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[Philder]

Work WITH your other ships!

The AI isn't 'smart' enough to be your wingman, so the way they'll work with you to increase YOUR combat effectiveness is by accidental.

What CAN be done, however, is you can change the way you go about making choices in the game, from outfitting, to piloting, to giving commands, and the way you're going to want to do these things is to think about working FOR your allies.

The only specifics I'll mention is that rather than expecting a relatively 'dumb' AI to be YOUR wingman, you should act to be THEIR wingman:
- Stick close to your allies so you can use your ship tank for your allies who are in trouble (provided you aren't killing yourself as a result), and visa versa
- Target the same enemies as your allies, and wait for them to start hammering on a target before commiting your flux capacity to unloading on the target. Attacking simultaneously as a group is much more effective than going in one at a time and giving them the opportunity to retreat and/or dissipate flux.
- Keep an eye on the whole battlefield and help out where you'll be most effective (also good for being a better commander, as in, giving orders). Killing ships faster is great and all, but preventing loss is the more effective priority in terms of resource consumption (which may include but does not necessarily always mean killing ships faster). You might have a favorite allied ship to 'wingman', but your overall battle might be better accomplished by going over to your ships that are in danger and keeping them from being blown up. If you can't be everywhere you need to be, then decrease your workload by changing your fleet, outfits, and combat orders appropriately.
- For allied ships that would be more effective if you could move them around the field more often and/or more accurately but you don't have the command points to do so, consider ordering them, instead, to escort you and move yourself around the field as needed and changing your overall fleet/outfits/orders appropriately.
- Flanking is very effective! Don't just charge into the thickest part of battle. Wrapping around the edges of the enemy lines with either yourself or a few escorts is a good way to decimate the enemy fleet quicker.
- Acrively switch ships in combat that you're piloting depending on the situation. Often-times, the big slow-ass gunship you're pilotting is relatively much less effective with you piloting it, compared to piloting the another ship in the right circumstance. For example, when single ships are fighting for control over strategic points away from the main battle, taking control of the right ship to blow through all the enemy ships that come to contest the point can allow more of your ships to get to the main battle quicker, you'll get control over the points quicker, and you're still lowering the enemy's numbers. Piloting a Gryphon or Heron, for example, to quickly mop up all the frigates trying for the control points. That may even be more effective than doing the same in the middle of the main battle since the enemy ships won't have nearby allies to counter your attacks or prevent you from chasing your target until it's dead.

Anyway, just thought I should mention this all since I often see and hear others playing the game like they and their single ship of choice are the hero and all ally ships are just side characters there to assist them.

[Megas]

Anyway, just thought I should mention this all since I often see and hear others playing the game like they and their single ship of choice are the hero and all ally ships are just side characters there to assist them.

That is because people want to play the superstar and may get frustrated if they cannot.  They want to crush things personally, not play babysitter or support to incompetent ships.  Such players (like me) want to play the fighter or blaster wizard, not the bard or cleric.  So far, 0.8 era Starsector encourages player to play bard or cleric.  (I want disposable AI/NPC to be the healbot, not the other way around!)

This is not unlike pumping fleet skills instead of personal skills because simply pumping personal skills only lets your ship punch one or two classes above an unskilled ship, while pumping a few points in Officer Management for the same skills for multiple ships seems like a much better bargain.  Not to mention other fleet skills, especially those that stack with personal skills, but you can only afford the fleetwide skill while officers can take the personal skill and stack it with your fleetwide bonus.  Your unskilled ship can make openings for teammates well enough, better for your buffed wingmen to take advantage of.

Also not fond of AI on both sides dancing around until CR/heat death if no obvious advantage presents itself, and the player must make an opening, probably using allies as a distraction, and he can do it with an unskilled ship.

Your advice about exploiting teamwork is sound.  The problem is if the player knows this but does not want to play that way, and gets grumpy if forced to, especially after playing older versions where he did not need to and could do much of the glorious fighting himself and play ultimate warrior, not the thankless cheerleader.

The only specifics I'll mention is that rather than expecting a relatively 'dumb' AI to be YOUR wingman, you should act to be THEIR wingman:

Effective as it may be, this may not be fun.  Player who wants to lead and be in control will want to call the shots, not their lackeys.  Being unwillingly reduced to your servant's servant would be humiliating.

[Thaago]

I'll also note that if your other ships are a bit afraid of moving in, like say frigates around a cruiser, you can convince the AI to attack by charging in yourself and driving up said cruiser's flux (through your fire and theirs). The procedure in this case is just to wait for a bit until your allies get into flanks, then charge.

[Tei]

This type of gameplay works decently well, but starts to fall flat when battles get big enough you cant run round fast enough to prevent your fleet from going full *** and killing themselves by getting flanked or running headlong into a mosh pit of hostile ships for whatever reason.
After deciding to completely remove the deployment cap during battles (what happens is ludicrously massive battles when you realize your fleet is now fighting every single SIndrian Diktat defense/patrol fleet in the Askonia system at once):

From what I realized, big fat slow ships needs to be deployed first, while tiny smol frigates and destroyers go last. The AI as it is now still does that thing where the tiny ships tend to go first in deployment, so the initial contact during the battle is almost ALWAYS fast destroyers and frigates. If you deploy your capitals and cruisers first you end up probably pushing them back and end up sandwiching the remaining hostile frigates and destroyers between their own capitals/cruisers and your own fat bois.

Which brings up another annoying thing your fleet can end up doing in big battles, your fleet deciding that targeting small insignificant distractions instead of focus firing on bigger real threats. During the initial frigate/destroyer contact stage, every small ship you kill gets exponentially more helpful for every kill because your fleet WILL STOP SHOOTING AT THAT LASHER and go for something that requires 2 or more ships focus firing to actually kill.


Though this might be rendered moot seeing as I may have lost touch with vanilla gameplay since I play with mods out the ass and deployment cap removed (I play with a vanilla Onslaught as my ship despite all the modded goodies, if you burn drive often it becomes a decently pursuit vessel or a formation breaker depending on the situation).
.

[Megas]

From what I realized, big fat slow ships needs to be deployed first, while tiny smol frigates and destroyers go last. The AI as it is now still does that thing where the tiny ships tend to go first in deployment, so the initial contact during the battle is almost ALWAYS fast destroyers and frigates. If you deploy your capitals and cruisers first you end up probably pushing them back and end up sandwiching the remaining hostile frigates and destroyers between their own capitals/cruisers and your own fat bois.

I do this too.  Deploy big ships first as wave one, close deploy menu, reopen deploy menu, deploy smaller ships as wave two.  Small ships capturing points mean little if they cannot hold it.  Today, I tend to use mostly big ships in my endgame fleet.

Fast ships are not always frigates or destroyers, it can be cruisers too, especially Falcons.

P.S.  Sometimes, "ludicrously massive battles" can be easier than 500 DP battles because every enemy is losing peak performance at the same time, and if you can run down the clock, the enemy gets reduced to a massive helpless pile of 0 CR scrap.  In earlier versions, you could even hide in the corner and they kill themselves slamming into each other trying to squeeze themselves into position.

[Morbo513]

Personally I feel I'm able to have much more impact on the course of the battle in a fast frigate or destroyer (Wolf/Medusa especially) with a specialised loadout - particularly Ion weapons, high-Alpha HE and/or shield-breakers. You as the player are much better than the AI at getting behind the shields and around the fields of fire of a destroyer or cruiser that's already pre-occupied, and otherwise using mobility (esp. on Phase ships) to outsmart them, as well as decisively ending enemy frigates. Put yourself in your biggest, tankiest, most heavily-armed ship and the AI are right at home knowing they can run circles around you, manage their shields and their commitment to engagement better. The only times I personally pilot anything heavier than a destroyer is if the enemy fleet is already outmatched and I want to be aggressive with that ship's firepower, particularly where enemy carriers are involved. Otherwise, being able to swoop in, fire a burst or a couple torpedos and give my side a firepower and/or mobility advantage for a few seconds is a lot more valuable than dealing the killing blows yourself and relying on your AI to effect such strategies.

[Megas]

Given the current AI, I prefer big ships for advantages in 1) power, 2) range, 3) fighters (carriers or smaller Converted Hangar penalties), and most important 4) peak performance.  AI tends to play coward (especially when they have fast ships - they tend to hang back and troll, effectively saying "you can't catch me!", they only swarm if they have an overwhelming numbers advantage, like attempting to solo the fight.)  As much as I dislike them playing coward, if I get forced to play that game, then I get something with lots of peak performance and wait until they hit 0 CR first, then I win.  Usually, I get lots of fighters and no one can play coward for long.

[Shuka]

So you pick large ships that can't catch smaller ships, and just sit around because the larger ships lose CR slower?

That doesn't sound smart or fun. In my experience, after the capital/cruiser ships have been dealt with, the AI will retreat its remaining 5-10 frigates/destroyers if I have substantial forces left.

I recommend a more balanced fleet composition if you want to catch those frigates and not let them retreat.

[Megas]

So you pick large ships that can't catch smaller ships, and just sit around because the larger ships lose CR slower?

Except maybe quad lance Paragon and some disposable Falcon (D)s, the large ships I use can send fighters to seek-and-destroy enemy ships, and fighters catch anything.  Large ships do not need to catch enemy ships if they have killer homing missiles (i.e., fighters) that do it for them.  That was why the end of my last post here reads "Usually, I get lots of fighters and no one can play coward for long."

There are only few things that can catch frigates: 1) other frigates and 2) fighters.

Since I use mostly clunkers, enemy frigates that are not pirates have an advantage over mine.  If I match frigates with theirs, I take casualties, unless I outnumber them (which does not happen, or else they run away and I auto-resolve).  Since fighters are weapons and do not clog fleet slots, they do not take casualties like ships do.  Also, frigates have low peak performance, which is a burden in fights against endgame opponents like max level deserter bounties.

Also, even if I pilot a good frigate, like my starter Wolf, they still run away unless 1) I overextend on flux, then they charge and I will lose the flux war if I continue the attack, and I have trouble escaping, or more likely, 2) they retreat into more of their friends where I cannot win a fight against multiple targets.

High tech ships that need to use pulse lasers or blasters for hard flux have trouble winning flux wars even with max flux stats because energy weapons are generally inferior.  Other ships may not have the speed to force a fight with similar-sized ships.

Remnant Lumen and Glimmer duos are highly aggravating to kill with Wolf or Medusa.  With Drover or bigger ship (or Hyperion), not so much.

This is why I auto-resolve fights.  Anything fast enough to catch the fast ships that flee is fragile enough to risk death from the enemy.  I simply auto-resolve the fight and collect my free kills and spoils.

If all else fails, but I have more peak performance than the enemy, then waiting until they run out of gas is an option.

That doesn't sound smart or fun.

Waiting is not fun, but it is effective, sometimes the best strategy.  This is why various tweaks were made, like Timid officers forbidden to NPCs, or phase cloak gaining time shift so that AI phase ships cannot stall as long.

I recommend a more balanced fleet composition if you want to catch those frigates and not let them retreat.

I would love it if they actually retreated so that I can auto-resolve them into the ground, but they do not retreat.  They hang back and troll, just like Timid officers used to do.  Against Remnant frigates, small ships I use have peak performance disadvantage, so that they can outlast my ship.  Not if I use a bigger ship with fighters.

Small ships are not much help in endgame fights.  They have low peak performance.

I know what works in 0.8 (and before).

[Cyan Leader]

Your advice about exploiting teamwork is sound.  The problem is if the player knows this but does not want to play that way, and gets grumpy if forced to, especially after playing older versions where he did not need to and could do much of the glorious fighting himself and play ultimate warrior, not the thankless cheerleader.

I've seen your opinion in a couple threads now and I want to say that I strongly disagree that the player is "forced" to play support. Is it true that maximizing fleet skills and having multiple officers is the best and most effective skill path? Yeah, it is. Is that the only way to play? Nope. By far it ain't, even if player skills were nerfed.

I often play the game piloting fast cruisers like the Aurora and the Falcon and I can pretty much handle most enemy fleets (including those with a Paragon) with just some support from 3 allied Dominators and maybe a carrier. I get around the CR problem by chaining ships and I wear the enemy down first with frigates/destroyers before bringing in my personal cruisers. I don't need a huge fleet nor I need to play babysitter. By midgame and post if you store weapons instead of selling them you can even equip your allied ships with pretty good gear even if they get blown up, making each ship have a stronger punch.

In all, min-maxing is not the only way to play the game and I definitely don't think it's the most enjoyable (though that depends on the player). I played runs with a fleet full of carriers and it was outright boring for me.

[Cyan Leader]

Excuse the double post but there is another thing I'd like to add.

There are only few things that can catch frigates: 1) other frigates and 2) fighters.

A properly skilled SO'd Aurora with Unstable Injector has no problems in forcing engagements with pretty much every ship in the game that isn't an Hyperion or a phase ship, especially since the AI often makes mistakes with movement abilities like the Phase Skimmer. I have two of those in my fleet and I use one in the early phase of the engagement to just delete all the pesky ships that my AI buddies will be wasting time focusing on. I imagine destroyers can do the same but I find them too weak to do this properly and within a good time frame.

[TaLaR]

Excuse the double post but there is another thing I'd like to add.

There are only few things that can catch frigates: 1) other frigates and 2) fighters.

A properly skilled SO'd Aurora with Unstable Injector has no problems in forcing engagements with pretty much every ship in the game that isn't an Hyperion or a phase ship, especially since the AI often makes mistakes with movement abilities like the Phase Skimmer. I have two of those in my fleet and I use one in the early phase of the engagement to just delete all the pesky ships that my AI buddies will be wasting time focusing on. I imagine destroyers can do the same but I find them too weak to do this properly and within a good time frame.

Player-piloted Medusa can catch Hyperion and phase frigates too. It takes some practice, but general idea is that AI is not cautious enough and tries to vent within triple skim range. And gets caught as result.
Another option is to use skim to insta-turn and shoot when phase frigate unphases to attack you.

But I think Megas meant that unless player-piloted only frigates and fighters can threaten faster enemy frigates.

Which is not full truth either - AI frigates do not quite understand concept of insta-kill (important against Tachyon Lance). Their flux management is purely reactive - there is no predictive component like "If I get focus fired by 4xTL Paragon, I'm 100% dead", only "Yep, flux is high, let's retreat". That works only when there is enough time to retreat in the first place.

[Vind]

Chasing frigates is like playing on enemy side in late game. Carriers with torpedo bombers and tachyon lances on paragon will destroy frigates much faster than frigates/destroyers. AI tactic is to run into friendly blob once attacked and moving in to engage and out to vent is too time consuming for each frigate unless you in some capital ship and can basically obliterate whole blob at once. You can exploit AI by capturing all points and kill solo frigates which try to recap but this is very slow too. Most of my games stuck with same fleet composition - paragon with astral and doom cruisers for deployment percentage increase - minimal costs and maximum profits.

[Thaago]

The same insta kill happens to a lesser extant with phase lance (which I am a massive fanboy of). An Eagle with phase lances will just "pop" most frigates that come into range with a triple shot. The Falcon needs to put a bit of shield damage on first, but it can do that and then pop its system to deny retreat.

I recently played a "Junk" playthrough and noticed that enemy frigates were quite effective until I used some interceptors. However, whenever I do a regular playthrough where I make my ships awesome, they are no problem. Concentration of power via good ships and the eliminate command will solve a multitude of problems.

[Megas]

I've seen your opinion in a couple threads now and I want to say that I strongly disagree that the player is "forced" to play support. Is it true that maximizing fleet skills and having multiple officers is the best and most effective skill path? Yeah, it is. Is that the only way to play? Nope. By far it ain't, even if player skills were nerfed.

In all, min-maxing is not the only way to play the game and I definitely don't think it's the most enjoyable (though that depends on the player). I played runs with a fleet full of carriers and it was outright boring for me.

If you want to be the best, you play support like bard/cleric, and this is not fun.  Yes, player can play lame characters if he wants.  I tried all personal skills.  It is not much better than unskilled, and I need to give up fleetwide and campaign stuff to have a beast that can punch one or two classes above it weight instead of soloing entire fleets.  Meanwhile, I can play cheerleader, and have six more AI ships that can punch like a beast.

I prefer to utterly crush enemies in the most unfair way possible.  So far, the best way is to play... cheerleader.  Buff my fleet while officers hog all of the combat glory.  It stinks.  Much prefer superstar play of 0.6 and 0.7 because at least I can pilot the ace, not my officers only.

Aurora is fast enough to catch Medusa (after it runs out of skimmer charges, so it takes a while), so it may be fast enough to catch few frigates.  But at its price, I much rather deploy a cheaper ship, like Drover or Heron, and kill them with fighters, or deploy a capital that can kill everything.  Plus, energy weapons are obnoxiously rare (short of Tri-Tachyon commission, or pulse lasers and PD lasers at Black Markets).  High-tech clunkers are rare, unless you fight Tri-Tachyon or Lion's Guard regularly.

Quad lance Paragon is great at frying frigates if they stay in range.  They generally stay out of range unless 1) they have the numbers to overrun Paragon or 2) distracted by other enemies in fleet action.  In case of #1, they can sometimes be baited by wall cheese, but it is not reliable.

Player-piloted Medusa can catch Hyperion and phase frigates too. It takes some practice, but general idea is that AI is not cautious enough and tries to vent within triple skim range. And gets caught as result.  Another option is to use skim to insta-turn and shoot when phase frigate unphases to attack you.

I do not like to triple skim because if I miscalculate, or more of its friends approach (especially duos that cover each other), I cannot escape if I suddenly get into a jam.

Phase frigates are not a problem.  They run out of gas soon enough (plus, I do not fight them often).  Things like Remnants are a problem.  They kite a lot.  They have great shields.  Wolf and Medusa do not have much of a speed advantage, and Remnants have the peak performance advantage.  Wolf and Medusa have trouble winning flux wars against them (before they try to escape and undo all of your hard work), and if player miscalculates flux use, the Remnants suddenly pounce you, and if you cannot escape, your ship takes big damage or dies.  SO Lasher is only an option if it is undamaged.  If it is a clunker (and possibly unskilled), it may not have the stats to reliably win the flux war despite SO and LMGs.

So far, I tend to deploy a Drover or two Tempest clunkers to deal with small Remnant fleets.  If I have Hyperion, I might use it too.

Re: Phase Lance
I only use these (occasionally) after I get Advanced Optics.  Without the range boost, Pulse Laser seems superior in every way if the ship can support Pulse Laser.