Escorts

[cale]

I have been trying to protect my assets (merchant/trade ships) however they either lag behind the ship they are protecting, shoot ahead to its destination, or just out right fail to protect it even if they are there with trade ship.
I have not met the Split yet, so i need escort solutions that work.
I might be able to destroy the SCA base eventually, however for now I need to protect the trade ships to make credits.
is there a X type escort ship, X number of said ship per trade ship escorted? Ive been equipping them with pulse lasers and Teladi Shields.
The ships that escorts have real trouble with are the Medium class Fighters that can take out the transports easy enough, survive the hits from the escort, and leave with just some damage.

[Wraith]

Is it a station trader or free trader?

If it a free trader I set my fighters to interception.(they go and fight the enemy before it become a problem)

If it a station trader just having fighters set to defend the station and the manager will split up the fighters on escort duty of it traders and they tend to keep up with the trade ship pretty well unless the tradeship uses the superhighway.

[cale]

they are Trade ships for Stations.
okay so that actually works..? they dont just defend the station, which is what i thought that would do..
How many should i assign to the station? is 12 enough? the station only has 3 transports working for it ATM.

[...]

If Wraith's approach doesn't work, you can switch to using Minotaur Raiders, Cormorants, and Helios/Selene Vanguards for your trading fleet. That tends to keep piracy to a minimum. Although, these new FAF Rattlesnakes can run down a Selene Vanguard. Fun times.

[...]

The manager will tend to leave destroyers around to protect the station and assign smaller, faster ships to escort duty.

[cale]

Originally posted by ...:

If Wraith's approach doesn't work, you can switch to using Minotaur Raiders, Cormorants, and Helios/Selene Vanguards for your trading fleet. That tends to keep piracy to a minimum. Although, these new FAF Rattlesnakes can run down a Selene Vanguard. Fun times.

The Minotaur Raider is the ship type that is able to succeed the most at killing my transports lol.

[Atlar]

Originally posted by cale:

I have been trying to protect my assets (merchant/trade ships) however they either lag behind the ship they are protecting, shoot ahead to its destination, or just out right fail to protect it even if they are there with trade ship.

That's the defence command, seems to be broken atm. The same will happen if you assign to defence at a station.
You can manually assign escorts to traders and set them to attack or intercept.
You could also setup guard posts along your trade routes, often thats enough to scare pirates away.
You can also use try different trade ships. Very fast ones (like a boa) or tanky ones. Buffalos especially are close to immortal but pretty expensive.