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Author Topic: Lack of Fighter Control  (Read 7526 times)

TrashMan

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Lack of Fighter Control
« on: January 08, 2019, 01:30:46 AM »

Does anyone feel like the player as a fleet commander and carrier captain has far too little control over your own fighter wings?

Ever since they were changed, players lost the ability to control individual fighter wings, instead we give general orders to the carrier, which frankly sucks.

If I have a carrier with 4 wings of interceptors and I want to split those wings to escort/defend 4 different ships...I can't. The palyer has no fine control at all. It is infuriating.
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Euphytose

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Re: Lack of Fighter Control
« Reply #1 on: January 08, 2019, 05:48:05 AM »

Currently my problem is that the support fighters cannot be manually ordered to escort someone unless you're piloting the ship yourself. If you "escort" with a carrier, it will actually go there physically because these fighters need a ship to escort constantly, and the carrier seems to decide that it's the best candidate. It does send them to allies, sometimes, but it's automatic, you have no control over it. This only affects one type but it's pretty annoying.
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RedHellion

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Re: Lack of Fighter Control
« Reply #2 on: January 09, 2019, 01:13:24 PM »

As much as I would like the tactical battles to have more tactical/strategic control (setting default behaviours for ships/officers manually, no CP limit, more order variety/granularity than just "Assault", "Escort", "Avoid", and "Eliminate", better control of individual ship movement and fighter/ordnance use, setting task forces that stick together and fight as a unit, etc) I doubt it will happen. Pretty sure Alex has mentioned in other threads relating to giving the player more RTS-like control over battles that he doesn't want to pull the focus away from the player ship with an RPG feel, where your fleet is just there for AI-controlled support.
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DeltaV_11.2

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Re: Lack of Fighter Control
« Reply #3 on: January 09, 2019, 06:32:31 PM »

Games are made of limitations, not capabilities. There's only 2 vanilla ships with more than 3 fighter wings anyways(Astral and Legion), both of which are very powerful already. Big carriers aren't very good at providing spread out fighter coverage, and ultimately using an Astral or Legion for mass fighter coverage wastes the ship's capabilities so it shouldn't be encouraged.
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RawCode

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Re: Lack of Fighter Control
« Reply #4 on: January 10, 2019, 01:04:31 AM »

just like you can't assign individual target for each weapon, especially infuriating when you can't fire squals in 4 different targets from your capital with 4 heavy missile mounts.

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TrashMan

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Re: Lack of Fighter Control
« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2019, 01:57:42 AM »

As much as I would like the tactical battles to have more tactical/strategic control (setting default behaviours for ships/officers manually, no CP limit, more order variety/granularity than just "Assault", "Escort", "Avoid", and "Eliminate", better control of individual ship movement and fighter/ordnance use, setting task forces that stick together and fight as a unit, etc) I doubt it will happen. Pretty sure Alex has mentioned in other threads relating to giving the player more RTS-like control over battles that he doesn't want to pull the focus away from the player ship with an RPG feel, where your fleet is just there for AI-controlled support.

But the problem is that when you're commanding a carrier you dont' have proper control over your fighter wings.
So you don't even have good control over the player ship in this instance.
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Euphytose

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Re: Lack of Fighter Control
« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2019, 06:22:29 AM »

As far as missile use is concerned, in my opinion there should be some options. Right now if you use ships with missiles and a steady officer, they will sometimes fire 4-5 harpoons at a frigate right at the start of the fight, and that's without giving any specific order. At the very least "use missiles against ships of X size or bigger".
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validfrom

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Re: Lack of Fighter Control
« Reply #7 on: January 10, 2019, 08:40:22 AM »

I'd like more role-specific fighter orders. For example. there could be an interceptor-only fighter escort order where your talons and wasps loiter around friendly ships while acting as point defense and sortie out proactively to intercept incoming bombers. Non-interceptors from the same carrier would ignore that order and retain vanilla behaviors.
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Cik

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Re: Lack of Fighter Control
« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2019, 03:47:51 PM »

yes, there needs to be some player control of missile use too.

i would really like a "salvo this target with weapons of X types"
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Schwartz

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Re: Lack of Fighter Control
« Reply #9 on: January 11, 2019, 08:53:00 AM »

Games are made of limitations, not capabilities.

But we had the capability for great fighter control before and now we don't. They are now basically smart missiles. Fighters in 0.6.5 were great fun to use. I'm not saying the new system needs to go, but it should be at least as good as the old one.

Don't see the harm in adding a few dedicated fighter orders to the overlay.
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TrojanNobody

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Re: Lack of Fighter Control
« Reply #10 on: January 11, 2019, 10:34:45 AM »

Having been playing since 0.6, I do really like the new system of fighter squadrons being equipped on carriers because it adds in a new layer of interactions involving carrier pilot skills, ordnance point costs, hullmods, carrier ship systems, limited squadron roaming range, etc. The biggest benefit in my opinion is the ability to have very cool cooperative tactics between squadrons from the same carrier. I would hate to see that go.

However, losing the ability to assign escort orders removes the ability to have cooperative tactics between small craft squadrons and ships. Having a few wings of wasps dedicated to my Medusa-led Wolf pack allowed the entire pack to forgo PD in favor of harder hitting weapons. A couple wings of Tridents attached to an Eagle standoff line would lend extra firepower to enemies that the Eagles were able to get high on flux.

I don't think that going back to controlling fighters individually is necessarily a good idea. Having all the fighter and bomber squadrons for your entire fleet participate in a coordinated attack run would be a little too powerful (just look at how deadly a six squadron strike from an Astral is!). I also think that being able to split a single carrier's squadrons into different escort and strike duties would make the tactical map be a bit more complicated and "RTS-like" than Alex is really intending to (imagine all the arrows). In addition, where would the carrier itself physically go given the limited fighter roaming range if it was split between two different missions?

I would like to see an escort command where a carrier dedicates all of its squadrons to screening the selected ally. This would also allow us to subspecialize carriers for specific escort or strike roles as opposed to the current system where all carriers are effectively strike carriers. It may even be possible to add in more complex escort wing behavior in a similar vein to the upgraded "coordinated fighter strike" behavior.
« Last Edit: January 11, 2019, 10:37:32 AM by TrojanNobody »
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Thaago

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Re: Lack of Fighter Control
« Reply #11 on: January 11, 2019, 10:40:49 AM »

...
I would like to see an escort command where a carrier dedicates all of its squadrons to screening the selected ally. This would also allow us to subspecialize carriers for specific escort or strike roles as opposed to the current system where all carriers are effectively strike carriers. It may even be possible to add in more complex escort wing behavior in a similar vein to the upgraded "coordinated fighter strike" behavior.

Welcome to the forum! I believe this is actually the intended use of the escort command for carriers, but it just doesn't work at present.

I do think there is a bit of UI problem though: I would like to be able to set my carriers to rally to a certain spot,  but also give them strike and/or escort orders. I don't know if multiple commands like that are possible.
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RedHellion

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Re: Lack of Fighter Control
« Reply #12 on: January 11, 2019, 11:09:21 AM »

I do think there is a bit of UI problem though: I would like to be able to set my carriers to rally to a certain spot,  but also give them strike and/or escort orders. I don't know if multiple commands like that are possible.

Not currently. It would go a long way towards helping the issues of squishy carriers with escort or engage orders throwing themselves into enemy fire as well rather than staying safely away from combat themselves while their strike craft escort/engage the target. I think the strike order means only their wings engage the target, but the carrier follows its default AI otherwise which may or may not still lead it into combat.

I think the current method of getting around this is to assign cautious or timid officers to carriers that you want to stay mostly out of combat (other than using their equipped wings). Using officers (of which the player can only have a limited number) as a means to set default engagement preferences other than the standard/basic behaviour, essentially.
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TrojanNobody

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Re: Lack of Fighter Control
« Reply #13 on: January 11, 2019, 11:49:32 AM »


Welcome to the forum! I believe this is actually the intended use of the escort command for carriers, but it just doesn't work at present.

I do think there is a bit of UI problem though: I would like to be able to set my carriers to rally to a certain spot,  but also give them strike and/or escort orders. I don't know if multiple commands like that are possible.


Thanks for the welcome, much appreciated! And yeah it would be nice to be able to "park" your carriers somewhere safe although it would need an exception for when then the target of their order moves out of their fighter roam range. Maybe have it stay in range of the roaming target while trying to keep as close to the rally point as possible?

I think the current method of getting around this is to assign cautious or timid officers to carriers that you want to stay mostly out of combat (other than using their equipped wings). Using officers (of which the player can only have a limited number) as a means to set default engagement preferences other than the standard/basic behaviour, essentially.

I do find it slightly odd that we can't dictate the "aggressiveness" of ships without finding the right personality officers. I think another part of the problem is many of the carriers getting denoted as "combat carriers" for the purposes of which AI behavior to use. For something like the Legion and the Odyssey? Yeah, I want them on the front lines. For something like a Heron with only a single medium sized mount? Not so much.
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Euphytose

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Re: Lack of Fighter Control
« Reply #14 on: January 11, 2019, 12:09:36 PM »

Yeah, I really don't have a clue why the Heron is considered a combat carrier, because it doesn't have the armour, or weapons, to warrant this. A Mora? Yes please. Two turreted missile launchers are always great to have, especially since they almost have Dominator grade of armour, on top of having a ship system that allows them to tank Reapers.
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