Shinra Vanity wrote: ↑
Mon, 2. Jan 23, 19:43
My Heart sank as I watched my entire fleet Leroy Jenkins into battle and hump the stations until they died
...
How do you guys setup a fleet?
How do you command it ?
any other advice would also be most welcome
Happened to me also. I think there is an obvious fault with the player-owned-ship/fleet-AI-logic in the game's current (v.5.10) state.
In warfare in general, if one has the option to apply damage without taking damage, unless there are other considerations, one take advantage of this state.
In this game however if AI-controlled-player-owned-ships have the option to apply damage, without taking damage, instead, a suicide occurs.
This is a blatant AI programming error.
It is not player error.
We need to get this point across to Egosoft somehow so that maybe they can fix it.
So far, I have no evidence that Egosoft is actually aware that there is such a problem. I do not know how that is possible, maybe they play the game vastly differently than me/you/question-asker (mentioned below).
On the Egosoft YouTube channel, in one of the videos, there is a player question, asking about this as follows: "Question: Would it be possible to give the order to ships if you want them to maintain distance and attack from distance?"
In the video this question is featured, we have Egosoft CEO Bernd Lehann and a developer (Adrian from Spain).
Admittedly I do not know this game as much as an Egosoft dev.
Having said that, based on what I see in the video (and keeping on mind my experience in my X4 games in v.5.10), it appears they did not understand the question and so they did not answer the question.
Here is the link to the video and its relevant timestamp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_xZLbY ... el=Egosoft
Moving on to some of the specific questions in your post:
Shinra Vanity wrote: ↑
Mon, 2. Jan 23, 19:43
How do you guys setup a fleet?
How do you command it ?
any other advice would also be most welcome
Using Argon destroyers (6-7 of them, ideally more), what works for me is micro management of the OOS attack, as explained below. You sure can spice it up by adding fighters, heavy fighters etc. but you do not need it. You just need destroyers, to destroy the Xenon stations.
1) Plot a course for destroyers, close to the target (Xenon) station but outside the actual attack range. This is just so that I can do other stuff while they are en route. I start closely watching from step 2 onward.
2) Once there, plot another course that would destroyers at main battery range but outside Xenon station gun range so that your destroyers can hit the station with their main batteries only and the station cannot hit back at all.
You can manually plot the course so that each destroyer attacks from another angle (12 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 6 o'clock etc.) on the same horizonal plane. Picking various points in the vertical plane is also an option, although I never bothered.
I literally put them side-by-side ( line abreast https://jasta5.org/Jagdstaffeln_5/j5_fo ... s/wall.jpg ) for the initial attack on the same horizontal plane.
(Note that even though destroyers are staying out of range, the station can still do a drone-swarm-attack, which in my experience is no problem for 6 or more Argon destroyers.
Xenon forces in the area can also counter-attack in bulk so it is good to have your destroyers in compact formation early on so that their concentrated AA fire can quickly delete all drones + Xenon forces in the vicinity before destroyers spread out).
(Tip: If you have a carrier and/or supply ship, bring them close and park behind the destroyers. Even though they will just watch the "station attack" in general, their AA batteries can help against the drone-swarm-attack).
3) Keep an eye on the station-attack at all times, because sometimes, one or more of the destroyers will feel the inexplicable urge to close the distance (i.e.: suicide). If you spot this behaviour, to counter it, just issue "remove all orders" and then issue "attack" at the station. Hopefully they will stay where they are for a while now.
This above works. You can delete Xenon stations with zero destroyer loss, you only lose a lot of your human time because you have to watch the screen like a hawk.
A note on fighters: In my limited experience, while doing the Xenon-station-deletion-work, keeping fighters docked in the carrier is better, they are not needed for this work (again, based on my limited experience) so letting them out is an unnecessary risk of potential fighter loss.
I have not seen any Xenon stations run away so no need to "intercept" the station.
With regard to fighting against other fighters/drones: AA guns do the same job fighters do, and AA guns come with auto-local-repair (and auto-supply-ship-repair) with a guarantee of zero fighter pilot losses.
Edit: I forgot to mention something which may or may not be relevant. It was one of the things I read about while searching for a solution for this problem which is "set all your turrets to defend". I cannot remember now, whether I consistently do this i.e.: whether this is a factor or not. I need to test it specifically to figure it out. So if you do what I say above, and your destroyers still close the distance, then please set your turrets to defend and retest. Also, if you do test it, please post a reply. Thanks.
