Intelligent escort?

[Axeface]

Im having real problems using a Wing, to the point where Im starting to think it's better to just go solo. Its like herding cats.
There are 2 terms being used by the game, Protect and Escort, but I think they might be the same setting? 'Following' ships also attack enemies, but its hard to gauge exactly what they are doing.
What I want for example is to set a fighter to protect my Osprey - to only attack something that attacks me, not run off and attack a station because its in radar range. It would be really nice if he would dock at me too once the fighting is over. Is there any way to set this up?

Can you add tooltips that specifically state exactly what a ship is going to do in each behavior?

[morbideth]

Im having real problems using a Wing, to the point where Im starting to think it's better to just go solo. Its like herding cats.
There are 2 terms being used by the game, Protect and Escort, but I think they might be the same setting? 'Following' ships also attack enemies, but its hard to gauge exactly what they are doing.
What I want for example is to set a fighter to protect my Osprey - to only attack something that attacks me, not run off and attack a station because its in radar range. It would be really nice if he would dock at me too once the fighting is over. Is there any way to set this up?

Can you add tooltips that specifically state exactly what a ship is going to do in each behavior?

Sure!
Follow: Act derpy while occasionally annoying you with chatter.
Attack: Fly in circle around target until suiciding.
Protect: Suicide in this general area
Escort: Act derpy with suicidal tendencys.
Defend: Watch while this get blown up.
Patrol: Find someone to kill you.

Hope that helps!

[mr.WHO]

Im having real problems using a Wing, to the point where Im starting to think it's better to just go solo. Its like herding cats.
There are 2 terms being used by the game, Protect and Escort, but I think they might be the same setting? 'Following' ships also attack enemies, but its hard to gauge exactly what they are doing.
What I want for example is to set a fighter to protect my Osprey - to only attack something that attacks me, not run off and attack a station because its in radar range. It would be really nice if he would dock at me too once the fighting is over. Is there any way to set this up?

Can you add tooltips that specifically state exactly what a ship is going to do in each behavior?

Sure!
Follow: Act derpy while occasionally annoying you with chatter.
Attack: Fly in circle around target until suiciding.
Protect: Suicide in this general area
Escort: Act derpy with suicidal tendencys.
Defend: Watch while this get blown up.
Patrol: Find someone to kill you.

Hope that helps!

That made me laugh. What is with this forum today? I already laughed several times in like past 20 minutes reading this forum.

[Requiemfang]

Im having real problems using a Wing, to the point where Im starting to think it's better to just go solo. Its like herding cats.
There are 2 terms being used by the game, Protect and Escort, but I think they might be the same setting? 'Following' ships also attack enemies, but its hard to gauge exactly what they are doing.
What I want for example is to set a fighter to protect my Osprey - to only attack something that attacks me, not run off and attack a station because its in radar range. It would be really nice if he would dock at me too once the fighting is over. Is there any way to set this up?

Can you add tooltips that specifically state exactly what a ship is going to do in each behavior?

Sure!
Follow: Act derpy while occasionally annoying you with chatter.
Attack: Fly in circle around target until suiciding.
Protect: Suicide in this general area
Escort: Act derpy with suicidal tendencys.
Defend: Watch while this get blown up.
Patrol: Find someone to kill you.

Hope that helps!

That made me laugh. What is with this forum today? I already laughed several times in like past 20 minutes reading this forum.

Your not the only one, it's like people have been infected with a funny sarcastic sickness

[geneherr]

I would like to know the answer to this question as well

[Baldamundo]

Particularly interested in how docking works with this. If I set up a wing, and tell the lead ship to dock, it seems like the other ships just hang around waiting. So I resort to selecting all ships and telling them to dock. But then it seems like I have to manually tell them all to undock because they won't follow the lead ship's orders. So it starts to defeat the whole point of bothering with a wing. Am I missing something?

[Frostedawg]

Wings and escorts are not working. When i tell fighters to escort trade ships they fly straight to the trade ships destination instead of following/ protecting the trade ship. It is almost impossible to control wing men. An easy to access wing man menu might be in order (unless there is and i have not found it yet). Also if fighters escorting a larger ship that they can land on could dock unless needed. Another thing that would be nice is if crew of the large ships (like carriers) could fix landed S ships.

[DnBrn47]

Im having real problems using a Wing, to the point where Im starting to think it's better to just go solo. Its like herding cats.
There are 2 terms being used by the game, Protect and Escort, but I think they might be the same setting? 'Following' ships also attack enemies, but its hard to gauge exactly what they are doing.
What I want for example is to set a fighter to protect my Osprey - to only attack something that attacks me, not run off and attack a station because its in radar range. It would be really nice if he would dock at me too once the fighting is over. Is there any way to set this up?

Can you add tooltips that specifically state exactly what a ship is going to do in each behavior?

Sure!
Follow: Act derpy while occasionally annoying you with chatter.
Attack: Fly in circle around target until suiciding.
Protect: Suicide in this general area
Escort: Act derpy with suicidal tendencys.
Defend: Watch while this get blown up.
Patrol: Find someone to kill you.

Hope that helps!

Accurate.

Try setting an escort to an auto trader too. "Nah guys, go on ahead to the next station, I'll be there, promise." "K."

[Axeface]

I just had the most ridiculous thing happen semi related to escorts.
I was tired of the escorts just not working, so I just put the entire wing on a patrol in Inanamus Zura, I get a message about a ship under attack about 20 minutes later, the whole wing had followed a Xenon ship into Matrix, and was under attack by an entier fleet.... lost the entire wing............. so stupid. How does patrol this sector = "chase down enemies to the ends of the earth?" Im just going to have to put this game down for while before I really lose it.

[radcapricorn]

Not really escorts, but this reminded me of that one.

[Osbot]

Particularly interested in how docking works with this. If I set up a wing, and tell the lead ship to dock, it seems like the other ships just hang around waiting. So I resort to selecting all ships and telling them to dock. But then it seems like I have to manually tell them all to undock because they won't follow the lead ship's orders. So it starts to defeat the whole point of bothering with a wing. Am I missing something?

Create your fighter wing. Do not attach it via defend to the mother ship. Collapse the wing, so that you only see the lead ship. Clicking on that wing, when you only see the lead ship in the list, should select the entire wing. Now order them to dock. Or, do the same to order them to attack. This SHOULD work.

You might also want to play around with setting protect as the default behavior, and then giving them a dock order. I'm not sure if they will all dock and stay docked, or all launch whenever you try go to travel mode, or jump gate or whatever. If they dock, and stay docked, they will not protect the mothership until you order them out, at least I don't think they will.

[Lakz]

This is driving me nuts. How/why are ships randomly assigned to protect or escort?! Escorting seems to mostly work as intended. "Protect" however is ridiculous. Ships lag behind the target, start and stop randomly to catch up.

In X3, escorts would automatically stay docked on the mothership if space was available. When the mothership was engaged, the escort would undock, fight, and dock again. I miss that.

Fleet management need some serious work, or a mod.

[Dreamora]

Particularly interested in how docking works with this. If I set up a wing, and tell the lead ship to dock, it seems like the other ships just hang around waiting. So I resort to selecting all ships and telling them to dock. But then it seems like I have to manually tell them all to undock because they won't follow the lead ship's orders. So it starts to defeat the whole point of bothering with a wing. Am I missing something?

I am having the same issues.

My destroyer has 8 escorts, and its hell trying to move the destroyer because he launches all the fighters when entering a sector, then recalls them to jump through a gate then launches them again... Instead of just docking them until engaging in combat. I also assigned a wing-man to each fighter so they are using the buddy system... the wing-man never dock, and they don't really do much in combat either.

[Dreamora]

I was just thinking about the easiest way to solve this, instead of the commanding ship issuing orders as "default" orders, they should just issue standing orders and once those are complete the subs resort to what you set as default. AKA dock and wait @ carrier. then the commander can issue attack orders or what ever but once they are complete they will go back to what they are supposed to be doing instead of following or going idle.

[Solflame]

1.5 is hopefully fixing this, according to the patch notes. Check the devnet thread.

[Axeface]

1.5 is hopefully fixing this, according to the patch notes. Check the devnet thread.

Its just fixing the lagging behind issue which was the least of my problems and not what the OP was about. I dont see any changes to how the 'stances' actually work?

[stimdealer]

Reading back on this thread. The only real issue I've had so far, besides the ships lagging behind, is the ships following Xenon or whichever enemy ALL the way back to their space and getting shrekt by a red fleet on the other side of the gate. I lost two fighter squadrons that way, because they all just trickled into the 'red' system and were picked off.

AI definitely needs to be adjusted to prevent NPC ships from jumping gates after a target at all, especially when using any protect orders. Can't protect if you're no longer in system!

[Solflame]

Would definitely like to see a difference between "Attack Enemies In Sector" and "Protect Sector".

[Arze]

If you want to have proper control over your ships, do not make them into wings. The leader will fill their order lists with infinite amounts of wait here: I would kill an officer that told me every minute wait here... wait here, wait here, wait here, wait here. I just keep a wing of 4 Novas in sectors relatively central only allow my ships to trade 2-3 jumps and I just manually sick em on enemies at the moment.