could someone explain the suboordinate roles to me ?

[Nanian]

Attack
Defence
Intercept

Attack seems to do absolutely nothing - atleast my ships arent actually attack anything at all when ordering a wing leader to attack - they dont even attack when they are attacked

Defence seems to make the ai attack whatever attacks them or the wing leader.

Interception seems to have the subordinatrs fly out and attack a nearby target ?

[eMYNOCK]

Subordinate attack is supposed to engage the target of the commanding vessel.

Obviously defend is supposed to protect and defend the commander if his ship is under fire.

And finally intercept is meant to not let any hostile come into proximity of the commanding ship.


I am not responsible for the code but thats how it should work and how i have observed it with my own fleets.

[night_wayfarer]

Hah. Same question. Once again. The game is broken in terms of internal help. I thound all kinds of different info. The answer is "who the hell knows".
The most complete answer i found is
https://www.reddit.com/r/X4Foundations/comments/eurj62/300_beta_subordinate_modes_explained_by_devs/
Even devs can't explain properly.
Quote: "Defend - ... Subordinate behavior depends a lot on what their commander is doing at the time." Great explanation isn't it?

[Mikhaleech]

Attack - will attack his commander's targets
Defend - will attack the ships which attack the commander
Intercept - will attack s/m targets only within radar range of commander

For example you may set your destroyers and frigater under carrier's command to attack order, then corvettes and fighters to intercept, so they would not run under enemy capital's fire. And some small group of s/m to defend the carrier, so they will deal with any threat to commander regardless of enemy size.

[Nanian]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

Subordinate attack is supposed to engage the target of the commanding vessel.

Obviously defend is supposed to protect and defend the commander if his ship is under fire.

And finally intercept is meant to not let any hostile come into proximity of the commanding ship.


I am not responsible for the code but thats how it should work and how i have observed it with my own fleets.

Thank you - this is how I would expect it to work as well.

Personally, attack doesnt seem to work for me - atleast not from having destroyers being a subordinate of another destroyer - they just sit there :(

[eMYNOCK]

Originally posted by Nanian:

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

Subordinate attack is supposed to engage the target of the commanding vessel.

Obviously defend is supposed to protect and defend the commander if his ship is under fire.

And finally intercept is meant to not let any hostile come into proximity of the commanding ship.


I am not responsible for the code but thats how it should work and how i have observed it with my own fleets.

Thank you - this is how I would expect it to work as well.

Personally, attack doesnt seem to work for me - atleast not from having destroyers being a subordinate of another destroyer - they just sit there :(

That does not sounds correct, a sub with attack behavior should indeed engage its leaders target... except the said leader is the player him self or the leader is not transmitting the attack command.

If you are personally the leader opening fire and/or setting your turrets to "attack my enemy" should suffice to hand targets.

If an other ship is the leader than i have no clue...

The behaviors should not differ between capital ships and fighters...

And all of my fighters reliably engage their carriers targets (sometimes even across system borders).

[night_wayfarer]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

Subordinate attack is supposed to engage the target of the commanding vessel.

Obviously defend is supposed to protect and defend the commander if his ship is under fire.

And finally intercept is meant to not let any hostile come into proximity of the commanding ship.


I am not responsible for the code but thats how it should work and how i have observed it with my own fleets.

What about your teammate words: "Defend - Prior escort behavior before new modes were implemented. Think of this as automatic mode. Subordinate behavior depends a lot on what their commander is doing at the time."
https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?f=192&t=421644&start=15#p4908844

This does not look like "defend is supposed to protect and defend the commander if his ship is under fire"

And I don't understand what does protect mean. You should give precise explonation for "protect". E.g. I've assigned 6S ships to L Destroyer and expecting them to operate at close range under turrets cover. Well that's not what's happening. They fly away from it and from turrets cover. This particular question is asked so often it should be included in ingame tutorial/FAQ. And be avilable as tooltip for command.

[Ruges]

Originally posted by Nanian:

Personally, attack doesnt seem to work for me - atleast not from having destroyers being a subordinate of another destroyer - they just sit there :(

I think the attack command is going to be more of a command given by the AI pilot who is in command of the fleet. IE if you have a fleet. and you order the commander to attack a target. that commander will then order the wing that is set to attack to attack that target. If your flying the fleet command ship. the wing that is with the order attack will do nothing? until you give that wing an attack command. So if your fleet commander your probably better off with defend order or intercept order, and if your having a pilot command the fleet your better off with the attack order.

[Nanian]

I am not the fleet commander - i guess the ai commander is just refusing to tell then to attack then - ive told my ai commander to attack a ship, and he’s the only one attack it - the others just sit nearby, neither moving or shooting unless i explicitely tell them to also attack the target

[eMYNOCK]

Originally posted by night_wayfarer:

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

Subordinate attack is supposed to engage the target of the commanding vessel.

Obviously defend is supposed to protect and defend the commander if his ship is under fire.

And finally intercept is meant to not let any hostile come into proximity of the commanding ship.


I am not responsible for the code but thats how it should work and how i have observed it with my own fleets.

What about your teammate words: "Defend - Prior escort behavior before new modes were implemented. Think of this as automatic mode. Subordinate behavior depends a lot on what their commander is doing at the time."
https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?f=192&t=421644&start=15#p4908844

This does not look like "defend is supposed to protect and defend the commander if his ship is under fire"

And I don't understand what does protect mean. You should give precise explonation for "protect". E.g. I've assigned 6S ships to L Destroyer and expecting them to operate at close range under turrets cover. Well that's not what's happening. They fly away from it and from turrets cover. This particular question is asked so often it should be included in ingame tutorial/FAQ. And be avilable as tooltip for command.

Over simplified.

Defend the Commander when he is engaged, escort him when he is Moving, Patrol the near area when he is idle.

Originally posted by Nanian:

I am not the fleet commander - i guess the ai commander is just refusing to tell then to attack then - ive told my ai commander to attack a ship, and he’s the only one attack it - the others just sit nearby, neither moving or shooting unless i explicitely tell them to also attack the target

You can try to let the Destroyer "recall" its subordinates.. this can remove many unwanted left over commands that can prevent Subs from performing their intended Jobs.

[Sticky]

Best way to explain the Fleet commands that you assigned a Lead Ship. After you assign them a Role to play you only control the Fleet Leader. And the Fleet Leader controls the Fleet, unless you intervene.

Before you add a ship to a Fleet give the ship a Default Command to do when he is not doing anything else. Like Protect the Fleet Leader, or Follow him. If you do not do this, After the Fleet Leader has completed his orders the Subs will fall into their DEFAULT BEHAVIOR. This is why so many get mad when the little ships dock and do nothing, they are just following their DEFAULT BEHAVIOR. Little ships should be set to Protect Their intended Ship By default.

After you set the Default behavior you are ready to assign them to the Fleet in a role best suited for them, Defense Attack or Intercept. Then the lead ship will take control of them when you give the leader a command, Or if you don't command the Lead ship to do anything the Sub's will follow their DEFAULT BEHAVIOR.

For example if you have properly setup a fleet ( you have surpassed a majority of people that are learning how to play ) If you tell the lead ship to Fly too the Sub's will follow their DEFAULT BEHAVIOR... If you tell the Fleet leader to Attack... He will take control of the fleet and the Subs will function according to their roles in the fleet.

You do not have to have all the ships in the fleet in the Fleet ( like all the little fighters ) you may want to have some of them in their own fleet and just stay docked to a carrier ready to be deployed by you at your dispense. Safer for them in some cases not to be in space.

Also if you have ships in a fleet you can still command 1 or all of them to do something out of the blue like place a Sat or some Laser Towers on their own. And if you command the fleet leader to do something like attack you may want to hit the Recall Subs or they will complete their task before joining back with the fleet.

Another Very important thing to keep in mind if you give a Fleet or Ship an order to Fly too, and you give him a command attack before they complete the Fly too, they will complete the task in the order they were given. UNLESS you remove all orders on the Fleet Leader and Recall subs if they were not doing their normal job. You can also click on the Fly too order on the map and remove that order and they will go to the next following order. When all orders are complete they will fall back on their DEFAULT BEHAVIOR.

Another Thing I DO is if a ship has Turrets i set turrets to Attack All Enemies, ( NOTE IF YOU CHANGE TURRETS OUT AT A EQUIPMENT DOCK OR SHIPYARD you need to reset the turrets. They may still shoot if set to defend after someone gets hit but if an enemy is close enough i'd prefer to shoot him FIRST.