Patrol command and Kha'ak/enemy threat response QOL suggestions

[Cpt. H. Elmes]

Just wanted to create a thread about threat response now with 4.0 and reworked Kha'ak.

Current commands are inadequate tools to deal with threats automatically in a sector. I like the added threat the Kha'ak pose, but dislike how I can't set a patrol to guard the sector and adequately respond without me manually watching every mining sector and manually responding to each attack.

Yes, I could set escorts. But early on that's a heavy investment. Later on, I can possibly do that, though current game I have over 100 M miners. I do have fleets for taking down the Kha'ak outpost/hive sending the attacks. But would still like tools to respond to the attacks when they respawn and harass my miners while I have to hunt the station again, or of course for other threats from other factions/enemies.

Current issues:

• Patrol: patrols the entire sector, but only engages stuff within the patrol ship's radar range (next to useless for defence of the sector).

• Defend Position: woefully small area to protect miners who'll go far above/below the ecliptic and all over the sector, depending on the mineable area.

• Escorts: A few can be a costly investment early on, especially if you've got a lot of autominers/station miners.

• L Miners: Are yes, mostly immune to Kha'ak attack, but again, a more costly investment early on, and they don't deal with the threat when it comes to attacks on other ships.

• Mods: Yes, some mods offer a solution to this, but would be nice in vanilla since the patrol command currently isn't very useful at all.

The main solution I'd like to see is patrol command responding to any attacks and/or hostile threat detected by any ship or satellite in the sector they're patrolling. Others have also suggested a command for assigning ships to protect other ships/assets assigned to the station too. Both would be great QOL for not just dealing with Kha'ak, but other hostile threats before you can properly deal with where ever they're coming from, or to just simply deal with them then and there without micromanagement.

[paraskous]

If I were to provide escorts I'd need a lot of ships. A bit wasteful. Not so great for performance I guess. I expected the police command to work in the Nopileo sectors I took for me but it doesn't - There is a lot going on and they are more busy scanning freighters than dealing with Khaak. I tried repeated commands to patrol the highway since they spawn along that but now it's above then it's under the ecliptic and it doesn't work out. I go and put in manual orders from time to time but it's a hassle.

[Jeraal]

This could be a good use for an admin center in any sector, whether you're looking for ownership or not. It could connect to a satellite network in the sector and send response ships to anything detected, or respond to distress calls from your ships.

[taztaz502]

Would be nice to be able to draw their patrol path.

They do engage hostiles if they're close enough.

[FatalKeks]

Would be nice to be able to draw their patrol path.

They do engage hostiles if they're close enough.

You can draw a "patrol path" with the "Repeat Orders" behaviour. https://youtu.be/hhn_COZESQI?t=14m32s
But this is not perfect at all.

I agree that we need an order, that lets us deal with threats automatically in a sector.

[Cpt. H. Elmes]

if they're close enough.

That's one of the current major flaws in the current patrol command. I don't want to draw the patrol path and hope that they're near one of my miners when it's under attack in a sectors that're hundreds of kilometers big, and also above and below the ecliptic.

[johnycamaro]

Install mod sector patrol! It takes care of the khaak and other enemies. Its a great must have mod for defence sector and mining ships!

[Axeface]

I would like to be able to give patrol ships a new type of satellite that they could perhaps drop themselves (or not), 'Distress Relay Satellite' or something like that, that has a large range (perhaps something like 150km) and all it does is broadcast distress signals from any satellites (so you can chain them) or ships within its range to patrolling ships within its range. The satellite itself should have an option checker for "relay non-faction distress calls", to allow us to control whether patrolling ships react to other faction distress calls aswel as our own faction.

[kmunoz]

I would like to be able to give patrol ships a new type of satellite that they could perhaps drop themselves (or not), 'Distress Relay Satellite' or something like that, that has a large range (perhaps something like 150km) and all it does is broadcast distress signals from any satellites (so you can chain them) or ships within its range to patrolling ships within its range. The satellite itself should have an option checker for "relay non-faction distress calls", to allow us to control whether patrolling ships react to other faction distress calls aswel as our own faction.

The existing alert system in the game should incorporate the option to alert based on specific satellites, not only by sector. And then it should also have an option to trigger a response from nearby player ships that are set to specific orders (patrol). The alerts are useful but not sufficiently granular, and they are *only* alerts, and require the player to respond directly. This is fine - I'm not arguing it's "broken" or anything - but there are opportunities here for a more complex alert system.

[builder680]

You have to use a mod because of baked-in artificial stupidity for your pilots and their multi-tens of millions credit satellite network still can't see you. I just use no kha''ak mod, they're stupid as an antagonist anyway. Just get rid of them imo.

[Xkuka]

Considering the responses so far, a very simple solution to cover many different needs would be a new default order with multiple targets-> Attack enemy in range of...
Kind of similar to the solution with "repeat order" but the difference is you could assign your unit to any object, and they would be able to use a homebase if assigned, which makes it actually usefull as a permanent and very flexible solution.
Rules of engagement, like for the class of ships at least, would be hugely helpfull.
With that order you can assign combat ships to stations, satelites or whatever you like. Preferably with a homebase, station or carrier for supply and repair.
This would not only cover object protection but also make military operations somewhat managable, insteat of the current micromanagement overkill if it gets complex.
It would also adress the limited operational range of carriers/defense stations if you can have squadrons that can use them as homebase for customizable tasks.
A major problem with carriers is anyways that you cant set them as a homebase for your fighters and give them individual orders at the same time. Insteat a headless routine is sending them out in a very limited space, mostly all of them to the same weak S fighter while other ships are shot down by the P's... Wasnt that logic creating squads and attacking multiple targets at the same time in earlier versions?
Anyways, sure you can give squadrons any order, but then they dont use the carrier as supply station anymore and you have to babysit the unit. Making the carrier pointless again.

Think about it, how powerfull a single Raptor actually would be if its fighters are not limited to its small radar range. 130 fighters a Raptor can carry are way too much for anything the game can do with these ships right now. I dont see any benefit in more than 30 well equpiped fighters. Currently using Chimera with TER Pulse Laser, they kill anything in almost any number the game provides right now below L class without any problem, and are even able to take on the bigger ships, but with a loss probability.
But with that order at hands, you could park a single carrier nearby to your AO or even multiple AO's and assign different squadrons to different objects, like some are protecting you, some are patroling along a satelite network, and some are holding a perimeter marked by a stelite. Right now you need for each task a different fleet, and moving carriers in a fleet just dont work very well...
Also a defensive base with plenty of hangar space and a maintenance bay would suddenly make some strategic sense.
Even the AI could make use of this command and give you a hell of a hard time if the devs set this up properly.

Defensive perimeters, carrier fighter squads, object protection and area patrols. Everything adjustable. What would you need more? Some cookies?

And the beauty of it, considering the range of its usefullness, its a really simple solution.
Yes sure some details are still open, like if those units return home if no target in range or if they follow the assigned object, and in what manner.
I would suggest 3 options, kill and go home, follow and protect using interceptor logic, patrol along assigned objects and create a kill task for each area on the schedule.
Everything is covered... and the logic very easy to implement, as i assume with some basic coding knowledge. There is not even new code necessary, everything can be covered by existing logic.


The problem i see with a response system is that it is very ineffective in larger areas. I use the mod Reaction Force and its somewhat ok to protect my Home sector, especially because of respawning Khaak nests. But the major flaw with that is its reactive only. They ignore a passing by raiding force if no shots are fired... Your forces will be scattered all over the place and only engage on "request", not if they see a raiding party closing in on a defenseless miner... until they receive the distress signal its very probably too late already... And they dont even twitch if Khaaks bothering your L ships if you have set the threshold below 100% which is recommended to prevent "misunderstandings".
And we dont want to hunt down for revenge, they will respawn a few minutes later anyways. We want something that is effective.
So i also have a fast M ship squadron with the mod Sector Patrol to cover this flaw.
But we are talking about a vanilla solution anyways. And how is the vanilla distress threshold? The mod reacts like "Hey they are shooting at me" while vanilla reacts like "I am going to d..."

And we want to keep it simple on the back end, otherwise i dont see a chance this would be even considered by the devs.