How do Patrol and Defend Position work?

[Gregorovitch]

Working with my first fleet (2 destroyers + compliment of 40 fighters each) I want to order it to murder all Xenon operating around the gate cluster at the east end of Hatikvah's Choice 1 via AI command.

I if I try a defend order the gates do not appear on the list. If I try Patrol or Defend Position I cannot see how to set the area around the gates I want the fleet to operate in.

How is this done?

[Vertigo 7]

defend position or attack in range (right click on the map near where you want to attack with the ship(s) selected you want to attack with) will be what you want.

defend position lets you set a radius up to 40k for ships to patrol in. attack in range is just a one and done deal where it'll complete when there's no more hostiles in the targeted area.

patrol will send ships all over the sector to look for hostiles and not very quickly either.

[Gregorovitch]

defend position lets you set a radius up to 40k for ships to patrol in. attack in range is just a one and done deal where it'll complete when there's no more hostiles in the targeted area.

Radius relative to what?

[Vertigo 7]

what area you select. after you select the behavior, there's a blank bar between that and the radius slider. click the blank bar, click an area on the map, set your radius then hit confirm.

[Xcaliber]

How do patrol and defend position work?

They don't!!

You can roughly select a radius but the ships will totally ignore it and follow enemies across many sectors including Xenon sectors and commit suicide. The attack logic is worthless and your ships will hardly ever catch up with the enemy as they will fly to where they first spotted the target, then look at where he is now and fly to that spot and keep repeating this. By the time they reach his first position ( ie when he came through the gate ) he is already half way across the sector. The enemy also seem to use travel mode whilst your fleet will bumble along at a snails pace.
Sorry to be the bearer of such news.

[Archaeosis]

Yes it's still completely broken - wait for the 2.6 beta in the next few days before relying on it!