Do issues with fleet A.i still exist?

[Nutcase56]

I've been eyeing this game for a LONG time. But alway held back because i heard of issues with fleet A.I, namely they won't travel together. I can have a few ships in a wing with me and they won't keep up, even if my ship is slower than they are. Is this still an issue or did egosoft actually fix it?

[Tanvaras]

Current 4.0 beta improves it a lot, still some quirkyness but not as bad as its been. With 4.0 and CoH release only a few days away now, X4 is in a fairly good place, but you are going to do micro-management regardless in battles with Fleet AI to make sure they engage as best as possible.

Though overall, I have left my Anti HoP Fleet to deal with HoP invasions without any attention from me and they are fairing well from stopping the HoP steamroller. Same with my Anti Xenon Fleet in Hatikvah's Choice.

[Nutcase56]

Well i have no issues with micromanaging during combat. I just have no interest with my escorts being 3 sectors away from me while taking their sweet time to reach me to do their job. Since they seem to be getting their act together i may by this and the expansion. I'll be keeping an eye on the A.i issue when it releases.

[Akira_R]

Originally posted by Nutcase56:

Well i have no issues with micromanaging during combat. I just have no interest with my escorts being 3 sectors away from me while taking their sweet time to reach me to do their job. Since they seem to be getting their act together i may by this and the expansion. I'll be keeping an eye on the A.i issue when it releases.

Notice he didn't answer if ships in a wing with you actually stick with you? As far as I can tell that is still a no, it seems to be that it is best if whatever ship you are personally piloting not be the main fleet command ship. The overall behavior of fleets has improved some, escort ships seem to actually stick with the ship they are escorting instead of rushing off on their own, fleet cohesion and movement isn't that great still though.

Personally I find this really frustrating as it does prevent what was one of my favorite styles of play in X3, leading a decently sized wing of fighters doing all sorts of combat missions, I have not been able to make this work in X4 although it has been a while since I tried.

I think the primary culprit is Travel Mode and how it's implemented, the inability to throttle travel mode (even though it clearly can be throttled as evidenced by the "match speed" action) screws everythin up, and it seems to screw up the AI too, frequently fighters will hop into travel mode and fly past their parent carrier quite a ways.

[Nutcase56]

Originally posted by Akira_R:

Originally posted by Nutcase56:

Well i have no issues with micromanaging during combat. I just have no interest with my escorts being 3 sectors away from me while taking their sweet time to reach me to do their job. Since they seem to be getting their act together i may by this and the expansion. I'll be keeping an eye on the A.i issue when it releases.

Notice he didn't answer if ships in a wing with you actually stick with you? As far as I can tell that is still a no, it seems to be that it is best if whatever ship you are personally piloting not be the main fleet command ship. The overall behavior of fleets has improved some, escort ships seem to actually stick with the ship they are escorting instead of rushing off on their own, fleet cohesion and movement isn't that great still though.

Personally I find this really frustrating as it does prevent what was one of my favorite styles of play in X3, leading a decently sized wing of fighters doing all sorts of combat missions, I have not been able to make this work in X4 although it has been a while since I tried.

I think the primary culprit is Travel Mode and how it's implemented, the inability to throttle travel mode (even though it clearly can be throttled as evidenced by the "match speed" action) screws everythin up, and it seems to screw up the AI too, frequently fighters will hop into travel mode and fly past their parent carrier quite a ways.

Hence why i'll be waiting to see for sure after this expansion. I frankly have no intention of humoring egosoft, not after X3. Their games seem to have a track record of having buggy or outright broken features, important basic core features at that. It's been a long time since i played X3 but i recall for me, that game being unplayable without the use of mods. it needs to stop, fleet AI NEEDS to work to a reasonable degree for me to buy this game. It's been two years, they had lots of time to sort it out>_>.

The x series has a lot of potential. If it can live up to it, imo it can beat nearly all other space games like elite soundly. but it's the improper implementation of features and mechanics that hold it back a great deal.

[Thickcurves]

Originally posted by Nutcase56:

I Do issues with fleet A.i still exist?

Well I have a 20 ship fleet that flies around with 19 ships because one of my ships is permanently stuck slamming into a station dock for the past 20 hours of game-play. No amount of orders, remove orders and assignments fixes it... so yeah, there's still a few AI fleet issues. Overall, you can work around most of the bugs though, except for the crash to desktop with 3000 series Nvidia graphics cards.

[EPIC VOID]

Originally posted by Reryn:

Originally posted by Nutcase56:

I Do issues with fleet A.i still exist?

Well I have a 20 ship fleet that flies around with 19 ships because one of my ships is permanently stuck slamming into a station dock for the past 20 hours of game-play. No amount of orders, remove orders and assignments fixes it... so yeah, there's still a few AI fleet issues. Overall, you can work around most of the bugs though, except for the crash to desktop with 3000 series Nvidia graphics cards.

I would say the teleport to quickly leave a sector is essential to work around the worst game braking ai bugs like these.