reform it in the sector where they are going to be used.

3. Strange... so an individual ship set to protect me would also protect itself, but in a wing it wouldn't? I don't see any logic behind that.

please dont bring logic up, you will quickly die of an aneurysm. =P

ok then, let me simplify it for you :

ships can only have 1 command

wings are considered 1 ship, thus they only have 1 command, which is protect you. thus when they get struck, the protect you order overrides the "attack and kill" order when they get hit.

individual ships do not have this override.

So in general, what's the best way to get what I want, which is a group of ships travelling close together, ideally in formation, and doing what I command them (patrol, guard, attack, follow) but also defending each other?

your basically hamstringing yourself by wanting formations. so either drop formations and have a fully functional fleet, or be prepared to baby all your wings.

[adamantismo]

you actually answered your own question here. the limiting factor here is the speed at which you personally are travelling. the ships in the wing that are following you can either keep up or they cant. the wing is making every attempt to keep up with you. those that cant get left behind. youll have to slow yourself down to the speed of your slowest ship. granted, this wont fix the admittedly imperfect AI, but at least youll be flying more or less together as one unit.

Right, but I'm not in the wing. I think it makes more sense for the wing to act as one unit, so it's first priority should be protecting _itself_ and staying _together_ with other ships in the wing. It's next priority should be whatever order it has. Otherwise it's not a wing, just an arbitrary grouping of ships... in which case they should just let me multi-select a bunch of ships and issue an order... which would in fact be VERY useful!

And again... somewhat unrelated... drones? Why wont my centaur lunch the drones it has when fighting and how can I tell it to?

[quintupularity]

yeah. i feel your frustrations. the game is quirky, no question. the clunky interface doesnt help things, nor does the incomplete and puzzling descriptions of commands you can give to your ships. when then they dont do what as far as you can tell they should be doing, you have to wonder... is it my misunderstanding of the command, or is it dubious ai, or is the command itself broken or something else entirely? here in the forums im seeing the variations of same questions getting asked all the time and seldom is there a definitive answer.

x3 is an ambitious game. i am addicted to many of its features, including its complexity. its great fun when it works. but yes, often things go wrong and its often not at all obvious why. at least to me. writing good ai must be challenging and my hat is off to anyone that can pull it off. i think the ai and interface issues that are constantly cropping up here are our modern expectations running into limitations of the aging x engine. i dunno. an rts style box select/drag and drop/right click context menu system would be ideal here. tooltips would also help a lot. but the engine is old. i have high hopes for the next x coming out. a new engine will solve lots of these problems i expect.

[Catra]

you actually answered your own question here. the limiting factor here is the speed at which you personally are travelling. the ships in the wing that are following you can either keep up or they cant. the wing is making every attempt to keep up with you. those that cant get left behind. youll have to slow yourself down to the speed of your slowest ship. granted, this wont fix the admittedly imperfect AI, but at least youll be flying more or less together as one unit.

Right, but I'm not in the wing. I think it makes more sense for the wing to act as one unit, so it's first priority should be protecting _itself_ and staying _together_ with other ships in the wing. It's next priority should be whatever order it has. Otherwise it's not a wing, just an arbitrary grouping of ships... in which case they should just let me multi-select a bunch of ships and issue an order... which would in fact be VERY useful!

And again... somewhat unrelated... drones? Why wont my centaur lunch the drones it has when fighting and how can I tell it to?

but if you are going faster than them, then you are effectively forcing the wing to leave behind members to catch up to you.

which, is kinda the whole point of a wing. to have "quick selection groups" of ships. band boxing is actually pretty bad unless they gave it controls to select only certain ship types.

the regular combat script doesnt release drones. you will have to go into its freight bay and eject them manually.

[quintupularity]

. band boxing is actually pretty bad unless they gave it controls to select only certain ship types.

This is true. The idea becomes a little trickier if you consider that we're playing in 3d. How deep should the selection box go? Just visible ships? All the way to the deepest end of the sector below the box? 3d complicates things for the programmers and interface people but not insurmountably so.

I've seen this work exceptionally well in a 3d space game. Hmm what was it... ah yes. "Star Ruler". Dumb name, great indie game. (IMO it had the best ship design/configurability feature in any game anywhere, ever. I digress...) When you drew your box a menu popped up with selection options. Your options were something like: Fighters, Capital Ships, All Combat Ships, All Non Combat Ships, or just All Ships. Once they were selected, you could then give them various orders as a group also via the context menu: Add to Fleet, Remove From Fleet, Form New fleet, Attack Target, Move To, etc. So you'd pretty much set up your fleets this way long before combat began with a few swift selections, then give your designated fleet leader orders which the rest of the fleet followed.

This game has more ship classes and would likely require larger context menus than Star Ruler, but as an idea it is sound, simple, and just as configurable as what we have here. The trick of course is having an engine capable of selection boxes.