Auto-restock missiles of fleet

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Saphyra
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Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by Saphyra » Mon, 28. Jun 21, 18:39

Problem: Supply fleet with missiles

I use Novas equipped with torpedo launchers to destroy stations. But how to make them restock the torpedoes after (or during) the fight?

No, it is not an option to order them manually. I won't do it for 100+ ships after every station.

What I have tried:
1. Supply ships. Result: Novas go to restock, but one supply ship can hold materials enough for about 4-5 ship, then I have to wait years until the supply ship is restocked. (No ability to modify the buy amounts, to increase the efficiency). It does not help having more Supply ships, all the Novas will land on the same one and wait until the Supply ship is restocked, however the others are full. (Tested with 5 Honshus)

2. Equipment dock. Result: I could not make any of the Novas to resupply there automatically. (They were in the same sector. Yes, I have Ship trader assigned, yes, I have enough materials in the Equipment dock's storage.) I tried assigning them to defend the equipment dock, a random station, assigned to a fleet, nothing happened, Novas just flew to their new work location, and did their job (Nothing, no enemies nearby to defend against) with 0 firepower.

Is there any way to ask a group of ships to restock their ammo without micromanaging them one by one?

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Re: Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by RLSa » Mon, 5. Jul 21, 21:34

The Global Order for auto resuplly doesn't work?

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mr.WHO
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Re: Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by mr.WHO » Mon, 5. Jul 21, 21:45

Forget about missiles - Egosoft made Supply Ships and Carrier storage too small to be any practical use other than player personal resupply.

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Re: Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by GCU Grey Area » Mon, 5. Jul 21, 22:45

mr.WHO wrote:
Mon, 5. Jul 21, 21:45
Forget about missiles - Egosoft made Supply Ships and Carrier storage too small to be any practical use other than player personal resupply.
Not necessarily. Depends a lot on how many bombers you want to field & what they're armed with. 100+ torpedo bombers will have significant logistical problems. However the capacity of a Honshu is nevertheless sufficient to make over 1000 Heavy Starbursts & has proved to be a practical means of resupply for the 35 Kalis I have rigged as bombers in my fleet. Also found it helpful to have them use the same missiles as my capitals. Simplifies resupply if everyone uses the same ammo & if the Honshu ever does run out of materials a long way from HQ (though that has not yet happened) there's always the option to manually restock my bombers from whatever's left in the Syns.

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mr.WHO
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Re: Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by mr.WHO » Mon, 5. Jul 21, 22:57

GCU Grey Area wrote:
Mon, 5. Jul 21, 22:45
mr.WHO wrote:
Mon, 5. Jul 21, 21:45
Forget about missiles - Egosoft made Supply Ships and Carrier storage too small to be any practical use other than player personal resupply.
Not necessarily. Depends a lot on how many bombers you want to field & what they're armed with. 100+ torpedo bombers will have significant logistical problems. However the capacity of a Honshu is nevertheless sufficient to make over 1000 Heavy Starbursts & has proved to be a practical means of resupply for the 35 Kalis I have rigged as bombers in my fleet. Also found it helpful to have them use the same missiles as my capitals. Simplifies resupply if everyone uses the same ammo & if the Honshu ever does run out of materials a long way from HQ (though that has not yet happened) there's always the option to manually restock my bombers from whatever's left in the Syns.
In other words it works when you use a specific set on missiles, with specific supply ship using specific (Terran) resource.

That's a very specific definition of working feature that suppose to reduce micromanagement.

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Re: Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by GCU Grey Area » Tue, 6. Jul 21, 00:41

mr.WHO wrote:
Mon, 5. Jul 21, 22:57
In other words it works when you use a specific set on missiles, with specific supply ship using specific (Terran) resource.

That's a very specific definition of working feature that suppose to reduce micromanagement.
Nope, that's just what I'm specifically using. Same could be done with different missiles & a different supply ship, although it may only be able to carry the parts for 800 or so, rather than 1000. Heavy Starburst is broadly comparable in terms of resource requirements to the other heavy missiles & while Honshu may be a little bigger than the others, it's still very much the same order of magnitude.

As for resources, specifically not using Terran stuff for this. Didn't want to end up having to send my Honshu all the way across the universe if it runs out of stuff (it's not exactly fast) when it can get missile components etc pretty much anywhere.

In practice it's only been Heavy Torpedoes which have caused me logistical problems (each one requires an absolute ton of components), while resupplying the other heavy missiles tends to be a lot more manageable.

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Re: Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by -=SiR KiLLaLoT=- » Tue, 6. Jul 21, 01:36

In my missile experience I used 5 Atlas because Honshus didn't exist yet and the Terran ship will probably be better.

Anyway, I assigned 6-7 Magpie as a trader for each Atlas so that each delivery of missile parts (most importantly) could be constant.
While I was managing all of this I found that traders associated with a support ship must have the INDIVIDUAL piloting skill at at least 2 stars
because support pilots do not function like station managers, so traders do not benefit from the skills of a fleet captain.

I had run tests with Raptor and 121 Asp, which having 3 weapon slots I had equipped with 1 mk2 torpedo launcher and 2 mortars. That way I had 121 torpedo launchers.

The calculation was simple:

1 Mk1 Heavy Torpedo costs 40 missile parts.
1 Atlas can contain 3226 missile parts which, by simple calculation, give 80,65 Torpedoes.
So 2 Atlas can reload 1 torpedo for 160 Asp, or 2 torpedoes for 80 Asp etc ...
5 Atlas can refuel exactly 400 torpedoes, so I could test that the perfect solution was 100 Asp with 4 torpedoes per ship.
The remaining 21 Asp remain in dock and so I turned them into an interception fleet without any type of missile.

Once this was done, the last problem remained: how to get 4 torpedoes for Asp ...

Well, I found that by changing the auto refueling level in the global rules on the 3 options (low, med, high) the Asps refueled with 4 - 10 - 20 missiles respectively, out of a total of 21 possible.
So I was able to find the perfect combination setting the supply level of support ships to "LOW" and being able to supply 100 Asps "fairly quickly".

Also I have found that it is possible to restrict trade and change the prices of support ships like stations.
You will find the options in the ship's individual instructions by scrolling to the bottom of the menu.
This is essential to ensure that ships are constantly demanding for resources and you can block NPC ships by preventing size L transporters from delivering goods to the support ship.

Could you try this combination with Honshu to see if there are any differences and then let me know.
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Re: Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by Mistle » Tue, 6. Jul 21, 09:19

mr.WHO wrote:
Mon, 5. Jul 21, 21:45
Forget about missiles - Egosoft made Supply Ships and Carrier storage too small to be any practical use other than player personal resupply.
I rather agree with mr.WHO . Ten dragons in my rattlesnake I set as full bombers with torpedos. Two auxiliary ships Monitor and Honshu. After attack on Xenon stations bombers were empty and couldn't restock torpedos.
Had to manually restock missiles on my ship technology station . If you need ten auxiliary ship per one rattlesnake or sit with calculator in hand I rather it call it doesn't work. :(

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mr.WHO
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Re: Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by mr.WHO » Tue, 6. Jul 21, 10:02

I think the only solution to this balance issue, without making Supply ships and Carrier into mega freighters, would be to create another type of cargo:

- cargo type: ammunition supplies.
- both carriers and supply ships would have additional and separate storage type "ammunition" in addition to normal cargo.


The logic would be like that:

1) Carrier and Supply ships obtain normal resources.
2) these resources are automatically converted to "ammunition" (e.g. there would be limit set by player, like produce up to 5000 amunition).
3) Then the missiles are produced out of ammunition supplies, nice and easy, becasue each missile would have different ammunition requirement depending on missile power.

The player would then only need to bother with providing universal or Terran resources for ammunition production and then it would be simple math like - heavy torpedo needs 10 ammunition and I have 1000 in Carrier storage.

Given separate storages player can attach traders to Carrier/supply ship so they can ferry resources in the mean time, while Carrier/Supply ship is already able to stash and distrubute ammunition - there is no chokepoint where tiny cargo of supply ship is bottleneck, becuase it's already filled with resources not relevant for missile production.

Given that the ammunition cargo is separate, you cannot use Carrier/Supply ship as better megafreighters.

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Re: Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by GCU Grey Area » Tue, 6. Jul 21, 10:23

Mistle wrote:
Tue, 6. Jul 21, 09:19
Ten dragons in my rattlesnake I set as full bombers with torpedos. Two auxiliary ships Monitor and Honshu. After attack on Xenon stations bombers were empty and couldn't restock torpedos.
Might be worth trying Heavy Cluster instead. 12k damage & a bit slower than the Heavy Torpedo (but then a station's hardly going to be able to dodge out of the way), however they require significantly fewer components to make. Reckon your auxiliaries would be able to carry sufficient parts for 2 full reloads (assuming full set of mk 2 launchers & 64 missiles per Dragon).

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Re: Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by Mistle » Tue, 6. Jul 21, 10:26

In normal life auxiliary ships don't carry wares to produce bombs but have ammunition ready to refill.
So as mr.WHO said lets create another type of cargo for ready missiles or ammunition supplies.
Or let Egosoft say that ten Monitors per one Rattlesnake is as it should be and it will cut discussion. :)

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mr.WHO
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Re: Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by mr.WHO » Tue, 6. Jul 21, 10:46

GCU Grey Area wrote:
Tue, 6. Jul 21, 10:23
Might be worth trying Heavy Cluster instead. 12k damage & a bit slower than the Heavy Torpedo (but then a station's hardly going to be able to dodge out of the way), however they require significantly fewer components to make. Reckon your auxiliaries would be able to carry sufficient parts for 2 full reloads (assuming full set of mk 2 launchers & 64 missiles per Dragon).
I don't want to sounds negative, but 1 reload vs 2 reloads - wow what a great improvement.

For me the only way Supply Ship would actually be useful would be if it could reliable supply entire fleet (not only fighters, there are Frigates and Destroyers as well) for long time withotu micromanagement.

One might say having 100 bombers with Heavy torpedos might be over the top, but this equal to 10 frigates or a destroyer and fleet can easily have several destroyers. I don't even know how muich it takes to have XL missile ship :0.


Seriously it seems Egosoft see missiles as afterthought, given that they completely forgot about Terran missiles and botched terran ships missile turrets in CoH 1.0.

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Re: Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by GCU Grey Area » Tue, 6. Jul 21, 11:20

mr.WHO wrote:
Tue, 6. Jul 21, 10:46
One might say having 100 bombers with Heavy torpedos might be over the top, but this equal to 10 frigates or a destroyer and fleet can easily have several destroyers.
Not really, at least not in terms of damage output. 100 Dragons loaded with Heavy Torps has a damage output of over 10 million per volley, over 500 million in total if they fired everything they've got (for reference a Commonwealth shipyard commonly has around 10 million hull points). This is orders of magnitude higher than 10 frigates armed with conventional weapons or a single destroyer could manage.

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Re: Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by mr.WHO » Tue, 6. Jul 21, 11:44

GCU Grey Area wrote:
Tue, 6. Jul 21, 11:20
Not really, at least not in terms of damage output. 100 Dragons loaded with Heavy Torps has a damage output of over 10 million per volley, over 500 million in total if they fired everything they've got (for reference a Commonwealth shipyard commonly has around 10 million hull points). This is orders of magnitude higher than 10 frigates armed with conventional weapons or a single destroyer could manage.
There is a niuance to comparing Dragons vs Frigates.
Dragons has up to 5 missile launchers, but small missile storage.
Frigates usually have 2-4 launchers but 100 missile storage - thus they need to reload less frequently.

I don't think using M-size ships as missile boats is reliable as they tend to die more easily and you loose much more value in ship cost and ammunition.

However, missile destroyers or missile XL ships should be a thing, but you cannot mount torpedos on them, while other avaliable missiles needs like 500+ to take out average station and Supply ship barely even able to resupply single destroyer :(

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Re: Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by Falcrack » Tue, 6. Jul 21, 18:52

I'm thinking that, given the relatively tiny cargobay given to the XL sized supply ships, and egosoft reticence to make changes which would be popular with the majority of players such ad increasing this cargobay, that it is probably best the equip no more than one missile launcher per bomber, and put other weapons on the rest of the slots. At least in this case the bomber won't be useless when it runs out of missiles, and you can field more bombers without such drastic supply issues.

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Re: Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by mr.WHO » Tue, 6. Jul 21, 19:28

Falcrack wrote:
Tue, 6. Jul 21, 18:52
I'm thinking that, given the relatively tiny cargobay given to the XL sized supply ships, and egosoft reticence to make changes which would be popular with the majority of players such ad increasing this cargobay, that it is probably best the equip no more than one missile launcher per bomber, and put other weapons on the rest of the slots. At least in this case the bomber won't be useless when it runs out of missiles, and you can field more bombers without such drastic supply issues.
That's might be the only sensible approach right now.
With single launcher you have 20 reloads on S-size fighters and 100 reload on the frigate.
I did once single heavy torpedo Cobra squad and other than low M-size survivability against EVERYTHING, I didn't had to bother with reloading much.
I also had Chimeras with single heavy torpedo and 4xMortar.

But still, why bother with missile logistic if you can put one more mortar - nice and simple.

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Re: Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by KextV8 » Tue, 6. Jul 21, 19:48

Falcrack wrote:
Tue, 6. Jul 21, 18:52
I'm thinking that, given the relatively tiny cargobay given to the XL sized supply ships
I think its important to note that if they were to increase the cargo size of the XL ships, they basically become Freighters than can defend themselves, so they kind of obsolete freighters as that point.

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Re: Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by -=SiR KiLLaLoT=- » Tue, 6. Jul 21, 22:40

It is difficult to balance the missiles because what must be considered is the destructive power of them, you cannot say "it should be so" without doing the relative calculations.

Actualy, 100 S-size ships with one torpedo each, have the destructive power of 100 torpedoes.
100 torpedoes can totally destroy a commowealth faction station and can severely damage a Xenon station. So this power has to be limited in some way.

As I said a few posts ago, an Atlas Sentinel (the largest commowealth ship) can supply 1 torpedo for 80 S-ships (best and expensive commowealth missile).
Making new calculations with Terran Honshu ship, I know they can reload 166 mk2 heavy unguided missiles (best and expensive Terran missile).
The damage done by 80 commowealth torpedoes is very similar to the damage done by 166 mk2 heavy unguided missiles.
Obviously, many parameters must be considered, such as the damage over time of all weapons, globally...
The point is that increasing the amount of cargo from support ships, or changing the type of ammunition, doesn't change the current damage of the missiles.

What we would like to see are ships firing their missiles, running out of ammunition, returning to the support ship, reloading ammunition, returning to the station, firing their missiles.
If this happens 3 or 4 times it's good, it's nice, we like it!! If this does NOT happen even once, because the numbers say that the missiles are too powerful, then something needs to be revised...

So what Devs should do to improve the experience is cheat us. Yes, you read that correctly.
It would be enough to rework the damage of missiles or make sure that 100 ships can be fully reloaded, without necessarily disintegrating everything.
Or simply modify the resistance to missiles/torpedoes by station modules or capital ships.
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Re: Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by camshaft97 » Fri, 16. Jul 21, 03:25

But...the question Saphyra originally asked was about restocking ammo "without micromanaging them one by one". (not cargo space).

Just to be thorough, I'll describe the steps I use during a big fight, but this still results in one-by-one:
-In the Object Browser, Shift combined with mouse-click to select multiple ships, or...
-On the Map, shift combined with mouse-left-click and drag a box around them.
-This gets you a selection of ships regardless of fleet assignments. When I right-click a Wharf, select upgrade, we find ourselves on the upgrade screen, which works fine, but...
-You're not purchasing for -all- ships with 1 click. Instead, Each ship must be selected one-by-one, move the slider for missiles, add to cart, then select next ship, repeating for each ship.

*It seems to be done this way because each ship needs different quantities. One might need 5, my other ship needs 12 missiles.

SUGGESTION: There needs to be a way to just say "Restock All these ships now!", and from my example, it would result in one purchase of 17 missiles, rather than 2 purchases. There will be limitations. The software won't know how to simultaneously load one ship with dumb-fire missiles and another with guided-missiles. So this suggestion comes with limitations. You might only be able to say "Restock everyone with guided-missiles", or whatever specific ware selection.

I've wanted something like this during fights when the situation suddenly changes: say, something like 50 ships versus a KHK station with a few 'raiders', but then my satellites show another group headed this way. My ships had the fight well-in-hand, but that's because they used all their ammo getting dominance in the area, and were just slowly wearing down the station.

*Ah YES!, but the situation has changed, and I don't want to wait for them to realize later-on that they need to restock. I want them to stop, and re-stock now, quickly.

So, yes, some sort of brute-force "ReStock Fleet now!" button would be more fun than clicking...
-Select ship, click.
-Select consumables, click
-Move slider, click
-Add to cart, click
-Repeat, by selecting next ship
(plus one 'complete order')

For 50 ships, thats about 50 * 4 = 200 + 1 = 201 mouse clicks. Which takes time.

*Another thing I've tried that works: You can restock 1 fleet with another fleet. So today, I had a fleet of 10 Eclipse fighters, and used anther fleet of 10 named "Fleet-ReSupply" of the same ship (not Auxiliary ships). You can :
-Select 1st ship in Fleet-Resupply
-Select Wharf, Upgrade, move the slider for Missles, Confirm
-After the purchase, select that ship, Right-click the 1st ship in the Fleet that needs restock, select "Trade Wares with XYZ-123", and the missiles are in the list of wares that can be traded.

This was faster because the fighters are faster than the auxiliary ships, but it was still about the same number of mouse-clicks.

fun stuff,
-Cam

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Re: Auto-restock missiles of fleet

Post by doxbollox » Mon, 19. Jul 21, 22:50

@cam @all

There is a auto repair and auto restock missile function/mechanic already implemented and it use to work perfectly!

For example if you had a fighter/s that was subordinate to a carrier, and you had the appropriate missile BP, as well as the materials for production on the carrier and the global orders set to resupply, the fighter would finish its task, it would return back to the carrier, land and auto repair (which still works now) and auto reload missing missiles (doesn't work anymore).

Unfortunately, now you have to do what cam explained above so well. THANKS EGOSOFT, THATS SO MUCH FUN.

Egosoft literally broke the function with the introduction of COH and although the community has been reminding them over and over and over again, that this problem needs an urgent fix, they either obviously don't give a sh*t or just don't care.
Becauseeeeee instead of fixing game breaking mechanics like resupply, noooooooo, its more important to fix this stuff, right EGOsoft:

Fixed excessive number of positional lights on Osprey (Seriously everyone, EGOsoft fixes this useless sh*t like its life saving oxygen, but leave out other stuff that is really essential - LOL - makes me laugh and cry the same time)
Fixed squad leader icon on map being in wrong position
Fixed being able to move sequences of station modules partially outside of build plot
Fixed holographic ship controls for NPCs not being enabled when NPC sits in chair
Fixed some voices and sound effects not being audible in external view
Fixed coloured station modules on radar and map when selected
.....and many many more examples.

So lets thank EGOsoft for fixing all that really important stuff above, but none of the non essential stuff, like the resupply mechanic!

Thank you EGOsoft!

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