Wingmen question

[Cursed Ghost]

Hi all

So quick question how exactly does one go about using wingmen? because it seems to me that the game lacks the necessary commands to make wingmen useful.

So I installed the cheat script in to x2 spawned a khaak m2 and a few khaak m3s I set the khaak m3s as wingmen and home base them to the khaak m2 trouble is when I go to the wingmen commands there is no command to tell the wingmen to attack the same target as the group leader in this case the khaak m2

It seems to me that setting ships as wingmen is completely pointless as I get the same set of commands regardless of whether I go to broadcast to all m3 ships in sector or broadcast to all wingmen.

There are no wingmen specific commands like for example attack group leaders target. I though the whole idea of wingmen was so that you can set up combat groups to make fleet control easier. so for example I home base a bunch of fighters to a larger ship like a destroyer and then when I give an order to the destroyer the destroyers wingmen will get the same command and therefore the whole group acts as a single unit without me having to micro manage everything because the lack of this makes fleet engagements all but impossible even in the later games where the fleet command and control is somewhat improved over the earlier games.

I has assumed that if I set ships as wingmen and then went to wingmen commands and did attack all enemies command that the wingmen would all stay together as a group and focus fire one target at a time till its destroyed before moving on to the next but they don’t they behave exactly the same as if I'd just done

broadcast to all m3s in sector > attack all enemies.

they scatter all over the place all engaging different targets which is stupid and inefficient, I know I could handle this manually by commanding the group to attack a specific target till its destroyed before ordering them to attack a new target but that is tedious as hell and interferes with my ability to do other things while my fighter group takes care of the enemy presence I should be able to automate this, so why can't I get my ships to behave in the same way as khaak clusters do aka engaging a single target at a time as a group till its destroyed.

clearly the desired behaviour must be possible as khaak clusters demonstrate the correct behaviour for a fighter wing yet I can't find a way to get my fighter groups to behave in the same way. due to the lack of the necessary commands so what command are khaak clusters running and why isn't that available to the player so that we can make are fighter wings behave as expected.

[jlehtone]

X2?

FAQ https://www.egosoft.com/support/faq/faq ... &version=4 says that Fight Mk2 adds some commands.

There is "Attack my target". Fly the leader ship. Order another ship(s) to attack your target.
Jump out of the ship. Check what the ships do. IIRC, they continue to attack the target of the lead ship.
Now give the leader a target (with "Attack ...") and see what the whole wing does.

I get the same set of commands regardless of whether I go to broadcast to all m3 ships in sector or broadcast to all wingmen.

Yes. The "wingmen" is a filter to send the command only to the ships that have the wingman flag. About who does, not what.

[Cursed Ghost]

hi

I think you might misunderstand my query so I'll try to be a bit more clear.

what I'd like to be able to do is assign a bunch of fighters to a ship that I'm not flying then have the whole group roam the sector attacking all enemies as a group with all ships in the group attacking the same target allowing for the fast and efficient destruction of enemies.

the problem is the attack my target command only works on the ship the player is flying so its of no use for my purposes, the protect target command is also of no use because the protect command will only activate when the protection target is attacked the attack all enemies command is also useless because ships don't stay together as a group attacking the same target.

ok so here is a quick scenario for you lets say I'm in khaak space I have 60 fighters I want them to roam the sector in 3 groups of 20 with each group of 20 attacking a single target till its destroyed and then moving on to a new target automatically without any further input from me, and if I need to change order I should only need to give 1 order to each of the 3 group leaders.

to the best of my knowlage this scenario is not possible even with the basic patrol commands from the bonus pack or if it is I can't figure out how to get this to work because I've tried setting 1 ship to attack all enemies and then setting the other ships to protect that ship but to be honest this just doesn't work very well due to the way the protect command works.

I can do broadcast to all m3 ships > attack target and while that will result in the entire group swarming the target I have to continually designate targets which is tedious as hell and interferes with my ability to do other stuff.

if I do broadcast to all m3 ships > attack my target again that interferes with my ability to do other stuff like scanning asteroids because I have to keep the target I want destroyed selected not only that but I have to continually designate targets by selecting a new target so again that just isn't going to work

what I really need to be able to do is set 1 ship to attack all enemies and then assign the supporting ships to attack the same target as the leader, this would work in a similar way to what it would if you set 1 ship to attack all enemies and then set the supporting craft to protect the lead ship however instead of waiting for the leader to get attacked before engaging the supporting craft would engage immediately.

[jlehtone]

First, I have not used X2 in 20 years. I have forgoten. A lot.
I was able to start the game and load an old save.

I see a Centaur "A" running Sector Patrol. I see another Centaur "B" escorting it. Its active command is "Attack target of A". Whether it was the sector patrol or manually given order, the B will clearly target whatever the A targets; they will attack together.

the problem is the attack my target command only works on the ship the player is flying

Yes and no. IIRC, in both X2 and X3s, if you fly A and tell B to "Attack my target", then B will "Attack target of A" and it will continue to do so even after you switch to fly some other ship. Yes, the initial setup is inconvenient since you have to hop into each "wing leader" to issue the orders. Initially. When the wing is set up, it keeps rocking.

I do recall that one of the later X3s did add option to set up such wings without visiting each formation leader.

Anyway, the "my" does not refer to you, it refers to the ship that you did fly when you did issue the order.


I do play X4 now. In X2 and X3, if I configured the turrets of ship C to "Attack my target" (whether I did fly C or not), and then told C to attack X, then the turrets did shoot at X. I was shocked in X4, when I did issue those turret commands. I told (pilot of) C to attack X, but the turrets did not shoot at X. I was in another ship and did target Y. At that point turrets of C -- well, all turrets with "Attack my target" order -- did start to shoot at Y (if possible). This never did happen in X2 or X3.


One more thing. The "Wingmen" are specifically the ships that have been assigned as "wingmen". Your other ships that escort other ships are not wingmen. The "wingmen", "docked ships", "ships in sector" are filters that select whom you send orders to.


I saw also "Attack nearest ..." command in the game. When B runs "Attack nearest of A", it should provide close support for A, although not necessarily target the same foe as A.

[Cursed Ghost]

I still don't see how you are supposed to get this to work in the expected fashion, even with the patrol command scripts from the bonus pack.

maybe I'm just missing something obvious but so far as I can tell there is no way to make my fighter wings do what I want them to do, which in this case is to fly round in a group destroying all enemies in the sector with each member of the group attacking the same target, without waiting for the group leader to be attacked, additionally I want to be able to set any ship as group leader which is something I can't do with the patrol command scripts.

lets say you have 10 fighters if you tell them to attack all enemies they wont stay together as a group and wont attack the same target

if I set one of the fighters to attack all enemies then there is no way to tell the other 9 to attack the same target as the one I set to attack all enemies, I suppose I could try getting into one of the ships and then tell the other 9 to attack my target and then switch back to my previous ship but isn't that just going to make the other 9 attack the target of the ship that I'm currently flying rather then attacking the target of the group leader?

another issue I see with this is even if it does work how would you get them to go to another sector after setting stuff up lets say that I set this up in argon prime how would I then get each group to go to khaak space I would have to set this up in khaak space which is something that's not really possible given the unlimited spawns not to mention the fact that its completely impossible to add more ships to replace losses not without a shed load of messing around.

ultimately this completely defeats the whole purpose of trying this in the first place which is to have all my ships to handle the spawns with out intervention from me so I'm free to do other stuff as far as I can tell this whole thing is totally unworkable.

[jlehtone]

I suppose I could try getting into one of the ships and then tell the other 9 to attack my target and then switch back to my previous ship but isn't that just going to make the other 9 attack the target of the ship that I'm currently flying rather then attacking the target of the group leader?

You can get answer to that question yourself. Make that setup and then test it. Then you will know which way it goes.

another issue I see with this is even if it does work how would you get them to go to another sector

For regular sectors that should be no issue. You order the leader of the formation to fly somewhere and the others will follow.

However, the Kha'ak sectors do not have Gates, do they? One has to use jumpdrive to get there? Can one even tell an another ship to jump there?

If one can, then the followup question is:
if every ship in formation has jumpdrives and the leader jumps somewhere, will the others jump too, or fly conventionally?
(I cannot remember the answer, but that too is something that you can test.)

If the ships are fighters, then there may be an another possibility. If the leader is told to dock, will the followers dock too?
If they do, then the whole formation can dock into Carrier and the followers will keep their "Attack target of leader" order.
In that case you could use Carrier(s) to haul the fighter wings into Kha'ak sector.

... a shed load of messing around.

Most likely.

I did visit Kha'ak sector in X3R. There was messing around, although X3R had more fleet control options than X2. I posted that tale ages ago: viewtopic.php?t=194631
Alas, the image repo is gone. I did found one of them: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zk9cmb ... sp=sharing