Wingmen/Drones & Cluster questions

[Nomadski]

Few more questions for u that have cropped up in my game...

1. Ive capped a couple of pirate busters and am using them as wingmen (kinda more like my b*tches really ;p), i presume i have to equip them with jumpdrive and ecells if i want to jump otherwise ill leave them behind i guess? Will they then jump with me?

2. I equipped a mercury ST with fighter drones as another topic answer suggested, and when it was attacked it dropped them (probably saving its skin as it was both a buzzard and a khaak cluster attacking). Would my ship normally pick the drones back up again had they not been destroyed or is that a micro management thing i have to do? What about refilling lost drones - can i set that auto or wil i have to keep dragging the ships to a equipment dock to refill all the time?

3. When it was attacked my mercury didnt jump out of sector as i thought it would do, rather it tried to move from one station to the next (i ended up having to manually move him into a station to keep him there). It was equipped with a jumpdrive and ecells so whats the deal with him (hes about level 5)?

4. Finally, the Khaak cluster that attacked has now parked itself in the middle of Ore Belt (where my ship was) and theres no Argon capitol ships around to deal with him. Ive tried having a go but my buster and 2 b*tches got wiped out in 5 seconds lol. Is this guy going to be there permanently now until i can afford a huge ship to take him on? Its going to take me ages to get to that point and ore belt is quite important to me on my trade routes.

Any help is most appreciated, as always.

[Jaxom01]

1. Any ships set to Protect a lead ship or follow a lead ship will jump with the lead ship if they have jumpdrives and e-cells.

2. The ST/UT will not retrieve drones - the UT will replenish drones automatically though I do not believe an ST will.

3. At level five the Mercury is only an ST and will not use the Jump Drive. At level 8 you can promote ST's to UT's but again they will not use the Jump Drive until they reach level 12.

4. A sector patrol will eventually come along and deal with the Kha'ak - they should not become a 'permanent' fixture. (Get an M3 as soon as possible - ideal for killing clusters ).

Have fun

[Nomadski]

1. Any ships set to Protect a lead ship or follow a lead ship will jump with the lead ship if they have jumpdrives and e-cells.

2. The ST/UT will not retrieve drones - the UT will replenish drones automatically though I do not believe an ST will.

3. At level five the Mercury is only an ST and will not use the Jump Drive. At level 8 you can promote ST's to UT's but again they will not use the Jump Drive until they reach level 12.

4. A sector patrol will eventually come along and deal with the Kha'ak - they should not become a 'permanent' fixture. (Get an M3 as soon as possible - ideal for killing clusters ).

Have fun

Thanks Jaxom, hopefully a patrol will come and kick their ***es cos i like that sector, muchos profitos.

I promoted my bigger Demeter to UT at level 10, maybe i should wait until he is 12 then so i can be assured he jumps in danger??

For a UT to replenish drones i dont have to set anything in the menu? He just does it? Does he replenish a specific number of drones?

If i manage to get my stranded Mercury out of Ore Belt, and make him a ST and later a UT will he, and my other UTs, have the good sense NOT to trade in Ore Belt while the Khaak is still there?

Im just trying to figure out the mechanics or "rules" of the game so i dont get caught out.

Thanks again.

[Jaxom01]

Never actually checked the number of drones - my UT's are just left to get on with it.

You cannot easily restrict UT's from the sectors they jump to - though there is a script in the Scritping and Modding forum which I believe restricts them to sectors where you have nav sats. - not tried it myself.

Kha'ak usually get fixated on the mission at hand if they decide to attack a station they will ignore most everything else (even ships trading at the station itself - though don't count on this).

Tip:

Start you ST's in Empires Edge - (name ?) sector south of Paranid Prime - they learn much faster there - though I have also found any sector with a SPP good - when there is a variety of other stations - Ore belt is far too limited 2/3 Spp's to 1/2 Ore Mines - just too much supply and too little demand ...

Not sure if this helps - but most of My UT's get themselves killed in Pirate Sectors - have now started setting their Friend/Foe settings with Pirates as foe - this has certainly improved things - though that may just be co-incidence - but than tah's what X3 is about - learning the best way things work for you in a large an unforgiving universe

[Nomadski]

Thanks again, much appreciated.

[Sirus5]

1. Ive capped a couple of pirate busters and am using them as wingmen (kinda more like my b*tches really ;p), i presume i have to equip them with jumpdrive and ecells if i want to jump otherwise ill leave them behind i guess? Will they then jump with me?

4. Finally, the Khaak cluster that attacked has now parked itself in the middle of Ore Belt (where my ship was) and theres no Argon capitol ships around to deal with him. Ive tried having a go but my buster and 2 b*tches got wiped out in 5 seconds lol. Is this guy going to be there permanently now until i can afford a huge ship to take him on? Its going to take me ages to get to that point and ore belt is quite important to me on my trade routes.

Any help is most appreciated, as always.

If you have capped a couple of Pirate Busters, I would use one of them as my personal ship and mount 2 IOS Disrupters, 2 PAC and 2 Alpha PSG.... It will then capture Pirate Falcons with ease.. Just go find a lone pirate Falcon and DONT take your wingmen in... Capture it and do that a couple of times.. Lone Falcons are a Pushover with a Buster with 2 IONS and 2 PACS or 2 IONS and 2 PSG...


Once you have a couple or 3 Falcons, send them to all attack the Khaak - that should do it...

Personally, I went and found that Falcon Sentinel which is in an Unknown sector near Gestu Fune - it can mount 2*125 shields and is awesome to soak up punishment whilst wingmen deal death... Equip it with 3 Falcon Wingmen to protect it and send it to attack the Cluster - when it does, the Cluster will attack it, the massive shields will save it whilst the others kill the cluster... If you do it another way, any other M3 stands a chance of being killed by the cluster..

[Kapakio]

3. At level five the Mercury is only an ST and will not use the Jump Drive. At level 8 you can promote ST's to UT's but again they will not use the Jump Drive until they reach level 12.

Unfortunately, the UT not always jumps to another sector (even at level 25). I've found that they frequently try to "escape" to another station in the same sector where they were attacked, and I have to manually jump them out. A bug in my opinion.

[Nomadski]

Thanks sirius, i did capture a falcon but havent done that config on it - will look at changing it cos i had a mix of ion, apacs, missiles and bpacs i think. Not ever used psgs before, will have a look. U use APACS or BPACS?

Also is this the same config u have on the falcon wingmen supporting the sentinel?

BTW seems the Argon patrol did the business on the khaak as theyve now gone from ore belt woohoo.

[Lancefighter]

wait till you have a full fleged invasion of ore belt... 2 carriers, a number of clusters.

the carriers stay. forever. Or at least till you can kill them. (im working on getting a capship fleet... about 2 bill creds away! ) and i had to kill a cluster or two...

[pjknibbs]

Just a quick point--as far as I know a ship set to follow you will ONLY jump with you if you use your command console to make the jump (e.g. Shift+C, Navigation, Jump to Sector). If you use Shift+J to jump they'll be left behind.

[shane-oh]

You can always hire a TL and send it to the position of the cluster, the cluster will attack it and the TL should fight back, its what I've heard, hopefully it works, and you don't have to risk your own ships, and is cheaper than getting your own ship to deal with them

[Nomadski]

Lol send in the suicide ship hehe i like it. Are TLs likely to sort a cluster out, always thought they were just glorified removal men.

Thanks, if i get it again i will definetely try that.

Having only recently ventured into Split space, having kept myself in the north west corner sectors, am definetely coming across more Khaak. Was battling with a group of 4 Pirates in a little dogfight when i caught sight of a new collection of red marks on the screen. Turns out was a K cluster heading my way - i left the pirates to it...

Just a quickie question - if i see a K scout on its own, is it fair to say its only a matter of time before the cluster appears? Just wondered cos ive seen a few on their own, and taken em out, but not hung around for their dads to arrive.