[Nuke]

alpha 1 usually flies in the finger middle formation. wingmen simply die too fast.

[Commander Zane]

That's probably just a human thing, mankind has been so used to putting wings on things that fly that it gets hard to break the habit. There's also the fact that you need to put the weapon racks somewhere.

Not only that but I can't find a single fighter / bomber that looks cool without something protruding from the sides... Be it a true wing (BSG, WC, some FS ships) or engine nacelle (B5, ST, some other FS).

[brandx0]

Back on topic quickly.  Has anyone experimented with simply having each wing of four broken up with alpha/beta/etc 2 and 4 given orders to protect alpha 1/3 ?

[takashi]

yeah...beta 3 went traitor and alha 4 died 3 seconds after a wing of maras jumped in.

seriously. after that i killed my remaining wingmen since they only attacked what they were supposed to protect. (and beta 3)

it makes them die faster if anything. just use the C-3-something commands and be fine with it.

[brandx0]

Sounds like you messed up there man...

Either way, I'm doing my best to ignore your posts these days, so anyone else tried this?

[jr2]

No, really, you shouldn't do that... if anyone's messed up, and still frequents this forum, I imagine that eventually, through electromagnetic osmosis, they'll end up pretty much OK, as long as they do actually read what's posted...

[brandx0]

I meant anyone else tried this as in the guard orders

[Flipside]

New members are overtly keen, old members are overtly cynical. It's usually a rough ride at first, but it settles down in the end

I just tried a 4 Ulysses vs 4 Mara on insane with the orders at 50% for the wing to attack the opposite, but with the Ulys' set on ship orders to defend a partner, so 1 defended 2, 2 defended 1, 3 defended 4 etc.

The Maras got owned.

I'm just going to try a control test, i.e. take out the ship orders, and see how that behaves....

Edit : Hmmmm... The Maras got owned just as quickly. I might have to up the number of Shivans, it appears Bats are good at taking down Maras.

[jr2]

Look at the Bats' horizontal turn rate...
EDIT: Try using SF Manticores...

[Flipside]

From the look of things, it doesn't really have much impact, the squad tends to peel off into doubles anyway, I tried multiple waves of Maras and changed the Ulys for Hercs and the results don't really seem to have much effect on Wing effectiveness at all.

[jr2]

Could you upload your test mission & let me take a look?

[Flipside]

There you go.

It's very simplistic, and I set up the camera so you can just sit and watch the behaviour from a distance.

Just remove the individual ship orders when you want to do a control test

Oh, and ignore wing names

[attachment deleted by admin]

[jr2]

Hmm, try this, see if it's a bit different.


[attachment deleted by admin]

[Flipside]

Hmmm... seems to boil down to who loses a ship first. I ran the mission 4 times, every time in the first wave, whoever lost the first wingman lost the engagement.

[jr2]

and the Shivs don't have orders, but the Terrans do... 1st order is to protect their wingman, priority 65, the next two orders are to protect the other Bananas, priorities at 50.  Wing order is to attack, priority 49.
All AI (Shiv and Terran) set to General
The Shivs seem to get a bit confused if they get in too close.  Notice how long it takes them to take down the last remaining fighter.

[takashi]

if shivans had a hive mind, you would think they would be perfectly coordinated. could it be that [V] coded shivan AI to behave like an unexperienced human? re-test today. new prioritys to the orders. my wing of myr's kicked mara arse.

[Flipside]

and the Shivs don't have orders, but the Terrans do... 1st order is to protect their wingman, priority 65, the next two orders are to protect the other Bananas, priorities at 50.  Wing order is to attack, priority 49.
All AI (Shiv and Terran) set to General
The Shivs seem to get a bit confused if they get in too close.  Notice how long it takes them to take down the last remaining fighter.

I have a suspicion that the 'passive' AI of each ship is doing pretty much what we are trying to tell it to do in SEXPs. From the looks of things, every ship in a wing automatically defends the other members of the same wing, that's why the Shivans get a bit wild when packed together, they're all trying to protect each other as well as line up for a run on Myrm.

[Inquisitor]

Some interesting stuff here about backwards compatibility and large battles, carry on...

[takashi]

im FREDing a larger more complex mission using the finger four system as we speak. i'll stuff it in a .vp since its using the shiny kato.

[Flipside]

It'll be interesting to see if it has an effect on larger battles. Personally, I'm in two minds, I think we are making the AI do something it already does, but the proof is in the playing really