State of X4

[A2G]

The AI is garbage tier. I fully expected someone to come along (as they exist in every game forum) and spout inane nonsense about improving the AI would require super computers. Be grateful you have had the privilege to buy this master piece!
No the AI is shit, and it can be better. It needs to be better. I don't claim to know what "if" statements need to be added, but it needs a lot of them. Fleet command under an AI is a circus of stupid, and brings me on to the second point about the UI:

Because the AI is utterly useless, takes what it should do and then does the absolute opposite, the user needs an effective interface to stop it doing stupid shit. Egosoft loves their nested menus, they have done since day zero, and they need a paradigm shift in their thinking in this regard. To select a single ship in a fleet, requires 4 clicks, and a further right click to issue a command. Compound that with the commands you can then issue are crap in their utility. This is awful design, by selecting the Fleet command ship I should be able to issue commands to sub groups, such as >Cap ships>maintain distance. This one command would tell the dumb AI that you do not want it to crash its destroyers into the ****** target. The best interface to date for this is radial menus. How about Fleet> Halt. Absolutely no use for that command. How about Cap ships> Rear gaurd, for when you want to extract your Carrier. The list is numerous, and the interface does not exist. There's no excuse for it not to exist at this point in the series, and in game development. [Edit to add] What i would do for a "maintain formation" command. 5 star captain on the carrier in fleet command, given the attack order decides what he should do with his carrier is a drive by of the target and poop out his fighters while the destroyers waddle along behind him the slower, and command vehicle. It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. Why would the carrier even decide to move on the attack order, oh yeah, the AI.................... What is it with the destroyers doing some dumb dance around the station i have told them to destroy, and in doing so fly into the aggro range of other stations? How about park your ****** ass and shoot the thing where nobody can shoot you.

The rusty knights may now return to tell me i should play something else if i don't like it.

[Skeeter]

You really need to avoid if and else statements, there are other ways that are less taxing to do the same job. If and else, are very cpu taxing statements to use. Most try to avoid em if possible.

[Zloth2]

Radial menus have some problems:

1. They freak people out. OMG! It's not what I expected! I must be too dumb for this program! I can't handle the stressssss! Gamers need to deal with a new interface every time they get a new game, so hopefully this wouldn't be a big deal for X.

2. They're good for about a half dozen items in the inner circle - less if the menus have big names. You can get more on if you use icons, but then it starts getting cryptic. Menus for this game get pretty large so switching will take some real re-organizing. I'm not so sure you're going to end up with a good system. (Maybe make the ring bigger, then highlight whatever you're moving toward and let you click before you even get to the menu item? But what happens if the pointer is near the edge of the screen so the circle has to move to stay fully on screen?)

Radial menus, IMHO, should be getting a LOT more use than they have been getting but don't assume they are the way to go for all situations.

[jlehtone]

Radial menus have some problems:

How does one use them? I have HOTAS but no time to explore if anything is bound to the menu. I just reach for the keyboard to get rid of it ASAP (which is as soon as I'd like).

[A2G]

Radial menus have some problems:

How does one use them? I have HOTAS but no time to explore if anything is bound to the menu. I just reach for the keyboard to get rid of it ASAP (which is as soon as I'd like).

Radial menus have been used for forever in games, think of a quartered circle, you click on the unit, the circle opens, you then select the desired command, that command then could have sub commands which open. On a HOTAS there are lots of buttons which simulate a mouse which you could use.

The UI doesn't need to be radial but it has to be better than it is. What makes it worse is that fleet command is not active it's reactive because the AI is so ****** stupid you spend your time correcting it's idiocy, rather than actively commanding it to achieve the desired goal. So you have some of the worst AI in gaming, being managed by a bad UI.

Set the AI a simple task, say "Alpha group Attack station". Alpha group (Destroyers) will take a simple command and shit itself. You spend your time saving alpha group. With a command structure and UI that is incapable of doing so efficiently, so you have players using micro "fly and wait" commands, with Pauses. I mean jesus they may as well make it turn based, it's how it is played anyway. It's beyond bad.

[A2G]

My God this is awful, i've been trying to make the coordinate attack useful. it isn't. Why does Ego take a BS system of control, and add another BS system on top of it. Deepening the BS. Instead of addressing the fundamental problem. The AI in this game is unbearably bad, through every strata from the strategic to the tactical.

The primary way players are able to command their fleet in battle is the System map. A tool not designed for that, and without any actual tools to do that. Where is the relative ranges? Where is any ****** ranges? A tactical interface with no range information. Genius.

Where is the maintain formation command? Whereby the selected ships attempt to hold their position relative to the group leader, as decided by the chosen formation? Where is the bombard command, where the selected ship will hold its position relative to the target at the max range of its guns?

The sector map is an awful tactical interface, offering zero tactical information. Think about that, the tool you have to use to control your fleet, is a map, a map with zero tools. Attempting to reposition a ship within the map is insane. That's not even down to the worst AI in gaming, it's plain impossible to move ships to relative positions. Even the build station format would be better, whereby you can drag and drop the model in 3D space.

Stop piling bull on bull egosoft, and make a proper interface designed for its role. The awful fleet command, is crippling.

Edit: Why does the Fleet command ship, randomly change the formation i set it? Why do ships randomly go dead in space and not move with the fleet? Is this immersive examples of the AI being so ****** stupid its behaviour overloads and all it can do is mumble to itself "42"?

[GCU Grey Area]

it's plain impossible to move ships to relative positions.

Not my experience. While could definitely improved, it's certainly adequate for this sort of thing:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qta0be4bs0y2u ... 1.jpg?dl=0
This was phase 2 of an attack on a Xenon SPP. Most of the station modules on the side nearest my fleet had been eliminated at that point & needed to move my ships safely around it to demolish intact modules on the far side.

Furthermore, in my 3.0 Argon game I almost completely eradicated HOP from the universe using the same tactics - trashed every single HOP station & almost every ship. By the end of it all HOP had left was a handful of building sites in Faulty Logic VII. Let them keep those, it's a horrible sector to go to war in (full of mines). Doubt I'd have been able to do this if the AI & map were quite as dreadful as you claim:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0hpgytfc23jwt ... 1.jpg?dl=0

By the way, got a couple of workarounds for the lack of a map scale (which I'd agree should certainly be there). If you're in-sector with your fleet, target the ship or station you're planning to attack to determine range & position your forces relative to your own ship. I normally fly towards the target until I'm around 20km from it, then give orders to my ships. Often these orders will be a fly to positioned around halfway between my ship & the target (i.e. just outside L Plasma turret range), then the attack order.

An alternative approach (which works both OOS & IS) is to have a ship in the fleet running Protect Position. Generally have my carriers (which are also my fleet command ships) running Protect Position with a 20km radius. It's handy to do this anyway (automates a good chunk of the responses my fleet makes), however also means if I need an estimate of approximate distances at the map's current zoom level all I need to do is click on one of my carriers & the outline of the Protect Position zone provides a scale for the map.

[sh1pman]

AI and UI can use some improvement, but remember, Egosoft is a small team, and there’s a ton of other stuff that needs to be prioritised first. Like fixing actual bugs, broken missions, making new assets for DLCs to keep the lights on. Fleet AI can seem really stupid sometimes, but after a while you just learn the ways and workarounds to make it do what you want.

[Raylak]

b) X4 uses scripts. When studied them understood more or less how the capital ships work. Make sure the pilot is not a noob, has full service crew of as high skill as the pilot, is in fleet with a better commander than him in formation ( anything but circle) and arrange the guns properly. Any gun with shorter range than the main guns should be on anything but Defend and Attack my current Enemy. Same applies to the drones if you use them.

So you are saying that a pilot needs training in order to follow basic instructions, 'follow me at maximum speed', 'Fire at the enemies', 'Don't fly into the wall of the spacestation'? Those should be basic things EVERY pilot knows how to do, yet apparently pilots and crew are random idiots off the street and the dumber the better. Build 4.0 apparently introduced even dumber AI for destroyers in particular where they will just turn around and try to get range if you are too close, so a player can just get close and they'll never even try to fire their main guns at you.

Trading AI is just as bad, I had a station that mass produces energy cells, 2 jumps away is a wharf and shipyard that usually wants 100k+ of them, my trader that can hold 43k is selling 200 to the station next to the power plant instead of going to the shipyard.

As for the 'WAH! Supercomputers would be needed!" 'counter argument' not really, games over a decade ago had AI that actually displayed basic logic for dozens or even hundreds of units at once. From what I can tell, Egosoft don't have a competent AI developer, probably because they are expensive, especially compared to that guy who wrote a script that one time that didn't explode. We aren't asking for sentient AI on every ship that makes player level decisions, we are asking for an AI that doesn't resemble lemmings.

[Raylak]

AI and UI can use some improvement, but remember, Egosoft is a small team, and there’s a ton of other stuff that needs to be prioritised first. Like fixing actual bugs, broken missions, making new assets for DLCs to keep the lights on. Fleet AI can seem really stupid sometimes, but after a while you just learn the ways and workarounds to make it do what you want.

Just NO, a dev should not be focusing ANY resources on DLC while core functionality is broken and players are having to actively fight against things not working. Accepting that behaviour from developers is shortsighted and will lead to the death of the X series, it will lead to a bunch of shoddy products being released with X slapped on them and only a relative handful of hardcore X fanboys buying them.

If they fix the core functionality, X would get more newer players actually playing, and even draw back in all those who wanted to play it but gave up because of so much of it being broken on earlier releases.

[SirConnery]

If they fix the core functionality, X would get more newer players actually playing, and even draw back in all those who wanted to play it but gave up because of so much of it being broken on earlier releases.

This sounds like it would be true. But most likely isn't. New features is what sells games.

Think about cell phone sales, which advertisement sells more phones "We fixed some bugs in our current phone, buy it now" or "LOOK IT'S THE NEW IPHONE 1000X, oh it barely works, oh well".

They need to keep making DLC to pay salaries to have a chance at fixing the existing bugs. It's not ideal but it is what it is.
----
But nevertheless I agree to a point. This is the most buggy game I've played in decades and the amount of bugs is certainly keeping quite a few players away.

Just on my first playthrough I had 2 main plot quests completely bug out and be undoable and had to load an earlier save.

[Meme Turtle]

b) X4 uses scripts. When studied them understood more or less how the capital ships work. Make sure the pilot is not a noob, has full service crew of as high skill as the pilot, is in fleet with a better commander than him in formation ( anything but circle) and arrange the guns properly. Any gun with shorter range than the main guns should be on anything but Defend and Attack my current Enemy. Same applies to the drones if you use them.

So you are saying that a pilot needs training in order to follow basic instructions, 'follow me at maximum speed', 'Fire at the enemies', 'Don't fly into the wall of the spacestation'? Those should be basic things EVERY pilot knows how to do, yet apparently pilots and crew are random idiots off the street and the dumber the better. Build 4.0 apparently introduced even dumber AI for destroyers in particular where they will just turn around and try to get range if you are too close, so a player can just get close and they'll never even try to fire their main guns at you.

Trading AI is just as bad, I had a station that mass produces energy cells, 2 jumps away is a wharf and shipyard that usually wants 100k+ of them, my trader that can hold 43k is selling 200 to the station next to the power plant instead of going to the shipyard.

As for the 'WAH! Supercomputers would be needed!" 'counter argument' not really, games over a decade ago had AI that actually displayed basic logic for dozens or even hundreds of units at once. From what I can tell, Egosoft don't have a competent AI developer, probably because they are expensive, especially compared to that guy who wrote a script that one time that didn't explode. We aren't asking for sentient AI on every ship that makes player level decisions, we are asking for an AI that doesn't resemble lemmings.

Someone at Egosoft had the most brilliant idea of having AI level influence AI's decision making as part of the RPG system. On paper it sounds great: 5 star veteran can act visibly in a more skilled manner than a fresh hire. The reality is a bit harsh:

• The various delay and range calculations influenced by NCP level are not clearly explained in the game. What some players perceive as bugs and bad programming is in fact a feature, which can only be fully realized after reading AI move/attack scripts.
• Poor balance with numbers leads to low level pilots showing bad performance. For example, moving too close to the station instead of staying at range. Couple that with the previous point and it further reinforces the idea that AI in X4 is dumb due to bad programming.
• Insane grind requirements to get those 4-5 star captains. Practically impossible without seminars and seminars require you to deviate from preferred playstyle(i.e. empire management or pirate overlord).
• Essential behaviors being locked behind levels prevent automation options like creating trade fleets to service player factories. You can have a fully self-sustaining economy and build ships but cannot have enough 3 star pilots for trade fleets?

All in all Egosoft should have done with NCP levels the same thing every single other game does instead of reinventing the wheel: provide stat boosts to ships/stations while keeping core AI behavior the same. Maybe less realistic but much more acceptable and well understood by all players.

[rusky]

Someone at Egosoft had the most brilliant idea of having AI level influence AI's decision making as part of the RPG system. On paper it sounds great: 5 star veteran can act visibly in a more skilled manner than a fresh hire. The reality is a bit harsh:

• The various delay and range calculations influenced by NCP level are not clearly explained in the game. What some players perceive as bugs and bad programming is in fact a feature, which can only be fully realized after reading AI move/attack scripts.
• Poor balance with numbers leads to low level pilots showing bad performance. For example, moving too close to the station instead of staying at range. Couple that with the previous point and it further reinforces the idea that AI in X4 is dumb due to bad programming.
• Insane grind requirements to get those 4-5 star captains. Practically impossible without seminars and seminars require you to deviate from preferred playstyle(i.e. empire management or pirate overlord).
• Essential behaviors being locked behind levels prevent automation options like creating trade fleets to service player factories. You can have a fully self-sustaining economy and build ships but cannot have enough 3 star pilots for trade fleets?

All in all Egosoft should have done with NCP levels the same thing every single other game does instead of reinventing the wheel: provide stat boosts to ships/stations while keeping core AI behavior the same. Maybe less realistic but much more acceptable and well understood by all players.

Agreed. After delving through some of the trade/fight/move etc ai scripts I found there is a very large amount of intentional "dumbing down" based on the "stars".
As you say, not only is this very poorly explained anywhere (yes, 0 star pilot bad, 5 star pilot good, everyone can tell but what does that even mean in practice ?), but the extent to which this affects various behaviours is far too great (of the recent things I looked at, the delay in acquiring targets between a 0 star pilot and a 5 star pilot is 1 minute, 0.5s for a 5star, 60.5s for a 0 star; that's enough for most people to assume their ships acting like bricks is a bug not a "feature").

I've personally taken to just playing with a cheat mod that makes all pilots 5 star all the time so I don't have to put up with the invisible dumbness baked in to various scripts, and I have to say I've suddenly been impressed to see my ships act, dare I say it, decently in most fights etc.

[Raylak]

Agreed. After delving through some of the trade/fight/move etc ai scripts I found there is a very large amount of intentional "dumbing down" based on the "stars".
As you say, not only is this very poorly explained anywhere (yes, 0 star pilot bad, 5 star pilot good, everyone can tell but what does that even mean in practice ?), but the extent to which this affects various behaviours is far too great (of the recent things I looked at, the delay in acquiring targets between a 0 star pilot and a 5 star pilot is 1 minute, 0.5s for a 5star, 60.5s for a 0 star; that's enough for most people to assume their ships acting like bricks is a bug not a "feature").

Seriously? I takes a 0 star 60 seconds to target something? A fight can be over in that time! As for the 'realism' aspect, firing solutions would be handled by an AI, hell the player's firing solution is calculated for him then the player just has to move the reticle to match! I could understand a 0 star missing and taking time to get a solid lock, but relative ship size should play a far bigger factor than pilot skill. Destroyer vs destroyer in head on fights has very little targeting skill required compared to two interceptors dog fighting.

If pilot skill is going to be such a major factor, then pilots should be far more manageable. We get a random pilot on each ship we produce. in the past 24h hours I've build well over 100 ships, does Egosoft really believe I should go to crew assignments, find a 3star+ whos currently service crew and move him over, then have to refill crew on my other ship, and then repeat this over a hundred times?! If they want to do this, we need training academies on stations to produce trained crew/pilots/etc and policies we can set about what pilot level to hire.

[A2G]

Agreed. After delving through some of the trade/fight/move etc ai scripts I found there is a very large amount of intentional "dumbing down" based on the "stars".
As you say, not only is this very poorly explained anywhere (yes, 0 star pilot bad, 5 star pilot good, everyone can tell but what does that even mean in practice ?), but the extent to which this affects various behaviours is far too great (of the recent things I looked at, the delay in acquiring targets between a 0 star pilot and a 5 star pilot is 1 minute, 0.5s for a 5star, 60.5s for a 0 star; that's enough for most people to assume their ships acting like bricks is a bug not a "feature").

Seriously? I takes a 0 star 60 seconds to target something? A fight can be over in that time! As for the 'realism' aspect, firing solutions would be handled by an AI, hell the player's firing solution is calculated for him then the player just has to move the reticle to match! I could understand a 0 star missing and taking time to get a solid lock, but relative ship size should play a far bigger factor than pilot skill. Destroyer vs destroyer in head on fights has very little targeting skill required compared to two interceptors dog fighting.

If pilot skill is going to be such a major factor, then pilots should be far more manageable. We get a random pilot on each ship we produce. in the past 24h hours I've build well over 100 ships, does Egosoft really believe I should go to crew assignments, find a 3star+ whos currently service crew and move him over, then have to refill crew on my other ship, and then repeat this over a hundred times?! If they want to do this, we need training academies on stations to produce trained crew/pilots/etc and policies we can set about what pilot level to hire.

If only it was intentionally stupid, then we could assign intent to it, a "feature", and perhaps the problem is a shit feature compounded by really really awful AI. Example: Using co-ord attack I set my destroyers to attack a station with aggression set to zero. The big bad station launched defense drones. And that was too much for my 5 star AI to ****** handle. What these 5 star genuises did, was target the defense drones, and boost into the stations guns. ****** awful code, straight up bad AI. So no it isn't just intentionally bad, it's just ****** bad.

Edit to add: Destroyers chasing defense drones into station guns, sums up the AI of X4 nicely.

[A2G]

it's plain impossible to move ships to relative positions.

Not my experience. While could definitely improved, it's certainly adequate for this sort of thing:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qta0be4bs0y2u ... 1.jpg?dl=0
This was phase 2 of an attack on a Xenon SPP. Most of the station modules on the side nearest my fleet had been eliminated at that point & needed to move my ships safely around it to demolish intact modules on the far side.

Furthermore, in my 3.0 Argon game I almost completely eradicated HOP from the universe using the same tactics - trashed every single HOP station & almost every ship. By the end of it all HOP had left was a handful of building sites in Faulty Logic VII. Let them keep those, it's a horrible sector to go to war in (full of mines). Doubt I'd have been able to do this if the AI & map were quite as dreadful as you claim:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0hpgytfc23jwt ... 1.jpg?dl=0

By the way, got a couple of workarounds for the lack of a map scale (which I'd agree should certainly be there). If you're in-sector with your fleet, target the ship or station you're planning to attack to determine range & position your forces relative to your own ship. I normally fly towards the target until I'm around 20km from it, then give orders to my ships. Often these orders will be a fly to positioned around halfway between my ship & the target (i.e. just outside L Plasma turret range), then the attack order.

An alternative approach (which works both OOS & IS) is to have a ship in the fleet running Protect Position. Generally have my carriers (which are also my fleet command ships) running Protect Position with a 20km radius. It's handy to do this anyway (automates a good chunk of the responses my fleet makes), however also means if I need an estimate of approximate distances at the map's current zoom level all I need to do is click on one of my carriers & the outline of the Protect Position zone provides a scale for the map.

Yeah the map is such an awesome tactical tool, i love the ability to manipulate units on the Z axis, how do you do that again? Oh yeah there isn't an up down on the sector plane, you get to **** around with your right mouse buttone, which is a camera orbiting a fixed point (and doing it badly). Sweet jesus.

Your Battle example, hey you do you, but it wasn't to my point, you moved a mass of ships from A to B to the target with fly and wait, and overwhelmed it when your fleet got into its range. My point was as to the utility of the interface, the map, it lacks the tools for anything other than point and click your ships on the enemy. As a tool it's awful.

[GCU Grey Area]

i love the ability to manipulate units on the Z axis, how do you do that again?

Typically I flip the map on it's side, adjust for altitude above or below ecliptic, then fan the ships out in an arc about 10km from the target, with the concave side towards the enemy. Doesn't take more than a few seconds to setup my fleet's firing line. Could be improved but what we've got is functional if a little clunky. Definitely prefer X4's approach with the queued orders system, default behaviours & attack/intercept/defend roles to the tools we had available in previous X games.

[Raylak]

i love the ability to manipulate units on the Z axis, how do you do that again?

Typically I flip the map on it's side, adjust for altitude above or below ecliptic, then fan the ships out in an arc about 10km from the target, with the concave side towards the enemy. Doesn't take more than a few seconds to setup my fleet's firing line. Could be improved but what we've got is functional if a little clunky. Definitely prefer X4's approach with the queued orders system, default behaviours & attack/intercept/defend roles to the tools we had available in previous X games.

Firstly, there is no way you are manually setting up a firing line of multiple ships or fleets within 'a few seconds'.

Second, it shouldn't be necessary to manually position a firing line as that should be the default AI attack method for capital ships. Destroyers and up should be dropping out of cruise just outside their main battery range and drifting just inside range, then holding position or strafing while firing on the target. Not dropping out within spitting distance and drifting past, then having to turn around only to get wasted before they can fire their main guns.

The downright disgraceful AI, though I'm tempted to start calling it AS for Artificial Stupidity, is just a joke so the player has to either solo, micromanage their fleet, bring overwhelming odds and hope for the best. The tools the player has to micromanage a fleet battle are at best poor, but mostly woefully inadequate, especially in any sort of larger fight. the map just becomes a jumbled cluster of ship icons overlapping as they collide into each other in real space and half of the tools immediately cease to do their role, such as formations in fleets. Formations are almost utterly meaningless as a fleet never enters cruise in a coordinated manner, despite many many space fighter games having this function in the past, and once a fleet starts fighting they ignore any formations anyway.

[rusky]

Destroyers and up should be dropping out of cruise just outside their main battery range and drifting just inside range, then holding position or strafing while firing on the target. 

That's pretty much the behaviour I'm seeing with 5 star pilots on the latest beta.

Still need some manual positioning though since the wrecks of the station modules can prevent them from fully destroying a station if you attack from only one side.

[GCU Grey Area]

Firstly, there is no way you are manually setting up a firing line of multiple ships or fleets within 'a few seconds'.

Never actually timed it, however never takes long to shift-select my destroyers, give them all a fly to at ~10km from the target, followed by the attack order, then moving the fly to orders to set up the firing line. Most of the time altitude adjustment is not needed (generally only for defence platforms which may have been hidden a significant distance above/below ecliptic), but even that extra step doesn't take long.

Second, it shouldn't be necessary to manually position a firing line as that should be the default AI attack method for capital ships. Destroyers and up should be dropping out of cruise just outside their main battery range and drifting just inside range, then holding position or strafing while firing on the target. Not dropping out within spitting distance and drifting past, then having to turn around only to get wasted before they can fire their main guns.

Ah I see - presumably you just want to be able to click on a station & it's blown up without needing any further input from the player. Would find that a bit dull personally. I rather enjoy the tactical element of setting up my forces to attack a station, deciding on the optimal approach direction, moving my ships around to give them a clear shot at intact modules, etc. Frankly not sure I'd want this automated & for enemy stations to be destroyed with a single mouse click.

The downright disgraceful AI, though I'm tempted to start calling it AS for Artificial Stupidity, is just a joke so the player has to either solo, micromanage their fleet, bring overwhelming odds and hope for the best. The tools the player has to micromanage a fleet battle are at best poor, but mostly woefully inadequate, especially in any sort of larger fight. the map just becomes a jumbled cluster of ship icons overlapping as they collide into each other in real space and half of the tools immediately cease to do their role, such as formations in fleets. Formations are almost utterly meaningless as a fleet never enters cruise in a coordinated manner, despite many many space fighter games having this function in the past, and once a fleet starts fighting they ignore any formations anyway.

Recommend using better trained pilots - it does make a difference, particularly for capital ships. For fleet battles can also recommend using Protect Position as default behaviour for the command ship. Generally have my destroyers assigned as an Attack group, along with around 1/3 of the fighters aboard the carrier. Remaining fighters are given the Intercept role. For example, this is the fleet structure I'm using in my current game:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9vnbelfrzftxl ... 1.jpg?dl=0
Playing the game this way minimises micromanagement of fleets. As soon as an enemy ship enters the Protect Position zone the command carrier automatically gives the destroyers Attack orders. They are backed up by the Attack fighters which are essentially there to provide a distraction, drawing turret fire & preventing the enemy from using travel drive. Meanwhile the Interceptors guard the Attack fighters from enemy fighters. Works well for gate defence, though I also use this approach aggressively by dragging the Protect Position icon towards enemy fleets. Obviously can also give explicit orders to the fleet as a whole, or individual elements, as needed.