Ships don't always follow the subordinate controls

[kzwix]

I'm using a Raptor carrier, to see what it's worth in different situations.

I assigned it 110 fighters (in 11 wings of ten - 5 wings to DEFEND the Raptor, 6 to ATTACK WITH it). Defense wings are in Alpha, Attack wings in Beta.
After a fierce fight (must have been, I mean, there were at least twenty xenon fighters in front of my guys, and I lost 7 fighters there), I noticed that both the Alpha and Beta wings were supposed to be Docked (in the ship control options).

I might have ordered a few of them out myself, with an attack order, but when I used the "Recall Subordinates" command, EVERY SHIP took off, probably with a "Dock at" order. Which, in my opinion, should NOT happen if they're already docked there.

Another time it happened was right after I changed the formation setting on the Raptor. The pilot having miraculously earned some experience (yes, it still amazes me when it happens, considering how fighter pilots seem never to get anything, even when surviving several fights), it was able to use better formations. And so, when I selected the new formation, I saw, once again, every pilot scrambling to take off, despite both Alpha and Beta wings still being ordered to stay Docked.


I'd really appreciate if the few controls we can use were actually meaningful.
Also, I'd have appreciated the carrier to auto-repair the ships that are docked there, especially if there is no cost associated. Yes, I found the "automatic resupply" in the global orders (and in the ship-specific orders), but is there any point in NOT repairing ships, if there is no cost associated ? I understand the ship not interrupting current non-idle orders (like, combat or exploration) to repair unless instructed to, but if it's ALREADY not moving, what is the point ?

It's a shame that this game has so much potential, only to see it gnawed at by tens or hundreds of small (or big, like the AI) problems...

[jlehtone]

I assigned it 110 fighters (in 11 wings of ten - 5 wings to DEFEND the Raptor, 6 to ATTACK WITH it). Defense wings are in Alpha, Attack wings in Beta.

Please explain. If I assign 50 ships to Defend in the Alpha slot, then that is one group of 50 ships, not 5 "wings".

[Alan Phipps]

I have tried 'wing leaders' assigned to defend/etc the carrier, each with a number of subordinate fighters. The problem I ran into there is that the wing leader would often dock when necessary while the subordinates just continued to mill about around the carrier. Of course you cannot use 'docked' mode then as any ship that does dock will not respond at all to future threats.

[kzwix]

I assigned it 110 fighters (in 11 wings of ten - 5 wings to DEFEND the Raptor, 6 to ATTACK WITH it). Defense wings are in Alpha, Attack wings in Beta.

Please explain. If I assign 50 ships to Defend in the Alpha slot, then that is one group of 50 ships, not 5 "wings".

I'm using 10-ship squadrons. Most of the time, one "leader", with 4 "attack with" ships, and 5 ships to "defend" the leader.
Not sure it's a very good organization, but... heh, I try.

The 50 Defend fighters are thus 5 10-ship squadrons, whose leaders DEFEND the carrier. These are entirely composed of light, anti-fighter ships.

The 60 Attack With fighters are half attackers (heavy fighters), half defenders (the same anti-fighter ships used in the Defend groups for the carrier).
In half of the groups, I have the five defenders "defend" the leader.
In the other half, I have a defender for each attacker (each set to "defend" its own attacker). I'm trying to see if one configuration works better than the other.


So, the direct subordinates of the carrier are only 11 ships: 5 fighters set to "defend" (with their squadrons following them), and 6 heavy fighters set to "attack with" (with their squadrons following them).
Is that a better explanation ?

[kzwix]

I have tried 'wing leaders' assigned to defend/etc the carrier, each with a number of subordinate fighters. The problem I ran into there is that the wing leader would often dock when necessary while the subordinates just continued to mill about around the carrier. Of course you cannot use 'docked' mode then as any ship that does dock will not respond at all to future threats.

So, you're saying I should use the ships as direct subordinates of the carrier ?
I fear they might be even more vulnerable (no wingmen to help them when they get focused by enemies), but... to be honest, they aren't that efficient, even organized as wings. In fact, I'm not even sure the "defenders" in a wing react to threats to other wingmen, if it's not against the leader...

[jlehtone]

Is that a better explanation ?

Yes. I did guess what your wings are, but wanted to be sure.

Ships have behaviour and active orders. The behaviour is the fall-back of what to do, when they run out of orders and usually does generate orders.

The Follow, Defend, Intercept, and Attack behaviours all escort their leader. That is, fly where the leader flies to. The behaviours differ on when they do get active "Attack xx" order.

If you do follow someone and that someone docks, perhaps for quick trade, then should you dock there too? We do know how slow dock/undock is and we cannot predict how long the leader will stay docked. Furthermore, for example Rattlesnake has only one S pad. Even wing of ten can take a while for them all to dock/undock. You are not very good at defending your leader, if you still queue for docking permit. Dock tends to be "critical", uninterruptible order.

Carrier is an exception. Its escorts do dock on leader (if they can) when they have no active order. However, that does not propagate to subformations. Yes, you do have "wing leaders" that should dock when idle, because their leader is a Carrier. However, the "wingmen" have "wing leader" that is a Fighter, not a Carrier. The behaviour does not inherit down the tree. Therefore, the wingmen should not dock at all.

Small consolation, but the AI do have similar nested formations. They tend to be quite pathetic cannon fodder even on a good day.

None of that explains all of what you did observe, does it?


What is really scary is that some orders do propagate the hierarchy. Usually the ones that I don't expect to do so and at the moment I really can't afford it either.


In X3 an attack on ship did made that ship put its current task "on the stack" and start "interrupt task" to deal with the attacker. Furthermore, the ship did send signals to both formation leader (if any) and its own subordinates (if any), so that they could react too. A formation leader could then, if it chose to attack the threat to its subordinate, to signal "Attack subordinates" to join the attack. In other words, attack on any ship in "X3 formation" clearly did trigger reaction in most of the formation.

The X4 formations seem to do less of that. I'm not quite sure though.

A "trivial" workaround for wing members "dropping out of formation" is to have so many Carriers that their fighter wings "balance the load". Mongolian horde.

[kzwix]

Ok, so you'd advise me to break any formations, and let the carrier do the work.

Will it split the ships between targets ? Like, if I have 60 fighters flying in defense, and maybe 10 enemy S ships arrive, will they each have around 6 of my fighters on them ? Or will the first to arrive "draw aggro" from every ship, and after it died, see them split against all remaining available targets ?

I've noticed so many stupid behaviors that I'm felling quite worried.


Well, I seem to have noticed that the "recall subordinates" would only cancel their orders, but not necessarily recall them, which *could* rebalance targetting choices if needed, but I'm still worried

[Shepp]

With carriers I have had really good results assigning the fighters directly to the carrier with the "intercept for commander" order. The fighters will stay docked on the carrier and intercept enemies as the appear. Once the enemies have been dealt with the fighters will dock again. If you have you carrier settings right the fighters will even repair and rearm when they dock. This is especially good for protecting gates. I'll park a carrier and a few destroyers at Hatikvah's Choice 1 and it will handle all but the worst Xenon invasions all by itself.