[Feedback]Defend Position Feedback

[aurelcourt]

First of all, thank you very much for all the improvements and fixes, hard work has clearly been done

I've played a bit with the new Position Defense assignement.
Is there somewhere a detailed user guide about this feature? I tried a few things but it looks more like trial and error than an actual test !

Initial feedback :

1/ We can only assign this role to already assigned groups, why not allowing it to new groups straight away?
2/ Once a group is in Position Defense, it creates a green circle that we can move on the map, which then gives a "Defend Position" order to that group. It is a good start. But then when I want to modify the position of that circle, the "Defend Position" order remains in the initial position (sometimes not...? anything to do with ennemies around the first location?). I think it should give the new order straight away, like a "retreat". Or make a UI friendly toggle to choose whether the group will finish the current fight before moving, or retreat...?
3/ It says in your description that other groups can come and help according to threat... How does that work? I'm not sure I could witness this.
4/ Bombard assignment is just an "Attack Capitals", right? (the opposite of Interception assignment). We still miss a way to ask the ships to keep range (be it destroyers with guns, or S/M with torpedos). I still have unnecessary "suicide fly-bys" to launch torpedos.
5/ The "Attack Surface Elements" order is great !!


Overall good improvements, I think it still needs a polish layer to be really user-friendly, and adjustments to feel like "it's doing what we want"

Curious to hear what the other feedbacks are !

[aurelcourt]

Ok I found out a few more things, with goods and bads

1/ We can right-click on the carrier and select Start Position Defense, which then changes all subordinate-groups to Position Defense Groups, each with its own Green Circle that you can move on the map. Alternatively, each subordinate-group of the carrier can be right-clicked and "Join Position Defense", if you want to keep a few groups on "manual" for example...

2/ Also we can right-click each Green Circle to toggle a few modes : Attack on sight, Resupply at carrier, Reinforce Other Positions

3/ Position Defense can cover several sectors

Image to illustrate

4/ I did see the Reinforcement in action. One group spots an ennemy, and the other groups get a "Attack all ennemies" at the appropriate Position Defense location. However, I witnessed a group of 10 fighters calling every other group for help to just tackle one Xenon mining ship ! There needs to be a threat assessement before calling on other groups. I like the idea of having a few fighter groups spread out to patrol the positions I want, and call the big boys for reinforcement but only if they encounter an ennemy group bigger than they can handle !

Great potentiel overall

[aurelcourt]

I tried a different setup :

Image to illustrate

-3 groups with only 4 fighters each acting as scouts in 3 different Position Defense. Alpha, Gamma and Epsilon. I unticked "Reinforce other groups"
-2 groups with 3 L + 20 fighters, acting as Intervention groups. I left "Reinforce other groups" ticked of course.

The setup works fine overall : the scouts spot ennemies and call for help immediately.
On my image, Alpha group was scouting in the bottom right. It spotted 2 Xenon Ks coming. The fighters engaged the Ks (despite unticking "attack on sight") and called for help. The 2 Intervention groups arrived and dealt with the Ks very quickly. Damaged ships proceeded back to the carrier/aux for repairs. Great.

The problem is that shortly after, Gamma group on middle-top of the image spotted a Xenon mining ship and also called for help, while other Xenon Capital ships were coming again at the initial Alpha Group location.
3 observations :
- Alpha group (4 fighters) engaged the ennemies alone... suicide
- as Alpha group had been destroyed in the engagement, no remaining Position Defense order was left in this location, so all ships just left immediately after the first 2 Ks were destroyed.
- the Intervention groups joined group Gamma for absolutely no threat (1 mining ship!)

Comments/Ideas
- Define a toggle for an actual "Scouting" behaviour, and maybe retreat 50km while waiting for help? (purpose of Attack on sight? WAI?) That would avoid suicide attacks.
- If 1 of the Position Defense location sees its whole group destroyed, there should be a way to keep the Position Defense order, and refill that group... with other ships from the carrier? We definitely need a Fleet/Group reinforcement feature. Maybe just a "Pool" assigned to the carrier, and if a ship from a certain template is destroyed in a group, it gets replaced, or we get notified if no ship from the pool matches the ship to be replaced...?
- some threat assessement needed again.

I hope the observations are not confusing

[Cyron43]

Thanks for this. I was already wondering.

[rudi_pioneer]

This post got me thinking about feature discoverability - took me forever to find it in game (had to check forums three times), and even then I didn't know you can right click on individual bubbles to set more options until this post. My feedback here is that when 6.0 launches, this would be great feature to add to wiki/docs, and as much as possible in game. Few key points that weren't obvious:

- how to start this feature: in the past, anything this complex was under behavior menu
- when I try to start new group, I was confused why UI said that I could only convert existing group, since in the past game trained me that I can pick any behavior when I assign ships to groups
- no idea that I could right click on bubbles to change what they do (I realized that I wasn't sure if right click would remove them, or show contextual menu)

[aurelcourt]

when 6.0 launches, this would be great feature to add to wiki/docs, and as much as possible in game. Few key points that weren't obvious

+1
Not only in game, also and even more detailed in the official X4 wiki !

[Quirkz]

Thanks for this - Helps me understand how to use the features, and some good insights and suggestions too. +1 to your ideas, if devs are counting votes

[Pejot]

I like the feature and in general it works good. The only thing that bothers me is that when ships are trying to support a different group that engages in fight they get attack enemies in range order and if they don't manage to get in time to join the fight it takes to long for the order to be removed. They will fly all the way to the center of order orb stay there a few seconds and then remove the order and get back to their position. Also from time to time they get multiple attack in range orders regarding the same position and they spend a few seconds on each of them before they get back to where they should be.

[j.harshaw]

Also from time to time they get multiple attack in range orders regarding the same position and they spend a few seconds on each of them before they get back to where they should be.

That sounds like a bug. Wrote it deliberately to only generate one attack in range order at a time to prevent groups going to outdated alerts before getting back into position. Have you found a reliable way to reproduce this?

[Pejot]

Also from time to time they get multiple attack in range orders regarding the same position and they spend a few seconds on each of them before they get back to where they should be.

That sounds like a bug. Wrote it deliberately to only generate one attack in range order at a time to prevent groups going to outdated alerts before getting back into position. Have you found a reliable way to reproduce this?

Tried to trigger it without success. It happens randomly. Usually when You add new group to position defence or when multiple are triggered arlt the same time.

[Pejot]

Also from time to time they get multiple attack in range orders regarding the same position and they spend a few seconds on each of them before they get back to where they should be.

That sounds like a bug. Wrote it deliberately to only generate one attack in range order at a time to prevent groups going to outdated alerts before getting back into position. Have you found a reliable way to reproduce this?

I got a save file for You with a ship that got double orders.

Here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CmvkDb ... share_link

AC Kukri FGM-120

[j.harshaw]

@Pejot, Fixed. Should be in a future update. Thanks for the report and the save.

[Darlandra]

Assigned "Protect position" to syn destroyer with 4 fighters and 2 corvettes in attack order.
Manually repositioned fleet to avoid xenon, upon completeing move order, ships began back/forth patrol in area of previous move order and ignored new order to move to new location until Protect Position default order was rescinded.

[CBJ]

Please provide a savegame showing your situation.

[Pejot]

Removing group from position defence by right click on the group name and choosing "Remove from Position Defence" doesn't remove the order from ships so they still do the position defence in last plavlce they were assigned to.

Ships end up with empty Current Role in behaviour tab and won't respond to Commander movement.

To avoid that player needs to manually switch them to other group like Attack etc.

[Falcrack]

It would be nice if we could move the position defense command vertically along the +/- y axis just like other orders.

[florianlt]

Added in an upcoming build.

[GameBurrow]

It would be nice if this feature existed for auxiliary ships also, not only for carriers.

[Pejot]

It would be nice if carrier would get subordinate trader job no matter what is his role in fleet. It seems strange to have a carrier that can refill ammo but You need to manually stock wares on it or have additionally aux ship in the same fleet.

[jojorne]

What happens if you add a group with supply fleet to position defend?
i mean, will it stop doing supply stuff??? if so, please don't add a supply fleet to it by default