[J3Vr6]

I'm not home right now, so I can't see the actual wording (and plus it's been a while since I've fredded) but when you have a cap ship w/ fighter's supposed to be protecting it, do you have to set the sexp to protect that cap ship over and over again?

The problem I have is this:  An Orion jumps in and dumps it's fighters so it can defend it from bombers and other cap ships.  I set the fighter wings to protect the Orion.  Everything seems ok for the first assault against the Orion.  But later on in the mission new enemies arrive that try to take out the Orion.  For some reason, those fighters who were there to protect it just now float around not doing anything and letting the Orion get pummeled.

Or they'll protect the Orion for a while then just float around for a few minutes, then they protect again.

Am I supposed to set up the "protect Orion" sexp as a loop or something?

Keep in mind, I'm not sure it's "protect" but you get the idea.

[Hippo]

shouldn't have to... fsModding or general fs would be a better place for his, even though it says fred in the formn description...

[StratComm]

I don't know hippo, this place is sort of a haven for fredding questions if I understand it correctly.  At least that's what the mods seem to be encouraging.

To reiterate Hippo's answer, you shouldn't have to do anything.  but make sure you aren't clearing the AI goals and make sure that the protect order has a high priority.

[J3Vr6]

Yeah, I put it hear after seeing all the debates on where fredding questions should go.

I'll double check to see about the priorities or any goal clearing, but I'm pretty sure it's correct.

I do have one wing where they're originally ordered to defend the Orion, but once a specific enemy capship arrives I ordered them to attack it.  Maybe I went overboard with the sexp and have them all doing it.  Don't think so though, cuz then they wouldn't just be floating around.

How about this question:  When a capship fires their beams at other ships, does it register as "attacking" that ship?  Maybe the fighters don't see the beams as attacking and so float around waiting for a fighter/bomber to attack.

[Hippo]

hm... make sure you AREN'T using the 'Initial orders" box in the ship editor, as those do NOT go in order of priority...

[Cetanu]

protect orders should work constantly by default - unless you give them different orders somewhere during the mission

- high priority helps (89 is max)
- raising the AI level helps too

[Galemp]

Make sure you don't order that wing to do anything else.

[J3Vr6]

I'll work on it this weekend and let you know what comes out.

Still haven't answered my other question on how the game handles cap ships and beams.  If a cap ship is firing it's beams at several ships, does the game "see" that cap ship targetting all those different ships?  If I set a fighter to protect cap ship A and cap ship B starts to open up against all enemies and hitscap ship A with a beam, does the fighter see it as a threat and engage cap ship A?

And if it does, does the fighter target cap ship A or the turret that fired upon cap ship B?

[SadisticSid]

No, fighters will only seem to acquire targets based on their range to the ship being escorted by them. If you want them to respond to beams then you should script it with fire-beam events.