Is there a Mod to fix stupid combat AI in base game?

[Knight76]

I'm at the stage in my playthrough where I am attacking stations with destroyers and finding the game ridiculous. I can only imagine Egosoft have no interest in fixing it as it keeping it as is forces players to get more involved.

I've trained a captain to 5 stars to test, set him to attack a station, turned the turrets to attack fighters, and watch him fly straight in to range of station guns and die.

I've also out of system set 27 heavy fighters attacking a stations turrets, and 14 destroyers attacking station, and had to abort altogether as the fighters got decimated and destroyers were dropping like flies.

Looking for a mod that fixes this issue for base game. No expansions.

Thanks.

[Knight76]

I just took 37 Heavy fighters and 14 destroyers against a station, Destroyed the station for the cost of 7 destroyers. 70+ million to destroy a station worth about 2 million to build.

[Gibbo]

I'm guessing you can't use Asgards? :)

I don't use destroyers and if I did I would only use Syns. Destroyers are terrible against stations and always have been, but people insist on using them. Could try torpedo bombers? I'm not an expert, but I've seen them work.

When I go in to clear a sector I do it with at least 5 asgards, a carrier full of fighters (for their destroyers) auxillary and destroyers which I use to guard my carrier. I will probably lose at least one Asgard if I don't pay attention. Stations are tough.

[Sticky Wicket]

I understand your frustration, and you are not alone by any means. Lots of us are having problems with Destroyers.

Yep the AI is currently erratic and bad for capitol ships, but they ARE in the process of fixing these problems in the 6,20 public beta, so Egosoft do have an interest in addressing these issues.
The fixes are generally looking quite good according to people who are testing out the beta, but there are still things to sort out by the looks of it. Several posts exist on the forum about this, and Wraith uploaded some vids to youtube.

In the meantime whilst we wait for the beta testing to be done, using Destroyers is a bit hit and miss (pun intended) :D

[Gibbo]

Look in the real world we don't use destroyers to attack large structures. Destroyers are anti-aircraft/submarine/drone etc, but all of those are units so a destroyer is anti-ship essentially and that's why we also use them to guard our biggest assets like aircraft carriers.

Now you can carry on using them like this at a great expense to yourself and no doubt your crew's morale. Or you can change tactics. I'm actually starting to learn torpedo bombing myself. Of course the thing to do is at every game start is focus on getting the Terran rep up so eventually you can build Asgards and then you won't need to worry about stations so much. I'd agree that maybe more station-killing options are needed? Another battleship maybe? I dunno? But if you continue to use destroyers then you will handicap yourself just through the sheer cost of replacing your losses.

It's your game and it's up to you. :)

[Casual Lazy Gamer]

Depends on the version of the game you're running and what station defences your target has.

Mods wise, not really, your best bet is try the latest public beta.

Other than that, one cannot blindly go and just blow up any stations. The ones with heavy weapons best avoid fighting it OOS unless you have some beefy tanks that you sure the strike group can tank the shared damage.

With the latest beta, 2-4 correctly fitted destroyers make short work of 2m stations in sector with a bit of pre-planned approach vectors and micro for mopping up. Even when facing plasma or missile defences.

Occasionally, you just have to defang manually some better defended stations before you order a general advance. Just need to scout out the type of defences your enemy has. The latest beta is rather decently optimised with capital(with main frontal batteries) vs Xenon stations according to other players' tests.

[Gibbo]

They may be designed to attack other large ships (and they can quite easily), but they are not designed to attack stations. Stations have a lot more guns. Especially a Xenon solar power plant lol.

That's why I don't use them for that.

[SirProsik]

The work around is to manually position them around the station and set default to hold position. After a short time the station will be weakened so that you can manually reposition them again for further assault. Eventually the station will be destroyed.

[Apex Artist]

We're all looking forward to the next update which is supposed to finally fix this. I'm awash with Asgards and 80% of the time when I send a small group of them off to handle a few Xenon stations, the group comes back 1-3 Asgards smaller. I'm not going to make a video of it like one forum member asked, it happens and is already well established.

Also, there is a mod that addresses survivability which works pretty well.
https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/839

[Wraith]

Be more specific

What heavy fighter are you using as well as destroyer what equipment are they equipped with

Do you not have any interceptor?
Heavy fighter go down like flies if overwhelmed
They also can’t dodge well so if going against station
They have to kill the turrets before the turrets does enough damage to kill them or the drone swarm overwhelms them

[Gibbo]

Have any of you actually had a war with a proper faction? Well their stations are a lot easier to take down than the Xenon stations. My Asgards are just cutting through them like a hot knife through butter. Literally a few minutes and they're gone so I think destroyers will do well against them.

Maybe Xenon stations are just well hard?

[Wraith]

Originally posted by Gibbo:

Have any of you actually had a war with a proper faction? Well their stations are a lot easier to take down than the Xenon stations. My Asgards are just cutting through them like a hot knife through butter. Literally a few minutes and they're gone so I think destroyers will do well against them.

Maybe Xenon stations are just well hard?

Other faction station are more fragile but have longer reach

If you run into a station armed to teeth with plasma it can hurt pretty bad

[Knight76]

Thanks for all the replies. I've started a war with the Antigone republic which broke out when they moved in to Frontiers Edge and I wanted it.

I cleared them out of Frontiers Edge and took over there. Moved to The Void to commence taking over there and drive a wedge between memorial and flashpoint II.

My aim is to take all of their territory and hem them in to Memorial only with appropriate welcome party on the exit in to The Void, which is already in place.

The fight above was against an Antigone station in The Void.

37 fighters set to attack turrets, and 14 destroyers set to attack station and they are decimated. I'd expect some losses but this is ridiculous. Destroyers should sit 10km from the station and blast away, but they don't, so I sent in fighters to disable the stations defences to allow destroyers to get in closer, but they don't. All of them get destroyed slowly but surely.

It's very frustrating seeing a 5 star captain not be able to understand station range.

As for positioning the destroyers one by one around the station that is going to take forever. And even then when telling them to attack they will decide to move in closer and get themselves killed.

My game is vanilla with no expansions.

I guess I am waiting for the 6.2 update to fix this issue.

[Casual Lazy Gamer]

OOS wouldn't probably do much in 6.2 compared to current non beta, I could be wrong.

But fighting in the Void might bring a lot of hurt in sector due to the hazardous asteroid belts in that sector, your fighters either vaporise via OOS vs station mechanics, or in sector due to the hazards. It's a tricky sector to wage war in especially you're not using any expansion ships so no promises the beta would bring much improvements.

I manually cleared 3 sectors (Trinity Sanctum 3, 7 and Unholy Retribution) with 4 destroyers, mostly without ordering them to attack and just let the re-equipped large PAR plasma do the work. 2 oddy parked ~9km on top, 2 Phoenix parked ~ 9km bottom, manually fly them into position for precision where needed.

So if AI can't handle it even after 6.2, you'd still have to do the manual positioning jobs as well as take out the highest threat defence modules yourself with the main destroyer batteries.

[Wraith]

I just do normal attacks in 6.2 I have to spread them out as they don’t really fly to the other side anymore with AI changes

Works for pretty much all faction
My destroyer stay at around 8 to 10km and my fighters stay far from the station weapon range because they are torpedo bombers

Hopefully you equipped your heavy fighters as bombers instead of spamming them with something like burst ray or thermal disintegrator

[Durandal]

I don't know chief. IF there's one thing they've mostly fixed, is Destroyers attacking Stations/ Other L+ sized ships.
You sure your turrets are set properly?...Ever since Boron DLC came out, I haven't had a single issue with them since that didn't arise from my own bad plays.
I am actually quite impressed by how different it is now compared to pre-6.0. Ships actually work more or less as expected.