Help commanding fleet fighters

[Vheissu]

Is there a way to have subordinate fighters automatically undock when in combat and dock when out of combat?

I have my fighters set to "Attack" under behaviour. They will only dock if I go into the fleet loadout tab and toggle them to "docked". If I toggle them to "launched", they immediately take off, regardless of whether I am in combat or not. The fighters do not dock again until I go back into the loadout menu and toggle them back to "docked".

Is there some other setting that needs to be changed, and if so, where can it be found?

Please explain things to me as if I am a complete moron.

[KextV8]

Only if their immediate boss is a carrier.

[jan12342203]

Set them to Defence then they will undock if the host/mother ship will be attacked
Set them to Intercept then they will undock and attack when an enemy ship comes in their radar range.
When you set them to Attack they will only attack when the leader attacks an enemy.

[Thomas2052]

Fighters will only automatically undock and Dock on a carrier class ship (all xl except for the Boron L Guppy)

All other ships, they will 'escort' - fly next to in formation.

The 'attack' command will only cause them to attack any target the commanding ship engages.

'Defend' Command will make them attack anything that hits the commanding ship.

'Intercept' will get them to attack any enemy M or S ship in range, whilst 'Bombard' will do the same but for L and XL ships (and stations too I think)

Hope that helps.

[Vheissu]

Thanks all, that does help a lot.

If you hadn't said so, I would just have assumed the function didn't exist or was broken and never tried it once I got a carrier.

[Vheissu]

Something I noticed while trying to figure this out - retrieving a second ship from the internal storage of a corvette isn't working for me. It just brings up the last ship to dock repeatedly and the other one is stuck inside the ship. What could be causing this?

[Thomas2052]

Something I noticed while trying to figure this out - retrieving a second ship from the internal storage of a corvette isn't working for me. It just brings up the last ship to dock repeatedly and the other one is stuck inside the ship. What could be causing this?

Is it a frigate, with an S Landing pad? If so, do you already have something else parked on the pad that might be blocking it's retrieval?

Regards

[Vheissu]

Yes and yes!

I gather the other ship has to take off then?

[Thomas2052]

Will need to clear the pad, I'm afraid - give the current ship on the pad a fly to order or otherwise get it out of the way. Then you can retrieve the internal ship.

Only limitation with filling ship hangers and pads to capacity.

Carriers also (used to at least, haven't checked since 6.0) do this annoying thing where ships would constantly switch in and out like a weird game of whackamole.

Regards

[Eyeklops]

'Intercept' will get them to attack any enemy L or S ship in range, whilst 'Bombard' will do the same but for L and XL ships (and stations too I think)

Did you mean to say "M or S"?

[Thomas2052]

'Intercept' will get them to attack any enemy L or S ship in range, whilst 'Bombard' will do the same but for L and XL ships (and stations too I think)

Did you mean to say "M or S"?

Fixed. Thanks for the spot.