What are best practices for fleet management?

[Pandora]

In most cases, when i issue an order to a fleet leader, the subordinates do nothing or not the desired behaviour regardless of squad role.

Example:
2 Osaka, children of 1 Syn:
Give order to Syn to attack a K.
The syn slowboat to target, never getting there.
The 2 Osaka quickly travel mode close to the target K, then just sit there.

I attempted to disband the squad, told them to attack a I, the Syn move into range and attack, meanwhile the two Osaka just sit there outside of their firing range.
Every 15-20 seconds they move for 1 second closer to the target (which is immobile) but are still out of range, does not fire. Meanwhile the 2 Osaka had no problem attacking the immobile K.

(This is the same thing happening as when i asked about this happening with a Rattlesnake)

I have similar issue with squads of firing, if i set them to attack leader, and leader attack the target, they just sit there with a line move to party leader order.

I could probably explain another dozen examples but this is dragging on and testing is hard with the 1+ minute loading time.

TLDR: Is there a way to setup fleet so that they actually fight together, or is this still not a working feature as of 4.0?

[Wraith]

If your using mostly destroyers formations
helps alot
Formations that spread them apart will help them navigate toward the target

For fleet vs fleet I use coordinated attack with target weak turned off

[Pandora]

I do find the 2 Osaka tend to stay really close to each other, i will try that, thanks.
They had no problem engaging the station after the I died https://i.imgur.com/eyWS6BW.png

Where is this target weak thing?

[Pandora]

I teleported OOS then came back IS and the osaka are firing fine now
https://i.imgur.com/RUAFDMH.png idk

The Syn somehow flew far when OOS and now it has the same issue the Osaka had, its sitting outside of weapon range not shooting at the I.

[Atlar]

Yeah fleet combat is still kinda crap, or combat AI in general.
My makeshift tactic atm:
Syn, Zeus + 16 Odysseus in two fleets. Cheap distraction fighters on Zeus.
Lock gates with the fleets (def. position) and build defence stations at the gates, while I take out the stations with my overtuned flag Odysseus... fleet vs station still doesn't work without heavy losses. Even my 5 star pilot on the Syn is too stupid to just stay out of weapons range... others will travel mode bump into the station (loosing most of their shields) and get shredded in seconds.

[Wraith]

Originally posted by Virosa:

Where is this target weak thing?

It when you expand the coordinated attack in behavior menu.
Turning off attack weak target make it so your fleet attack the actual threats which are the K and I first.

[Wraith]

Originally posted by Atlar:

fleet vs station still doesn't work without heavy losses. Even my 5 star pilot on the Syn is too stupid to just stay out of weapons range... others will travel mode bump into the station (loosing most of their shields) and get shredded in seconds.

I have the completely opposite experience in 4.0 all my capital ships stay away from the station and completely destroys it now (though it still take a long time given how much hp the station have).
I don't even need to send my fighters in to disarm the station now.

[Pandora]

Originally posted by Wraith:

Originally posted by Atlar:

fleet vs station still doesn't work without heavy losses. Even my 5 star pilot on the Syn is too stupid to just stay out of weapons range... others will travel mode bump into the station (loosing most of their shields) and get shredded in seconds.

I have the completely opposite experience in 4.0 all my capital ships stay away from the station and completely destroys it now (though it still take a long time given how much hp the station have).
I don't even need to send my fighters in to disarm the station now.

Right, same. Its when i tell them to attack everything in range, they then do what this guy is saying. For some reason they seem to think its a good idea to travel to a random fighter on the other side of the station and try to fly through it.

BOOM. Cue 3 minutes to reload.

I found out tonight that i had to explicitly target the K, the other K, the I, then the Station, then everything else.

Otherwise...

[eMYNOCK]

If you want a fleet to be effective you don't want to be in the same sector.

If you want a nice show, you have to call the shots.

You just learned how to call them... because otherwise... ***loading screen***

[Atlar]

Originally posted by Wraith:

Originally posted by Atlar:

fleet vs station still doesn't work without heavy losses. Even my 5 star pilot on the Syn is too stupid to just stay out of weapons range... others will travel mode bump into the station (loosing most of their shields) and get shredded in seconds.

I have the completely opposite experience in 4.0 all my capital ships stay away from the station and completely destroys it now (though it still take a long time given how much hp the station have).
I don't even need to send my fighters in to disarm the station now.

How do you order them to attack the station?
IS or OOS?

My last time OOS:
Leader Syn (5 star) + 8 Odysseus wing (2 star). "Attack" with Syn, "select wing", "attack".
Result: 3 Odysseus bumped into the station, loosing most of their shields and died shortly after. Number 4 was being chewed on when... "load save".

Last time IS:
Personally shooting down stations with my Odysseus together with the 5 Star Syn.
First station: Syn moving spasmically in very close range to the station, semi-helpful but no damage taken.
Second station: Syn moving into station weapon range right away. Would have died if I had not shielded it with my Oddy in the last moment.. survived with 1% hull...

Would REALLY like to know how you guys do it.

[lPaladinl]

This is my main issue with X4 right now and why I quit playing, and really can't call it at all a proper sequel to X3 until it's fixed.

No one has been able to explain to me how to get In Sector combat to work, I assume those who claim it works are lying at this point since they can't back it up with any information. Most people admit they don't fly around and do everything OOS, in which case yes, stuff mostly works, most of the time.

In Sector is just a total nightmare of ships not following orders, nothing works as intended, behaviour is inconsistent and hard to debug, Ships don't want to follow their escort targets, they don't want to fire back on enemies to defend their escort targets, when they DO want to fly towards a target to attack they forget that travel drives exist and you wait aeons for them to crawl into battle from across the sector (and may never reach their target as they may be using travel drives or will use them by the time you get even halfway near them).

I've also had ships do this to sit in Radiation and suicide. Mining Ships are just as bad with Drones as well. If you're in Sector your mining drones just stall out and most of them never return to the ship. Those that do reach their home ship often can't figure out how to dock, and the mining ship will forever stall as it is stuck on the task of retrieving drones that refuse to be retrieved.

Playing In Sector with anything but your own personal ship, that way lies madness. Till then I am back to playing X3:AP where even their scripting bugs are a billion times more functional and actually possible to debug and avoid most headaches.

[Pandora]

Well IS, my swarm of Takobas does pretty well (when micro managed, squad assignment does NOT work, they sit there in space and gets obliterated), took out the 2 K + a I with only 2 blowing up to the I, they do well until they get weird pathfinding against some buggy geometry and decide to sit there, seemingly stuck on nothing, BOOM.

Out of sector, they all suddenly start getting hit and generating a spam of "I'M HIT!" log. Not viable.

The destroyers OOS starts teleporting around strangely, forward, backward, sideways all over with no sense to it, one eventually end up on top of a station or a I and ... BOOM.

In sector, they spend almost all their time spazzing out in place, but somewhat succeeding in staying out of reach of their current target. They're pretty damn useless, but at least they aren't getting blown up much here.

[Xenomorph]

I just skip all this stupid aggravation and do all of it myself. For stations, i get rid of the defense modules then call in the other guys to mop up while i go nap. For ships it depends, but i don't like babysitting a group of ships incapable of move in formation.

I just don't rely on others to do the work, don't throw anything into the fire; don;t play it as an RTS, because it's not one. It's me and my support ships.

[Pandora]

Is there a way to stop ships from recalling subordinate whenever they get any sort of move order?

It's pretty bad, like you want to move your ship a few KM toward or away from an encounter and suddenly your entire fleets recalls.