WINGS - I am looking for some up to date advice.

Brinnie · Post by **Brinnie** » Thu, 4. Oct 12, 12:10

I have been playing X3 on and off since it came out and over the various versions of the game, X3/TC/AP, the Wings features have changed.
I have been looking for some info regarding what it is the best way to set them up in respect to AP but I have not found any joy.

I was hoping I could get some of the Wings Expert to advice me and others who might be equally confused.

- My goal is to set a few wings (4 to 6) of 3 to 7 small ships (M3- M4) and engage in in-sector skirmishes making use of the excellent Winghotkeys and Custom Wing Manager scripts to issue commands.

In the days of Reunion, if I remember correctly, there were no wings and I used some script to achieve the same results.
The advice then was to set up each ship in a group in a particular way rather than have all ships to just follow the one order.
For instance , having setup one or even two leaders you could then instruct some of the other ships in the group to protect the leaders and some others to attack their targets.
I think you could also set ships to do the same for the defenders.

ex:

- <||| Leader ONE

- <||| Follower ONE - Protects Leader ONE
- <||| Follower TWO - Attacks Leader ONE's target

- <|| Follower Three - Attacks Follower ONE's Target
- <|| Follower Four - Attacks Follower TWO's Target

As things are now with AP, I do not know how to achieve the above without temporarily assigning the ships in the wing to protect wing's leader duty.
Nor do I know if there is any necessity for it, has the system improved so that it is best to stick ships in a wing and just leave them to sort themselves out?
Putting 5 ships in a wing and having them all to follow an "attack my target" or "protect me" order doesn't seem to me the best way to use a wing.

- Can you have more than one leader in a wing?
- Do turret commands set in the turret configuration take priority over the wing's turrets setup?

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Thu, 4. Oct 12, 12:30

I'll let the wing experts answer as I still favour the fighter group method for carriers in X3AP - but then I am old-fashioned!

DrBullwinkle · Post by **DrBullwinkle** » Thu, 4. Oct 12, 18:29

Brinnie wrote:making use of the excellent Winghotkeys and Custom Wing Manager scripts
...
with AP, I do not know how to achieve the above without temporarily assigning the ships in the wing to protect wing's leader duty.
Nor do I know if there is any necessity for it

Wings are easier to manage and just as effective as fighter groups.

If you play vanilla, then Alan's famous tips for setting up fighter groups and background is a fine substitute for wings; especially if you want more wings than the vanilla game allows.

If you use scripts, then Custom Wing Manager allows you to use as many wings as you like. Wings are simpler and work as well as fighter groups.

Use heavily-shielded fighters for best effect:

Falcons and Eclipses beat almost anything.
Best all-around fighter/miner/transport = Falcon Hauler.
Strongest fighter-only = Falcon Sentinel.
Shields are more important than weapons for AI fighters.
- For mostly In-Sector use, give your Falcons half ammo-based weapons, due to the small laser power generator.
  
  For OOS use, fill your Falcons with the heaviest-hitting energy weapons that you have (PBG's if you have them). Laser power is not used OOS, but a bug with ammo-based weapons can make none of your guns fire when OOS.

Even if you have sufficient wings available, the "groups" concept works well for capital ship task forces. For example, I have three Shrikes defending Grand Exchange; each with a wing of fighters:

Shrike1 = "Defend Sector"
Shrike2 = "Attack Target Nearest" Shrike1 ("Attack Nearest" is more effective -- but more aggressive -- than "Protect").
Shrike3 = "Attack Target Of..." Shrike1.
All wings are set to "Attack Target Nearest" their own ship.

The result is that the three Shrikes work together to defend the Sector. They move together, stay mostly together, and fight together. It works very well.

- Can you have more than one leader in a wing?

Wings automatically replace the leader if the leader dies, so it should be unnecessary.

brucewarren · Post by **brucewarren** » Thu, 4. Oct 12, 20:52

Strange. Is that (inability to have >1 wingleader) a feature of the wing manager script?

It was my impression that in vanilla, while you can't specify who the wingleaders are, the game does use them if you set it correctly.

I had a wing of fifteen ships with 3 wingleaders of 5 ships per wing and I seem to remember that when I gave an "attack all enemies" the wing split into three and went after three targets.

The only trouble I had with wings was friendly fire, but as long as you avoid area effect weapons like ion disrupters it should be OK (I once tried to use a wing of of IOD kitted ships for shield suppression in a boarding op. Oh the humanity ...)

Of course in vanilla you can have up to 8 wings, so sub-wings might not be necessary unless you have a very large number of ships to control.

Personally I'm too lazy to use Alan's method. It's much easier to just command a wing to return to base, attack a particular foe etc. than mess about with ordering them individually.

Brinnie · Post by **Brinnie** » Thu, 4. Oct 12, 21:55

Dr. B. I do use "Custom Wing Manager" as well as "Winghotkeys".

These two scripts, which I like very much, are the reason why I want to use wings.
The biggest appeal for me is the ability to be able to issue commands to 4 wings immediately with the shortcuts provided by the Winghotkeys script.
As well as make use of an unlimited amount of wings that can be linked to the 4 "shortcutted" or even accessed individually with 2 clicks with winghotkeys wing menu shortcut.

Thanks for the advice, particularly about the IS and OOS pointers on weapons loadout, I was not aware of those very important factors.

Also I think your post has refreshed my memory on what groups are. I now remember the term from when I was playing Reunion.
I will check out your links to Mr A. Phipps posts, who is probably an authority on the topic.

- - -

@ Bruce

Were you playing AP when you had more than one wing leader?

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Thu, 4. Oct 12, 22:17

No not an authority, especially not on X3AP combat. I just tend not to change things that have worked very well for me in the past and see no need (yet) to change. I also plan for the long haul game and so do not mind a bit of fussy setting-up up front as long as the formations are thereafter really easy to select and use in combat situations (which they are). I also like that group leaders have more combat order options available to them than wings (or that used to be the case).

As one example where I differ, I would never put PBG on OOS fighters so conflicting with with DrB's advice above. My reasons are based in X3TC OOS combat where PBG gain no mutiplier from the multiple hull/plasma contacts that they have in IS combat making them so devastating IS, and their low energy consumption is of no benefit OOS. Now maybe the OOS ranking for PBGs has been changed in X3AP but, as a traditionalist, I am loath to change my outfitting habits based on that possibility. Anyway I know that other non-area/non-ammo weapons like a full load of PRG or HEPT remain very effective in all cases OOS - and without worrying about logistics or complications due to weapon ammo, energy or range issues.

You were looking for 'up to date advice' per the thread title, so I am maybe the wrong person to listen to.

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Thu, 4. Oct 12, 23:18

Alan writes well, but on groups/X3R my mind always harken back to this by moggy2. (The "secret ingredient" was this.) Moggy2 went then on to write scripts for managing groups. Some of that work must have influenced what X3TC/AP have now.

Nevertheless, sparse ancient notes hardly compete with Alan's detailed, up to date explanations.

Wings are peculiar beasts. Just a brief glimpse of their vanilla scripts hints that they either behave like groups, where all followers are told to attack the leader of the group[*], or they scatter around individually. Formation behaviour is hardcoded and probably the same as the groups have.

[*] So moggy2's "fleet" from 2006 has legacy.

DrBullwinkle · Post by **DrBullwinkle** » Thu, 4. Oct 12, 23:23

The specific choice of energy weapon does not matter much (for AI's). Pick what you like: PBG or HEPT or even PAC -- it doesn't really matter.

Rule Number One of AI Combat: The last fighter alive "wins".

Given the relative similarity of fighter-based weapons, a fighter with double the shielding of it's enemies will almost always survive, and that means that it "wins". That's a Falcon Hauler (or Sentinel).

Equip it any way you like... just avoid ammo-based weapons when OOS (due to the bug). And use half ammo-based weapons IS (due to low laser energy). Or energy-efficient and high-speed PAC's, which do more damage-per-unit-of-energy than "heavier" weapons.

Background:

I have not done a detailed comparison of OOS weapon effectiveness in TC, but I can say, with certainty, that PBG-equipped Falcon Haulers are fiercely effective, both IS and OOS, in both TC and in AP. I discovered this fact entirely by accident.

I had two wings on my M7:
- Falcon Haulers as transports and miners
- Heavy fighters for combat

In combat, I sent the heavy fighters to attack, and the Falcons to defend. I mistakenly thought that the Falcons were "too slow" to be effective fighters, so I did not take them seriously.

I tried Cutlasses, Aamons, Tenjins, Novas, LX's, Spitfyres, and anything else I could think of for the heavy fighters. I got into some pretty heavy scrapes (using Ulfius's Xtreme Mode Jobs mod), and the heavy wing always suffered losses.

After a while, it dawned on me that my Falcons never died. Ever. ALL of my other fighters were constantly dying, but never the Falcons.

So I began giving the same orders to the Falcons that I gave to my "heavy" wing.

Same results: Falcons ruled the sky; while every other M3+ failed. I even watched as my little Falcon wing took out M2's, all by themselves.

Since then, I have been using Falcon Haulers for every fighter role (except recon). I give them PBG's if I have them -- PAC's or HEPT's if I don't.

No matter which weapons I give the Falcons, they always win.

PS: You are sufficiently authoritative about fighter groups, Alan; you wrote the "book" about them.

I listened to your advice, and learned from the experience. So, "thank you".

Brinnie · Post by **Brinnie** » Fri, 5. Oct 12, 09:13

Thank you all for the advice, all this info has certainly given me plenty to occupy myself. One thing is clear, I am not ready for your classes yet but I need to go through some more basic stuff first.
All I had in mind was to setup a few groups and attack an enemy (preferably a weak one) in sector, I had not taken much of what you guys are talking about into consideration but I will keep it mind now for when my military operation grows in size and ambition.

I think I will try and use wings and groups together to see if I can get the best of both, linking groups and to make squadrons that I can control with the "wingshotkeys" script.
@Alan: your info regarding groups will certainly be of great help and from what I gather is based on logic and strategy so it's unlikely to ever be outdated. Just in case you don't know, even when ships are in a wing the full list of commands is still available. Although at first glance their commands list is reduced you can still access their standard list with a couple of clicks.

@jlehtone:
I wonder if it was moggy2's script that I was using when I played reunion years ago, it probably was and I remember it to be very useful indeed.
My memory is not helping me, infact before this thread I had forgotten most things regarding "groups" (however little that was).

@ Dr. B:
The way you talk about the Falcon Hauler really makes me want to try them out in combat. I always keep them when I capture them but they usually end up in the commercial and support role in my fleet, I guess cause of their cargo space. It looks I have overlooked their fighting potential.

ps. I try not to use PBGs or even PSGs, I find them too overpowered and I would not miss them if they disappeared off the game.

pss. what do you use to resupply you weapon's ammo for the crafts that are using ammo based weapons.

Triaxx2 · Post by **Triaxx2** » Fri, 5. Oct 12, 13:29

I rather like the exceptionally powerful nature of PBG/PSG. They make space feel dangerous. Without them, there's not much that can threaten a capable player.

That said, if you want to expand wing firepower and you have the space on your carrier, you can assign 10 ships to a wing, and assign each one or two 'protect target' fighters, who will work with the primary ship to fight it's enemies.

DrBullwinkle · Post by **DrBullwinkle** » Fri, 5. Oct 12, 14:37

Triaxx2 wrote:I rather like the exceptionally powerful nature of PBG/PSG. They make space feel dangerous. Without them, there's not much that can threaten a capable player.

Yeah, I sometimes play without PBG's -- allowing only enemies to have those powerful weapons.

In that case, I usually mount PAC's on my fighters. I know, I know, everybody else prefers HEPT's.

In-Sector, PAC's are more energy efficient and faster than HEPT's and their larger bullet size means more hits. In-game, PAC's are actually more effective than HEPT's (IS), even though they are slightly less powerful in theory.

OOS, it doesn't matter which weapons my Falcons have. PAC's are cheaper and easier to find than HEPT's.

Brinnie wrote:pps: what do you use to resupply your weapon's ammo for the crafts that are using ammo based weapons?

Personally, I change all ammo-based weapons to non-ammo. That fixes the OOS bug, which is more important to me than the "challenge" of resupplying ammo (which is not a fun challenge for me anyway).

The vanilla way is to set the fighters to resupply from their carrier, and use CLS2 to resupply the carrier with ammunition.

Also, I have stopped using missiles on my fighters. Resupply is boring (for me) and the AI does not really use missiles well. My Falcons don't need missiles to be effective, so I just skip the entire thing.

Brinnie · Post by **Brinnie** » Thu, 18. Oct 12, 18:24

Is there a way to assign a group/wing/squadron of fightera to fire at missiles exclusively, I don't just mean firing missiles at missiles, I mean for their main guns to fire at missiles.

Basically a unit totally dedicated at protecting from missiles attacks. I don't intend to use it for all occasions, just when dealing with enemy bombers.
Particularly on defend missions, I have not found an effective way to deal with them.

Progress-M · Post by **Progress-M** » Thu, 18. Oct 12, 19:44

[quote="brucewarren]I once tried to use a wing of of IOD kitted ships for shield suppression in a boarding op. Oh the humanity[/quote]

This would have been spectacular. I hope there were swarm missiles involved too!

DrBullwinkle · Post by **DrBullwinkle** » Thu, 18. Oct 12, 20:13

Brinnie wrote:Is there a way to assign a group/wing/squadron of fightera to fire at missiles exclusively, I don't just mean firing missiles at missiles

Not in vanilla. The closest thing to that is MARS Fire Control which has "Goblin" drones that can perform anti-missile duty.

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Thu, 18. Oct 12, 20:17

Or in vanilla if you would be prepared to use missiles and have the BP then maybe having one or more ships in the group/wing/squadron stuffed with Mosquito Missiles and command MMD(Convoy) issued. It only works IS (as would any anti-missile measure though).

Brinnie · Post by **Brinnie** » Thu, 18. Oct 12, 22:41

Thank you both for the advice, I ll try the MDM convoy first, MARS seems a bit too complicated for me right now.

Probe1 · Post by **Probe1** » Fri, 19. Oct 12, 03:29

DrBullwinkle wrote: Even if you have sufficient wings available, the "groups" concept works well for capital ship task forces. For example, I have three Shrikes defending Grand Exchange; each with a wing of fighters:

Shrike1 = "Defend Sector"
Shrike2 = "Attack Target Nearest" Shrike1 ("Attack Nearest" is more effective -- but more aggressive -- than "Protect").
Shrike3 = "Attack Target Of..." Shrike1.
All wings are set to "Attack Target Nearest" their own ship.

The result is that the three Shrikes work together to defend the Sector. They move together, stay mostly together, and fight together. It works very well.

This is precisely what I do. I don't fool around with wings except to expediate the clearing of low intensity pirate sectors and/or killing factories. When I add ships to a wing they wind up everywhere. One goes left the other goes down they all end up being killed piecemeal.

Convoluted 'attack target of..' and 'protect...' orders are where it's at

(That and the ADS script running on carriers!)

Brinnie · Post by **Brinnie** » Sat, 3. Nov 12, 00:39

Just wanted to thank Dr.B for telling me about the Falcon Haulers.

They are very effective and I would have overlooked them completely as I deemed them to slow, but in the hands of the AI they have proved the best military investment I have made.

They are not fancy in any way and IMO a bit boring but they are hard and cheap, which are both good things.

I ran into a Pirate brigandine that I couldn't dispose of with my Tiger, 2 Heavy Nemesis and a Panther (kept wasting me while I was in the Tiger). I send an attack wave of Falcons H, Nova R and Advanced Perseus (12 in all).
They quickly destroyed it, almost entirely by themselves. I think I have lost 3 fighters but no Falcon Haulers were harmed in the making of that conflict.

Thanks for the tip.

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WINGS - I am looking for some up to date advice.

WINGS - I am looking for some up to date advice.

Re: WINGS - I am looking for some up to date advice.

Re: WINGS - I am looking for some up to date advice.