Multiple Sector Patrols - How do they actually fly their routes?

[spoidz]

I read through seven pages of search on Patrols+jump and didn't find much help?

I'm trying to finally set up some substantial multi-sector patrols and need some basic answers on how they fly their routes. I'm using Group Management Software to keep the wingmen with the leader. Giving only the leader the patrol command.

1)If I want to patrol several sectors can I set one on each end of a loop and not give them jump drives to make them drive through the middle?

2)If they have jump drives on that same loop will they just jump direct to the ends or jump/drive each sector in the middle?

3)If I set a long loop with every sector listed + jumpdrives, what do they do at the last sector, Jump back through every sector, drive back, or jump back to the first sector loaded?

4)Do patrols act like UT's and take shortest route even if not on list? I lost a whole patrol because it wanted to drive through a Zenon sector instead of Jump over it.

Thanks if anyone has the answers

[pjknibbs]

The answer to all your questions is the same, as far as I know--patrols do not use jumpdrives, ever.

[spoidz]

Thanks,

Guess I'll just have to set some creative routes then.

[KipperTheFish]

If you really want to protect a sector, using the patrol multi sector command isn't much use. He can get hung up in one sector for hours chasing down a Harrier while all the other sectors get blasted back to the stoneage.
Patrol single sector needs more ships, but it actually gets the job done.

[JMCorp]

If you really want to protect a sector, using the patrol multi sector command isn't much use. He can get hung up in one sector for hours chasing down a Harrier while all the other sectors get blasted back to the stoneage.
Patrol single sector needs more ships, but it actually gets the job done.

this is pretty accurate. but the multi-sector patrol commands can be useful.

to answer your question lets say you set a ship to patrol three sectors.

farnham's legend, bala-gi's joystick, and olman's treaty.

he will fly them in order you put them in the list forward and then backward. so say you start him in farnham

he goes:
farnham
bala
olman
bala
farnham
bala
olman
etc.

but lets say you tell him to patrol farhham's and split fire.

he will patrol farnham, fly through elena's fortune without attacking anything, potentially flying right by pirates or whatever, and then patrol split fire. then he'll fly right through elen'as without looking for something to kill again, and then patrol farnham again.

i believe if he gets attacked in elena's he will defend himself though.

[spoidz]

Thanks again,

Yes that's probably why I lost a 5-man M6 patrol to Xenon 598, they "sightsee'd" through it to get to the other side w/o attacking anything till too late to survive.

The M6 were Apricot so they had plenty to fight with.

[Carl Sumner]

I'm trying to finally set up some substantial multi-sector patrols and need some basic answers on how they fly their routes. I'm using Group Management Software to keep the wingmen with the leader. Giving only the leader the patrol command.

Don't use other advanced commands on the wingmen for a Patrol leader. It will be erased automatically, but might leave behind stuff that interferes with the automatic commands.

Give them "Protect" commands on the leader ship. When the leader is given the Patrol command it will automatically set the wingmen up as needed.

Patrol ships do not use jumpdrive, but if they have one you can give a jump command and they will jump with the wingmen (if they all have jumpdrives and ecells enough). Then you can re-start Patrol, or give a single sector patrol command temporarily. The sector list will be remembered when you start multi-sector Patrol again.

The Multi-Sector Patrol will fly to the approximate center of the listed sectors, scanning and checking for reports of enemies by other of your ships. It will attack the larger enemy ships first.

Single Sector Patrol goes between the 4 waypoints you set, in that sector.

They do not seem to use "Missile defense mosquito", but I think they do use other missiles even when you are out of sector. Wasps are good.

The Patrol command is smarter than the simple fight commands, but still uses the same "attack enemy" code once engaged. So it can get "fixated" sometimes. But it is still much better than "attack all".

[spoidz]

Carl,

Don't use other advanced commands on the wingmen for a Patrol leader. It will be erased automatically, but might leave behind stuff that interferes with the automatic commands.

I'm not sure what you want me to be aware of there? Are you saying you can't patrol with a Group set with GMS? What was the GMS built for then, only player ship?

What I did was establish the GMS group and then gave the Lead the Patrol Multiple Sectors. I assumed the Wingmen were going to simply run protect leader under GMS, and not getting any commands from Lead's patrol settings. I didn't add any other patrol commands to the wingmen in the group.

Make sense? or is there some conflict that I don't know about?

Are you saying you can only have manual "protect ship" wingmen to set up a multi-ship patrol?

[Sandalpocalypse]

GMS is for more dynamic things than patrols... fighting, carrier fighter groups, etc.. I think the problem with it is that it likes to reset commands which may interfere with the patrol script. I haven't tested it myself.

Also 6 M6s going into a major xenon sector OOS are going to get squished no matter what their AI does :]