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Marlin
December 26th, 2009, 01:03
I have a pretty basic question I think.

How in the world (outerspace) do you get a wing to actually follow you without doing circles around you?

I hate it when they smash into things like, ME and kill us all.

Can you hire pilots to fly them?
I have the MK1 and MK2 software installed in every bird in the wing (3 now 2), but that doesn't really help with this problem unless I don't have the "wingman" setting right.

What formation is best?
Should I include myself in the wing?
Which guy should be the wingman if any?

Any suggestions would be great.

Lionheart
December 26th, 2009, 01:44
This has really been a problem for me too.

I assumed they had pilots in them though. How would one find out if it does have a pilot or if its in drone mode?

I would like to have ships follow me, but they keep running into me so I quit doing it... The new script 'Jump to Me' will at least have a ship jump to your location, then pull up near you, within about 2 clicks, which will allow you to beam over as well (range of 5 clicks).

gigabyte
December 26th, 2009, 06:09
This has really been a problem for me too.

I assumed they had pilots in them though. How would one find out if it does have a pilot or if its in drone mode?

I would like to have ships follow me, but they keep running into me so I quit doing it... The new script 'Jump to Me' will at least have a ship jump to your location, then pull up near you, within about 2 clicks, which will allow you to beam over as well (range of 5 clicks).

This is an AI issue with X3 and has been there since the beginning I believe, I am not sure the developer did not plan the AI to have Brain Farts just to make sure the Human player has an advantage. As far as formations I have found the Line formation is best to keep the wingmen from crashing into me and of course you have to refrain from coming to a stop they hate it when you do that.

Marlin the best way I have found to control Wings and to keep them from being terminally stupid, is instead of commanding them to follow me (I always use a Wing and Wing Command rather than commanding each ship that takes way to much time) I command the wing to navigate to a specific place, a station, sector, or Move to Position, and I then follow one of the ships. This works well on several levels I am able to see what is approaching the wing and I know when to tell them to attack and I can see frontal attacks rather well. I can always break away to claim a ship or some salvage and catch up when I am finished - You always have a speed advantage over the ships in a wing they never go at full throttle. The other nice thing with this approach is you can spot danger ahead like an asteroid field and have time to change the orders for the wing to move around it if the asteroids are think (use Move to Position command).

There is one other strategy I used for awhile, I would command a single ship to navigate to a location, and then command other ships to follow that one. Sometimes I even did the Train thing by commanding one ship to follow the leader then a ship to follow the second and so on, this is interesting in a quiet sector and you can line up quite a few ships and command them all by giving orders to the leader. The only problem is if the leader gets blown away or has a Navigation Brain Fart you loose control so you have to locate the second and issue a new navigation command. I found that it was good practice to learn menu and command navigation but waaayy to much trouble to be practical for constant use, Wings are much better.

I am sure there are many other stratigies this is just what has worked for me, and you need to play with the formations yourself dependign on what you are doing, the Line Formation is great for attacks but really sucks when going through an Asteroid Field or heavy traffic lane.

Also keep in mind the Stop and Idle Commands they are handy when you want to look around and also keep your wing handy, just be careful with Idle, they will move around some and can get real stupid if they are close to anything.

Hope this helps.

gigabyte
December 26th, 2009, 06:18
This has really been a problem for me too.

I assumed they had pilots in them though. How would one find out if it does have a pilot or if its in drone mode?

I would like to have ships follow me, but they keep running into me so I quit doing it... .

Bill just select a ship and touch the "u" key you will get the full ship information screen and at the top it will list the pilot name if it is your name the ship in on AI under your guidance. The only time I have found my own ships to have seperate pilots is when I send them on a trading mission then I see weird Pilot names in the ship summery, I suspect it wil be the same if I send a wing to "Patrol" or "Map" a sector I just do not recall checking.

Regarding having ships follow you, I sometimes have one or two follow me, never more than two - never underestimate the power of large groups of stupid people (or space ships). I find the "Dumb" factor increases exponentially with any number larger than two.

gigabyte
December 26th, 2009, 06:25
A couple of other tips on Wings and Wing Commands, if you order a Wing to Dock at a station or Carrier, be patient for some reason they take forever and sometimes there will be one that just never seems to get docked - never a good idea to send the wing to dock at a station for protection during a battle, they take way too long and I have never seen one survie an attack while attempting to dock, you are better off to send them into battle or navigate them out of the sector on auto pilot.

If you are taking a wing into battle always remember to issue turret commands to Protect Ship or Attack enemy etc, the turrets will not automatically engage if you don't tell them to get to work in the first place.

GT182
December 26th, 2009, 09:48
Mike is there a way to automatically have them attack using turrets and not have to issue commands to protect or attack the enemy?

Marlin
December 26th, 2009, 09:56
Thank you for the tips Gigabyte.

You are correct when you were thinking that I was using the ‘Protect Me’ and ‘Follow Me’ commands.

Last night after entering a sector I scored a freighter and another fighter. This brings my total ships up to 3 now. It was really busy and I didn’t want to lose that freighter so I attached my zenon L(?) to protect the freighter and the other one to follow the freighter beings it has no guns yet.
From what I saw they seemed to get along a lot better.

I guess it is easier for AI to be around AI beings that humans are so erratic lol.

I like that idea of sending the wing to, “right over there” and then following them. It is easy to get to the ‘protect me’ command. I have so far got into the habit of hitting the ‘.’ (sector map) button then click on the Blue wing gizmo, then the basic commands come up. (stop, follow, protect)

With one of the software packages you can tell your wingman or wing to ‘target my target’ but am not sure if doing what I described above will trump the ‘target my target’ or not. I hope not, because those zenon have a habit of going out then eventually going back to their pack which means your AI will get smoked.

Good hint about the turrets too. You can assign your turrets on your different weapons groups too. I have my Skates turrets OFF on group 1 and on on all the rest of them. This way if I fly by a pirate base and don’t want to engage in battle I can. But otherwise the turrets will open fire and results can be death for a stupid mistake.

Another good tip might be to have your rear turret set to guard against incoming missiles. Again I’m not sure that this isn’t taken care of by having it set to ‘protect.’ I’m still so new and have so much to learn.

gigabyte
December 26th, 2009, 09:57
Mike is there a way to automatically have them attack using turrets and not have to issue commands to protect or attack the enemy?

If I understand what you mean yes, all you have to do is set up the commands you want before you begin any journey, go to the wing commands menu and select Turrent Commands and then "Protect Ship" and they will be manned and ready so if they are attacked they respond without you having to issue new orders. The Turrent Commands are seperate from the ship commands so if the ships are cruising along and no one attacks the gunners just sit there, however if you order the wing to battle they will be ready as soon as their ships engages. I think the only real limitation to issuing orders to the turrets in advance is if you want them to target a specific enemy you will have to issue that order when the enemy is in range and then issue a Protect Ship when the enemy has been taken care of.

GT182
December 26th, 2009, 10:12
Beautiful... thanks Marlin and Mike. :salute:

Marlin
December 26th, 2009, 10:18
Gary, you have to have all the proper software to have access to all the commands. I think that would be MKI and MK2 plus flight command software, or something like that.

Lionheart
December 26th, 2009, 12:55
Gary, you have to have all the proper software to have access to all the commands. I think that would be MKI and MK2 plus flight command software, or something like that.

Actually, I 'think' its the 'fight' command software, Mk1 and Mk2. (I always thought it was flight as well for the longest time).