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[Grievous69]

Playing another campaign, I'm using strats I haven't explored much earlier. Such as using an Atlas Mk.II as a centre of my mid-game fleet where it does most of the damage, naturally I don't want it taking heavy damage. So I'm up against a really tough LP fleet and I give a defend order on my Atlas, ok pretty cool, most ships surround it and stay in a close formation. The fight somewhat starts and I notice the Atlas is much more in front than I'd like, ships that are supposed to defend it just kind of float behind it. I thought once the damage starts coming that the supporting ships would come out and help (you know actually defend), but nope. Atlas *** dies immediately after some random frigate, while the rest merely watch and fire a shot here and there. The ship that's supposed to be heavily defended almost dies before anything else. And it's not like I'm ordering a defend order on a fast frigate while other ships are slow as hell. We all know Atlases move like snails, and every other ship in my fleet can easily catch up and dance around it, so what gives?

This didn't happen only once btw, this is just a funny example because I have no clue when are you supposed to use the defend order. Seems to me like an inferior escort command.

[Hiruma Kai]

Keep in mind, Defend started out as defend a location in space, not a ship.  So I'm pretty sure when Alex updated it to be able to placed on ships, he didn't change any of the internal logic or flags or what have you.  I'm pretty sure defending ships have no concept of a ship at the defend point, but are just treating it as a point in space around which to fight.  The usual local AI then fights as normal, with some preference to be near the defend point.

If I think back to when I've got a frigate with a defend order at a capture point, and an enemy cruiser comes up,  that frigate backs off because it feels out matched.  That same type of behavior is going to happen when defending an Atlas.  If there's a friendly cruiser behind the frigate a ways, it might back off until closer to the friendly cruiser, and then might try to start to flank depending on circumstances.  Or it might just keep backing off in a different direction and just drag the cruiser away.  Since the Atlas is a capital, it's going to tend to feel more confident in engaging larger enemies, or massed enemies than say frigates and cruisers and will naturally come to the front on an engagement line.

Escort clearly has a concept of the ship, as they keep to specific orientation, typically to the flanks or rear to prevent flankers.  They also tend to keep much closer than a defend order.  This is presumably to keep the front where most ships have more guns, clear for shooting.  Also, the AI doesn't like getting flanked and will waste time turning if there's friendly ship in between it and a closer enemy to the rear, which an escort frigate is pretty good at doing.

If I want a ship to be behind the main line, I give it an escort order to an Onslaught or Paragon.  I'll often order carriers to escort Onslaughts for example, and they'll tend to do a better job of staying out of direct fire (not always, as escort logic tries to move to the front if the ship is overloaded).  Of course, that doesn't typically help a primarily direct fire ship like an Atlas, or if the Atlas is the biggest and slowest ship you have.

[Grievous69]

So in a nutshell, it's a "stay close to this" order, the difference from normal defend being put on a static spot on map. Ok then but calling it defend is wrong and very unintuitive. And if it truly works that way, can we please go back where right clicking on a ship issues an escort order when selecting multiple ships? It's painfully annoying having to manually left click > right click multiple times each time a ship is out of position and needs backup.

I find myself using escorts very often while defend order as it is, is pretty much useless for me.

[Big Bee]

I guess defend works better then if you want your ships to stay near each other as a battle-line kinda thing but don't want to make 4 cruisers 'escort' another cruiser so closely?

[Grievous69]

I guess defend works better then if you want your ships to stay near each other as a battle-line kinda thing but don't want to make 4 cruisers 'escort' another cruiser so closely?

Whenever I tried these tricks before, to make sure my ships don't get killed off alone, it ended even worse because the enemy now outflanks your whole fleet and your ships slowly fall apart. AI performs much better when it can do its own thing and form a natural battle line.

But I suppose it works well for that specific need.

[Big Bee]

Whenever I tried these tricks before, to make sure my ships don't get killed off alone, it ended even worse because the enemy now outflanks your whole fleet and your ships slowly fall apart. AI performs much better when it can do its own thing and form a natural battle line.

Makes sense. I've been having trouble with the AI with my low-tech fleet as a few faster ships usually just end up charging in way too early and die before my Dominators could get there.

[Brainwright]

Defend works substantially better than escort, as the escorts will never pull forward to take fire off the defended target.

However, the base behavior of the NPC allies tends to fall back or suicide against overwhelming force.  So you might try placing some fairly hefty brawler on defend, like an Aurora, and using your weaker ships to form the nastier ones around.

I've had pretty good luck with this, setting a Radiant to defend an Odyssey.  The Radiant stops suiciding, and the Odyssey always has an empty space in the enemy formation to fall back to.  Works pretty well when the ship being defended is less nasty than the defender.

Escort works better for aggressive ships, as the escorts will never pull forward and take heat.

[Grievous69]

as the escorts will never pull forward to take fire off the defended target.

Don't know if you're playing with any mods but this is exactly how escort works in vanilla. Ships will often tank some damage for you if you're venting or trying to back off. I always have a single Omen escorting me and this is pretty much how it works.

And it's hilarious that the defend order is used to keep the defending ship safe, not the other way around it actually makes sense.

[Megas]

Defend has a much bigger leash than Escort.  Otherwise, they seem nearly identical.  Escort has almost no leash while Defend sometimes has too long a leash.

[Histidine]

I just use Defend on a ship the same way as I do with a point in space: "tether everyone (who's not doing something else) to this location" just that the location happens to be mobile.

It could probably have a different name when issued on a ship, like the way it's called Assault when issued on an objective held by the enemy.

[Brainwright]

Don't know if you're playing with any mods but this is exactly how escort works in vanilla. Ships will often tank some damage for you if you're venting or trying to back off. I always have a single Omen escorting me and this is pretty much how it works.

And it's hilarious that the defend order is used to keep the defending ship safe, not the other way around it actually makes sense.

Nah, I mean Hyperions with an aggressive captain will pull ahead and start engaging things if they're set to defend (and there are enemies to engage).  Escorts won't.

Hell, I wanted the defend command put in for ships so I could use aggressive support ships instead of face tanking the entire damn enemy fleet.  Escorts are always on the flanks.  Your example is just that, you pulled back to get support.  They weren't engaging things.

Defending ships will spread out in a battle line that's centered around the defend target.

[Drazan]

As stated numerous times before. WE. NEED. A. COMMAND. OVERHAUL.
Commands are not obeyed, but even worse they are not intuitive either. New players can struggle for hours tríing to figure out what an ored called "defend" actually do instead of defending, etc.
I suggest that there should be completely new commands with different names, and there should be two sets of them one that works like todays commands, and an other direct one that is obeyed without question.

[Grievous69]

Man you keep coming to posts even vaguely mentioning AI and constantly spam that the game needs direct commands like an RTS. It's not that type of game, nor could it handle that sort of system. It would just make the game harder and even more frustrating for everyone who tries to play it that way (like the new players you so care about). Give it a rest or make a mod yourself if you can't stand the current system.

After all this thread is specifically about the Defend order.

[Üstad]

Man you keep coming to posts even vaguely mentioning AI and constantly spam that the game needs direct commands like an RTS. It's not that type of game, nor could it handle that sort of system. It would just make the game harder and even more frustrating for everyone who tries to play it that way (like the new players you so care about). Give it a rest or make a mod yourself if you can't stand the current system.

After all this thread is specifically about the Defend order.

He has a point though as far as I remember even Alex agrees that orders usually screw up the battle and in general player should avoid giving orders.

[Grievous69]

I think there's a *small* jump between "this has issues and should be improved" and "we should redesign the game".