[Kon]

Another day, another question. :

I'm doing the age old "Defend This and That" mission, and I'm trying to keep the number of wings to a minimum (like one for each ship type).  There will be a lot of ships, as they are all going to be set to the dumbest AI (is it Lt.?  I forgot.)  Anyway, How do I get my hostiles to warpin in at different places each wave?  And can I have only six at a time?  In this other part of the mission I had to have 9 of the same wing, so I had to set-up everything for the last 3 individualy. 

[CP5670]

Set the wing's arrival location to some ship. They will appear anywhere in the specified radius around the ship.

I think six is the maximum for a wing. Never tried going beyond that though. It's probably a better idea to just make more wings.

[Centrixo]

in the ship profile you see name, ship weapons, intial orders etc., well under arrival: you see a downward arrow and hyperspace on the left. click it then press 'near by', set it near by a ship, then select  a distance.

[Kon]

Problem solved.  Thanks guys.   I put them to arrive near Alpha 1, which may cause problems if the player decides to fly off, but oh well.

But now another question.

I have 6 frieghters in the convoy.  I want the enemy to attack only them (priority 80).  I can only have 5 starting orders, so for the 5th one I did attack any ship priority 35.  But all they do now is attack the station, and occasionally one freighter.  When the waves stop one was at 62 and the rest were still at 100.  Is there anything I can do?

[Centrixo]

improve thier prioroties.

[Trivial Psychic]

There have been requests for SCP to include more options for arrival vectors.  One is to allow the mission designer to select a region around the wing's placed location, so that they don't always appear in the same spot, but aren't bound to any specific object.  Another was to add more vectors, augmenting from the current "in front of ship" option, with "behind ship", as well as top, below, right, left, and perhaps a more of a degree direction-based system.  Something like:

Arrive near "GTD Bastion"
225 degrees (relative to target ship's lateral axis, so about 45 degrees from the back of the ship, on the left side)
125 degrees (relative to target ship's vertical axis, so about 45 degrees above the back of the ship)
600 (distance from ship)

There's also the possibly of incorporating variances into these figures, the same way that respawn delay has an option for non-absolute timing.  Add an option for degree variances for both figures, and a distance variance.  Granted, this can get rather extensive.  This is just my own speculations.

[Kon]

Well, one request I have would be to allow a Warp Near Objects, not just Ships.  This would allow for things like Waypoints to be on the list, so you could make a waypoint at the epicenter of where you want the enemies to warp in.

[TrashMan]

You can also use nav bouys.
A cheap, but effective trick. Just place them in the area where you want the enemy to arrive and set the wing to arrive near it

[0rph3u5]

I have 6 frieghters in the convoy.  I want the enemy to attack only them (priority 80).  I can only have 5 starting orders, so for the 5th one I did attack any ship priority 35.  But all they do now is attack the station, and occasionally one freighter.  When the waves stop one was at 62 and the rest were still at 100.  Is there anything I can do?

for making them stop attacking the station:
take the "ships editor" and give the station a "protect-ship"-flag (will make them ignore it until they are given orders to engage - keeps laser and flak turrets from firing on it too)

the enemy shall focus on the freighters only? - No dogfighting etc.?
give everything - except enemy fighter and the freighters - a protect-ship flag, simple easy

ps. if any coder crosses this place: would it be possible to add a "attack-ship-type" order for the AI to avoid such probs right away?

[Dark Hunter]

I have 6 frieghters in the convoy.  I want the enemy to attack only them (priority 80).  I can only have 5 starting orders, so for the 5th one I did attack any ship priority 35.  But all they do now is attack the station, and occasionally one freighter.  When the waves stop one was at 62 and the rest were still at 100.  Is there anything I can do?

One of your problems here is that the priorities are more important the lower the number. Therefore, a priority of 35 is far more important than a priority 80. Switch the numbers around and you should see an improvement. Disregard that line.

As for having only 5 starting orders, try placing the six freighters into a wing. Then you only have to take up one order space in telling them to attack that wing.

[Goober5000]

One of your problems here is that the priorities are more important the lower the number.

Uh, no.  The higher the number, the higher the priority.  It says so right in this'ere source code.

[Dark Hunter]

Hmm... I could have sworn it was the other way around...

I probably used to think that, but I haven't gotten much FREDding done recently so I forgot.