Video: Using fleets is both useless and cringy...

[Ragnos28]

Not sure what went wrong with your battle group, but I suspect 2 things which may caused that:

• Captain levels are too low
• Wrong formation [for the job]

Formations do matter - they can even help to surround the enemy. Personally I wouldn't choose a formation for destroyers which gives them no breathing room - as the X4 pathfinding has [still] problems here. (the pathfinding came a long way since the release, so this is just an observation, no rant). I'd say your battle group is too densely packed.

tldr: While you will have awkward moments in X4 it is not like shown in the video. At least not for me. Key for having fun with fleets are the proper commands, pilot levels, proper formations. This takes experience and the will to play X4 like X4 - not like some WW2 fleet simulator with bombers, interceptors, destroyers, ... (this will always fail IMHO as their is simply no role AI)

The formation is Echelon (accessible by 5 star captains).

As for captains levels, for 6 destroyers, I have 2 - 5 stars, 2 - 4 stars, 2 - 3 stars. Anyway, in my experience with full 5 stars destroyers groups, they are still derpy.

I don't know, I think I will organize my fleets BSG style, fighters engage fighters/M ships/drones, command battleship engage capitals and stations and be done for. Especially, since I fear that the changes in dangeros zones effects, will make it imposible for M ships to traverse the sectors like the Void and the like.

[Ragnos28]

I use the same 'Fly To' approach as gorman2040 for station demolition & can confirm it works. For added safety can also recommend installing Expediter weapon mods on destroyer main guns. The additional projectile speed & lifetime gives those guns a significant amount of extra range, which is does seem to be included in the calculation of the optimal range from which a destroyer wants to fire it's main guns. Against a moving target it's trickier to maintain distance without early deployment of fighter support to keep the enemy distracted.

Too much tinkering, imho. For stations, I just use the Asgard main batery, the distance is so great that the station don't even launch drones. 0 casualties, 0 hustle, 0 aggravation for bad AI. When I was still gathering cash for the Asgard, I put paranid L plasma turrets on the mission reward Syn and run 30kk xenon station goes boom missions.

For moving targets, just buzzz my way around...hell, agains destroyers, I can drop like 3 of them before the Asgard main weapon overheats.

Prefer more of a mixed fleet myself, currently 2x Asgard, 8x Osaka (though really must get round to replacing them with Syns sometime soon) & a Tokyo full of Kalis fighters. Works well enough for me, have smashed dozens of stations with it (good money to be had in the station demolition business) & have not lost a single one of those capital ships yet. Most of the time enemy stations don't get to fire even a single shot back at them.

Despite my rant, I will still use mixed fleets myself, except now I know their limitations...only use destroyers/M ships as a last resort to protect carriers and aux ships when K's apear near them and expect heavy losess for doing so...

My fleet composition:
1 Asgard
3 Syn + 3 Osaka asign to protect the Asgard
1 Tokyo asign to folow the Asgard + 40 kukri on intercept dutty
1 Aux + 20 Jian on defend + 20 Falx torpedo configuration on atack

Like I said, my fear is that the changes in hazardous regions effects in 4.10 will force me to eliminate M ships from my fleets compositions.

[GCU Grey Area]

Too much tinkering, imho. For stations, I just use the Asgard main batery, the distance is so great that the station don't even launch drones. 0 casualties, 0 hustle, 0 aggravation for bad AI. When I was still gathering cash for the Asgard, I put paranid L plasma turrets on the mission reward Syn and run 30kk xenon station goes boom missions.

Just one Asgard? If so you have more patience than me. I like to form up my destroyers in a firing line about 12km from the station, with the Asgards on each end of the line. Then I just leave them to it, while I keep an eye out for enemy fleets that might attempt to disrupt what my fleet's doing.

For moving targets, just buzzz my way around...hell, agains destroyers, I can drop like 3 of them before the Asgard main weapon overheats.

My usual approach is to send a group of fighters to delay & distract each enemy capital, then shift-select all of my destroyers & give them a queue of attack orders to eliminate each enemy capital in turn, starting with the nearest.

Despite my rant, I will still use mixed fleets myself, except now I know their limitations...only use destroyers/M ships as a last resort to protect carriers and aux ships when K's apear near them and expect heavy losess for doing so...

My fleet composition:
1 Asgard
3 Syn + 3 Osaka asign to protect the Asgard
1 Tokyo asign to folow the Asgard + 40 kukri on intercept dutty
1 Aux + 20 Jian on defend + 20 Falx torpedo configuration on atack

Like I said, my fear is that the changes in hazardous regions effects in 4.10 will force me to eliminate M ships from my fleets compositions.

My standard command structure is carrier as fleet command ship, with destroyers & around 1/3 of the carrier's fighters assigned to Attack, remaining 2/3 assigned to Intercept. Don't currently have an auxiliary assigned to the fleet. Honshu's too damn slow, so operates independently. When I'm not giving them manual orders carrier has default Protect Position behaviour. Only use I have for M's is to stick a Jian on every M dock in the fleet to provide extra turrets (defend assignment & docked status so they stay put).

[Ragnos28]

Just one Asgard? If so you have more patience than me. I like to form up my destroyers in a firing line about 12km from the station, with the Asgards on each end of the line. Then I just leave them to it, while I keep an eye out for enemy fleets that might attempt to disrupt what my fleet's doing.

Don't know about pacience...took me what?...15 minutes to destroy xenon warf/shipyards and those are the hardest targets you will find in the game.
Usually, it goes like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoQLw4_UeqE&t=2s

No no, destroyers do not atack stations cuz destroyers pilots mentally challenged...they go sightseeing against the walls of stations and go boom...no no, not good. Stupid pilots do what stupid pilots do...stay near the gate when I engage xenon station in the middle of the sector, even thou they are asign to defend the Asgard and I am clearly under atack (as seen in the video)

My standard command structure is carrier as fleet command ship, with destroyers & around 1/3 of the carrier's fighters assigned to Attack, remaining 2/3 assigned to Intercept. Don't currently have an auxiliary assigned to the fleet. Honshu's too damn slow, so operates independently. When I'm not giving them manual orders carrier has default Protect Position behaviour. Only use I have for M's is to stick a Jian on every M dock in the fleet to provide extra turrets (defend assignment & docked status so they stay put).

My commonwealth fleet composition is as follows(paranid example):

1 Zeus (command ship) + 20 ares - blast mortar config + 20 ares - bolt config
10 Ody's asign to defend the Zeus
1 aux ship + 20 nemesis vanguard's asign to defend + 20 gorgons torpedo config asign to atack

This is the fleet in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SPhn0XYaFI

Notice the nice touch at the end of the video with M ships going to Aux ship for repairs all by themselfs

[KextV8]

I just use like 10 Asgards and two Nomads or Storks with the support ships full of Moreyas or Nodans set on intercept.

I have like 20 or 30 Syn gate campers too that I built before I acquired the Asgard BPs. I usually deploy them in sets of 5 with a Support ship with instructions to defend position at a gate.

[mediacenter]

i have just some fleet with 20 destroyers each
when its time to engage i simply teleport myself away

i have no time to lose seeing all my destroyers take a break rolling left and right doing nothing
nor do i want to see all my fleet getting blasted like morons by one or two xenon/whatewer race without retalliation

20 destroyer vs 1 xenon k
result in oos = 10 seconds, xenon k vaporized like it should be

20 destroyer vs 1 xenon k
result is = 20 minutes of rolling and turning, several destroyers damaged or with extremely lowered shield, xenon k still there with is robotic middle finger up

[Jawms]

I would like to point out that you selected every ship and told them to attack. So they all broke formation and blasted in there full force.

If you gave the commander a attack command, would they not maintain formation and go in together?

Also seeing as you only had one target, the "Coordinate Attack" command could *Probably* give you better results.

Matter of Trial and Error I guess..

[Ragnos28]

result is = 20 minutes of rolling and turning, several destroyers damaged or with extremely lowered shield, xenon k still there with is robotic middle finger up

I laugh so hard at this...tears and everything You made my day

[Ragnos28]

I would like to point out that you selected every ship and told them to attack. So they all broke formation and blasted in there full force.

If you gave the commander a attack command, would they not maintain formation and go in together?

Also seeing as you only had one target, the "Coordinate Attack" command could *Probably* give you better results.

Matter of Trial and Error I guess..

The commander was the Asgard that I pilot. The destroyers were asign to protect it. I don't know how things would have got if I had a separate fleet with just the destroyers. If I am not mistaken, ppl complain on forums that the subordinates don't follow the leader, when the leader recive orders to atack. On the same note, again, I might be wrong, you can give the "Coordinate Attack" only to entire fleets not part of it...correct me if I am wrong.

[Jawms]

I would like to point out that you selected every ship and told them to attack. So they all broke formation and blasted in there full force.

If you gave the commander a attack command, would they not maintain formation and go in together?

Also seeing as you only had one target, the "Coordinate Attack" command could *Probably* give you better results.

Matter of Trial and Error I guess..

The commander was the Asgard that I pilot. The destroyers were asign to protect it. I don't know how things would have got if I had a separate fleet with just the destroyers. If I am not mistaken, ppl complain on forums that the subordinates don't follow the leader, when the leader recive orders to atack. On the same note, again, I might be wrong, you can give the "Coordinate Attack" only to entire fleets not part of it...correct me if I am wrong.

Nope, your right on that.

I have had really poor results with fleets where I am the leader. They always end up following behind me like 40km.. They SEEM to perform better in their own fleet, and they SEEM to attack better if the commander is the one with the instructions. YMMV

Having them in their own fleet would let you use the Coordinate Attack command, which MAY have better results.. Once again, YMMV

[Aegir86]

Every forum discussion about fleet battle AI mechanics boils down to this: someone calling the fleet battle machanics for what it is, and someone rebutting with anecdotal advice on how to avoid it.

Don't get me wrong I think it's amazing how people come together on these forums and manage to have some very constructive conversations. Part of why I love these games.

But the main issue is we are constantly stuck on the discussion of herding cats (I mean pilot AI) to make a fleet battle actually play out somewhat optimally... When in actuality we should be talking about fleet composition and weapon composition and ship class depending on what race we are fighting. What a damn waste of game design if you ask me.

Egosoft has built this top heavy behemoth of a game with tons of weapons, ship classes, component configurations... All these game assets go to waste because well the AI can't handle any of it so it topples over the minute it gets up from.a chair. Like a bodybuilder with toothpick legs.

It's baffling game design decisions like this that prevent this series from getting the spotlight it deserves.

[Ragnos28]

Egosoft has built this top heavy behemoth of a game with tons of weapons, ship classes, component configurations... All these game assets go to waste because well the AI can't handle any of it so it topples over the minute it gets up from.a chair. Like a bodybuilder with toothpick legs.

It's baffling game design decisions like this that prevent this series from getting the spotlight it deserves.

Pretty much, this...

[spankahontis]

I had issues with destroyers getting too close to stations as well.
I worked around by ordering destroyers to "fly to" a position near the station (but not in range of station's turrets) and then ordering them to attack.
It doesn't always work and you still have to watch them carefully as some will still try to get closer but it feels better than watching them getting destroyed by station defences.

It makes battle with overwhelming player fleet still interesting as you can try to limit your losses.

Another problem I faced is when a ship try to flee, it seems you cannot override this order for long before it is generated by the ship again.

Actually, I am grateful for the introduction of the battleship class via Asgard and I think the other races should recive one too. In my commonwealth fleets, I depend heavily on destroyers for damage (I don't belive in the concept of let's put big guns on carierrs) and most of the time, those things pop like poopcorn when order to atack hard targets. I mean, I used to name my destroyers, after I was Behemoth 1-10...what..all of them went boom?...time to build another set
At least, with the terrans, I have real fire power in the form of the Asgard, making the use of destroyers obsolete for damage dealing purposes.

I feel the Xenon are lacking a Carrier Class Ship filled full of drones to distract/overwhelm enemy fleets.
I totally agree that too many times i've seen the Xenon throw M, N's and P's into the mincer.
A Xenon Carrier that enters the battle with hundreds of 'cheap to build' drones to throw at the enemy would take the heat off the Xenon fighters while offering much needed cover for the K's and the I?

[mr.WHO]

I feel the Xenon are lacking a Carrier Class Ship filled full of drones to distract/overwhelm enemy fleets.
I totally agree that too many times i've seen the Xenon throw M, N's and P's into the mincer.
A Xenon Carrier that enters the battle with hundreds of 'cheap to build' drones to throw at the enemy would take the heat off the Xenon fighters while offering much needed cover for the K's and the I?

Xenons lack A LOT!
They are missing XL Carrier, L Destroyer (K is more like XL cruiser), Gunship/bomber, Large freighter/miner.

All of these gaps are to detriment of their combat power and economy.

[Malchar]

1 - If the drone definition is a plane (ship here) without pilot, arent xenons all drones ?

2 IIRC a moderators said once here that a carrier was not neccessary for xenons, because xenons fighter acted like berzerkers. But arent all factions fighters (and overall ships) act like that ?

Point the I was, at start planed to be a carrier. I have keep the name it game in game file. The xenon K was planed to be a L ship and not a XL.

[GCU Grey Area]

Don't know about pacience...took me what?...15 minutes to destroy xenon warf/shipyards and those are the hardest targets you will find in the game.
Usually, it goes like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoQLw4_UeqE&t=2s

Yeah, looks like a lot more patience. For a start I very rarely fly an Asgard personally, just don't like the atrocious turn rate. Also don't play that much of an active role in station demolition myself - very rare for me to fire on enemy stations personally. I prefer to play more of a command role. I like to be there (don't enjoy OOS battles), but my fleet does all the work for me, while I watch the fireworks & keep an eye out for unanticipated complications (e.g. sudden arrival of an unexpected K).

No no, destroyers do not atack stations cuz destroyers pilots mentally challenged...they go sightseeing against the walls of stations and go boom...no no, not good. Stupid pilots do what stupid pilots do...stay near the gate when I engage xenon station in the middle of the sector, even thou they are asign to defend the Asgard and I am clearly under atack (as seen in the video)

Mine generally don't. Giving clear orders on where to fly before the attack orders resolves many of their suicidal tendencies, while (as mentioned earlier) the range boost from Expediter mods vastly increases the margin for error. Have however had similar issues with destroyers assigned as subordinates to my personal ship. Suspect they can get easily confused by a commander which can act unpredictably, in contrast to working for an ai commander who is following relatively simple orders themselves (fly here, blow that up, protect this position, etc). I generally only trust S class fighters as direct subordinates to my own ship.

My commonwealth fleet composition is as follows(paranid example):

1 Zeus (command ship) + 20 ares - blast mortar config + 20 ares - bolt config
10 Ody's asign to defend the Zeus
1 aux ship + 20 nemesis vanguard's asign to defend + 20 gorgons torpedo config asign to atack

This is the fleet in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SPhn0XYaFI

Notice the nice touch at the end of the video with M ships going to Aux ship for repairs all by themselfs

Interesting - you make much more use of M ships than I do. Although it's my favourite ship class for personal use, have not had much luck with them in a fleet context. Generally found them to be too big to dodge incoming fire & too fragile to withstand it long enough to accomplish much, at least not without suffering horrendous rates of attrition in the process.

[Ragnos28]

Yeah, looks like a lot more patience. For a start I very rarely fly an Asgard personally, just don't like the atrocious turn rate. Also don't play that much of an active role in station demolition myself - very rare for me to fire on enemy stations personally. I prefer to play more of a command role. I like to be there (don't enjoy OOS battles), but my fleet does all the work for me, while I watch the fireworks & keep an eye out for unanticipated complications (e.g. sudden arrival of an unexpected K).

Most of the time, I let my Asgard captain take me to my fleet destination/target (atm she is taking me to some Kha'ak instalation that I will have it blown to smithereens ) and I take control when a combat situation arises. The Asgard is the perfect mobile base for me, I have more that enough time to manage my empire while it traverse sectors and if I enconter a lucrative mission in a sector, I can always jump in my Gladius or my Katana, then land on the Asgard and resume the journey.
In true, I adore the ship, it remainds me of the old school Valhala from X3TC (I remember that I used mods to make it fast), despite being a flying brick house, has that "sitting in big powerful ship and watching everything around burn" feel to it, you really have the feel that you have the most powerfull ship in the known universe under your control (and given the posibility of modding it and under player control, trully is).

Really, you don't have active role in station demolition? Man, that feels so boring...I am already bored that I must send subordonates to deal with S/M ships that appear on my radar, If I eliminate station demolition from my game activity, then there is nothing for me to do combat wise. And I love combat...is the core of my game. In the beginning, while others were building factories/complexes and setup armies of auto miners...I was out there in my Gladius taking those miner escort missions...3kk at a time Because of the combat oriented game that I indulge in, I am happy to say that all my property list contain atm is a small base on Earth orbit, PHQ and my shipyard With the exception of fleet delivery missions, combat paid for everything I have

[Ragnos28]

Interesting - you make much more use of M ships than I do. Although it's my favourite ship class for personal use, have not had much luck with them in a fleet context. Generally found them to be too big to dodge incoming fire & too fragile to withstand it long enough to accomplish much, at least not without suffering horrendous rates of attrition in the process.

I use extensively torpedo boats for damaging big targets (in the case of commonwealth fleets, terran not so much) . Mainly, because, historically speaking, torpedoes brought the end of even the most powerful battleships in WW2.
They will suffer losses, but their target will die...and I prefer to lose them that to lose destroyers.

If I was to roleplay a commonwealth faction and be at war with the terrans, torpedo boats is what I would use to bring down Asgard's, Syn's and Osaka's, not destroyers.

[GCU Grey Area]

Most of the time, I let my Asgard captain take me to my fleet destination/target (atm she is taking me to some Kha'ak instalation that I will have it blown to smithereens ) and I take control when a combat situation arises. The Asgard is the perfect mobile base for me, I have more that enough time to manage my empire while it traverse sectors and if I enconter a lucrative mission in a sector, I can always jump in my Gladius or my Katana, then land on the Asgard and resume the journey.
In true, I adore the ship, it remainds me of the old school Valhala from X3TC (I remember that I used mods to make it fast), despite being a flying brick house, has that "sitting in big powerful ship and watching everything around burn" feel to it, you really have the feel that you have the most powerfull ship in the known universe under your control (and given the posibility of modding it and under player control, trully is).

Can understand that. Asgard truly is a marvelous ship, otherwise would not have gone to the trouble of building an entire shipyard (& spending a small fortune on blueprints) just so I could add a couple of them to the fleet. Just don't fly one often myself & when the the fleet rolls out to do something destructive I normally send them close to the objective & get them to Protect Position until I'm ready to meet up with them & commence the demolition.

Really, you don't have active role in station demolition? Man, that feels so boring...I am already bored that I must send subordonates to deal with S/M ships that appear on my radar, If I eliminate station demolition from my game activity, then there is nothing for me to do combat wise. And I love combat...is the core of my game. In the beginning, while others were building factories/complexes and setup armies of auto miners...I was out there in my Gladius taking those miner escort missions...3kk at a time Because of the combat oriented game that I indulge in, I am happy to say that all my property list contain atm is a small base on Earth orbit, PHQ and my shipyard With the exception of fleet delivery missions, combat paid for everything I have

Well, boredom is a very subjective thing. I enjoy being on site, ordering my ships around & watching stuff explode. I'm just less interested in pulling the trigger myself when the target is stationary & too far away to be any sort of credible threat. I suppose I treat this element of the game as essentially an RTS. Find it much more enjoyable to devise the tactics my ships will follow (e.g. this:https://www.dropbox.com/s/qta0be4bs0y2u ... 1.jpg?dl=0) & watch them blow the crap out of stations for me. Meanwhile I keep watch & deal with any enemy ships which might try to stop mine from doing their stuff.

I use extensively torpedo boats for damaging big targets (in the case of commonwealth fleets, terran not so much) . Mainly, because, historically speaking, torpedoes brought the end of even the most powerful battleships in WW2.
They will suffer losses, but their target will die...and I prefer to lose them that to lose destroyers.

If I was to roleplay a commonwealth faction and be at war with the terrans, torpedo boats is what I would use to bring down Asgard's, Syn's and Osaka's, not destroyers.

Makes sense, I just tend to use S fighters as my missile boats instead. I tend to get more of them back than when I've tried to use M's for the task. They're also significantly less expensive to replace if I do lose one. Not currently giving them torpedoes though, found torps are a bit slow when launched from my standard carrier-based fighter in my current game (Kalis). They're using Heavy Starburst instead. Does a fair bit of damage, is a lot faster than a torp & has a pretty decent burst radius for slagging subsystems on capitals. Also means I can use exactly the same missiles for both my bombers & the missile turrets on my personal Syn, which simplifies the logistics a bit.

[Ragnos28]

Well, boredom is a very subjective thing. I enjoy being on site, ordering my ships around & watching stuff explode. I'm just less interested in pulling the trigger myself when the target is stationary & too far away to be any sort of credible threat. I suppose I treat this element of the game as essentially an RTS. Find it much more enjoyable to devise the tactics my ships will follow (e.g. this:https://www.dropbox.com/s/qta0be4bs0y2u ... 1.jpg?dl=0) & watch them blow the crap out of stations for me. Meanwhile I keep watch & deal with any enemy ships which might try to stop mine from doing their stuff.

Ohh...I see from where you get your kicks I am bit of a "desktop general" myself having played the heck out of Total War titles, however I keep my RTS separated from my space simulators