Forward firing guns on Capital Ships

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cale_online
Posts: 669
Joined: Sun, 6. Jul 08, 20:16
x3ap

Forward firing guns on Capital Ships

Post by cale_online » Mon, 23. May 22, 17:26

I've got a few mods for extra ship, I installed them before I really looked at what was already available so I don't know which are modded and which aren't. 😂
In any case, I've got several ships in my tiny pathetic fleet which have 1 or 4 forward firing behemoth guns.

I love flying these things and annihilating everything from 10km away.
However, the NPC pilots don't seem to use them much, or at all, preferring to get all close up and personal with Xenon Ks Gravition turrets, take a few pot shots with its own turrets and then I have one less ship in my fleet.

Is there something I can do the force the AI to use the main guns?
I do have anti-cap turrets set to target capital ships, but the rest are set to fighters.
Or do I need all anti-fighter turrets and just main guns? 🤔

capitalduty
Posts: 365
Joined: Mon, 23. May 16, 02:02

Re: Forward firing guns on Capital Ships

Post by capitalduty » Mon, 23. May 22, 22:01

cale_online wrote:
Mon, 23. May 22, 17:26
I've got a few mods for extra ship, I installed them before I really looked at what was already available so I don't know which are modded and which aren't. 😂
In any case, I've got several ships in my tiny pathetic fleet which have 1 or 4 forward firing behemoth guns.

I love flying these things and annihilating everything from 10km away.
However, the NPC pilots don't seem to use them much, or at all, preferring to get all close up and personal with Xenon Ks Gravition turrets, take a few pot shots with its own turrets and then I have one less ship in my fleet.

Is there something I can do the force the AI to use the main guns?
I do have anti-cap turrets set to target capital ships, but the rest are set to fighters.
Or do I need all anti-fighter turrets and just main guns? 🤔
This is a longstanding issue with all big guns capital ships....someday we may have a way to get our ships to fire at distance, today is just about chance, sometimes they maintain distance, sometimes it goes and gets into close and personal with a all big guns station to be obliterated .

You may support old threads that try to give solution to this problem, maybe someday one dev will have mercy xD

Sturmer
Posts: 496
Joined: Thu, 9. Jun 11, 19:17

Re: Forward firing guns on Capital Ships

Post by Sturmer » Sun, 29. May 22, 21:01

capitalduty wrote:
Mon, 23. May 22, 22:01

This is a longstanding issue with all big guns capital ships....someday we may have a way to get our ships to fire at distance, today is just about chance, sometimes they maintain distance, sometimes it goes and gets into close and personal with a all big guns station to be obliterated .

You may support old threads that try to give solution to this problem, maybe someday one dev will have mercy xD
Didn't simply removing the front guns help with this issue once?

GCU Grey Area
Posts: 7778
Joined: Sat, 14. Feb 04, 23:07
x4

Re: Forward firing guns on Capital Ships

Post by GCU Grey Area » Sun, 29. May 22, 22:07

Piloting skill is a critical factor in the ability of a capital ship to shoot from long range. A capital ship captain with 5* piloting will prefer to shoot from near max range, whereas a lower skilled pilot (e.g. the untrained 0-1* idiot that is supplied with the ship) can approach a lot closer. Recommend using seminar training or the training facilities available via terraforming to ensure that all capital ship captains have good piloting skill before they're sent into combat.

Another factor to consider is the transition from travel mode to conventional drive when approaching a hostile target. Even a slight delay when dropping out of travel mode can result in a capital ship flying closer to the target than is ideal. To counter this problem I always put a fly to order in each destroyer's queue (i.e. before the attack order), which is placed just outside optimal main gun range. As a consequence they always drop out of travel mode at a safe distance from the target & continue the rest of the approach on conventional drive.

The above is my standard approach when doing station demolition. When the target is an enemy capital ship there's an additional factor to consider. Enemy ships can move. Xenon capitals in particular really want to get into close range where their powerful turrets give them a decisive advantage. To counter this would recommend using fighters to harass, distract & delay the approach of enemy capitals. In particular constant fire from fighters will prevent enemy capitals from activating travel mode, significantly slowing their approach & buying time for destroyers to eliminate them from long range.

If you have the parts would also recommend installing ship mods which improve projectile speed and/or lifetime. Both attributes will improve effective range. Best of them is the purple Expediter mod. With moderately decent rolls can add a good 3km or so to the range of destroyer main guns - providing a much greater margin for error.

Blackbirdx61
Posts: 83
Joined: Sat, 26. Mar 22, 03:48
x4

Re: Forward firing guns on Capital Ships

Post by Blackbirdx61 » Mon, 30. May 22, 22:35

cale_online wrote:
Mon, 23. May 22, 17:26
, maybe someday one dev will have mercy xD

Thumbs up on that. : )
We can hope, till then yeah just don't accept the pilot provided by the ship yard. Give your Big Boys the Best Pilots available.

Caedes91
Posts: 178
Joined: Sun, 22. Aug 21, 17:23
x4

Re: Forward firing guns on Capital Ships

Post by Caedes91 » Mon, 30. May 22, 23:57

Honestly, just spam Asgards. The AI just isn't up to the task and will not be fixed ever.Even a zero star pilot should come to the conclusion to not fly into an oversized gun barrel. Unless you were handed literal retards. This has nothing to do with pilot skill as many players also reported this behaviour even with 5 star captains. The whole pilot skill system is needs to be removed. All it does, is simply apply a negative percentage multiplier to mining effiency of your ships. It does not affect flight/docking or combat AI in any way. This would mean that they actually had programmed competent AI, but it is non-existant.

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