Is there even a fleet system due for this game?

[Nick 031287]

ok im just sick of this now. how am i suppose to organize a battle fleet????

i sure you're all aware but i wanna make a point...
and my apologies if i rage a bit here...

i have a fleet of capitals, i have them assigned to a flagship. now all i asked them to do was PATROL a single zone!!!!!!!

and you know what happens? the flag ship goes off to its patrol and its support fleet folowing it, is on the OPPERSITE end of the zone! confused by the looks of it untill the flag ship is far enough for them to realise to go *ohhh look hes over there now lets go there.... in about an hour later...."

so how hard is it to have a formation??? fighters seem to manage this..... why cant capitalships follow properly????

i tried already to send a fleet into a fight... i send the flagship to this area to fight....

the flagship does fine... but its support ships dont use there jump drives untill a few moments after the flagship has jumped!!!!! so the flagshiup is alll alone going into the fight, an then EVENTUALLY the other ships follow in... but there waaaay behind not even in the fight.... and if by some miracle the flagship isnt destroyed against the overwhelming odds by the time the support fleet catches up, they do NOTHING but follow it!!! they dont even engage... some might fire back but tehy only do so to protect the flagship and not even really get into the fight!

how hard is this for a programmer to have fleet formations??? to JUMP at the same time, to fly together in formation and to fight as a unit rather then for them selfs individually if they happen to get hit....

sorry if im raging a bit... but this game has been out over over a year and a half now... while this game is now pretty much stable and things do work... but there are soooo many simple systems that are not attall implemented thats vital for a game like this.... is egosoft not even embarrased by this?

egosoft still has my support... but if they dont make up for this by adding all the proper features and not to mention more end game content for there sequal... i dont think i can continue to support....

and the only reason they still have my support is becuase going by a pattern here... they make a base game which covers the foundation here. and release a sequal that makes it into something amazing like X3 reunion was to X3 terran conflict...

[XenonSurf]

Hi Nick,
all I can answer you about a fleet is that the commands have been lately introduced in XR in one of the past patches. Fleet management is not a shiny part of XR, lol and I keep polite...
The 2 main commands that I have been using up to now are those you mention + 'Attack' and 'Keep position'. These are vague commands to allow for any serious operations. But there's worse: there is no real aim for any global combat in XR. Other than your personal reputation riff-raff, factions won't change politics in a global way to make sorta invasions or other large-scale combat interesting.

You are going to navigate in known warm waters, unless you load some mods.

Sorry to light up on this,
XenonS

P.S
Ah, where is my latest X3:TC, why the hell can it not be changed into XR

[pref]

I struggled with this in my last game around 3.1.
The best i could come up with was to collect them at a nearby location with fly to my pos (perhaps with some care about their top speed when picking locations with the skunk). Then once they grouped up i ordered the attack - ofc it did not always play out as i intended.

And since i tend to board everything thats big and has a red box around it, i just usually kept my capships at a safe location far away, where they cannot interfere.
I could not have them attack a station properly, but every time i left one in my squad accidentally, it surely killed my boarding target.

[A5PECT]

I feel it was a rather deliberate design choice for the game to refer to groups of ships as "squads" and never "fleets."

Keeping one or two capital ships in tow and/or a fighter wing is fine. But large-scale combat in XR just doesn't work; it's impossible to micro-manage large groups of ships. Not only is the UI not conducive to managing multiple player properties in hectic, time-sensitive situations (i.e. combat), the fundamental commands required for fine control and group tactics just aren't there.

I'm holding out hope for fleet management-esque improvements, but I'm doubtful of them being provided in a patch. I will expect them in the next standalone title.

[spankahontis]

It still does what Nick says, I have 2 Fleets of 4 Taranis Destroyers patrolling Verdant Profit.

The Squad Leader decides to go alone into about 3 awaiting Phoenix Marauders, before the others escorting him realise the ship is toast before they slowly crawl to where he was last to finish off the remaining Marauders.

Really dipshit Captains, even 4-5 stars all round and they're slow as a Republican's comeback.

[Santi]

Yes, fleets have a "follow the leader" behaviour, instead of a proper formation behaviour, where they all move out at the same time.. Even the most slowest ship will arrive first if it is the leader. I presume it is because they used the same code the Skunk uses for ships in Squad, the whole "updating coordinates for ships in squad" thingy.

[pref]

I used a script to update all skills to max - did not help either.

[BigBANGtheory]

I'm holding out hope for fleet management-esque improvements, but I'm doubtful of them being provided in a patch. I will expect them in the next standalone title.

Maybe yes maybe no who knows at this point? Maybe they will take it out completely or worse try to extend commands to the radial menu. Alot of uncertainty around this topic which I happen to think is the no.1 topic of importance.

[birdtable]

To have an effective fleet management / structure you also need an effective aggressive enemy ... At the moment there is non.
Plus a Galaxy many times more expansive before conflict brings the whole trading structure to a state of collapse.
The last time I fought a proper enemy was with the Khaak Invasion in the Terran Xtended Mod.....

[Snafu_X3]

To have an effective fleet management / structure you also need an effective aggressive enemy ... At the moment there is non.

The way ES traditionally addresed this is simply to give the AI NPCs the same AI as the player NPCs (other than strafing). I'd be perfectly happy with that..

Plus a Galaxy many times more expansive before conflict brings the whole trading structure to a state of collapse.

Certainly the economics in a few areas need looking at if this is to be the case, plus possibly a reworking of some of the station-building missions (give areas what they /need/ not what they already have a glut of)

[yoyolll]

If you take a look at the game mechanics, you'll realize that you're not supposed to have a battle fleet. There's no war, no destroying stations, no disrupting trade traffic, no giant fleets. Not sure why they felt the need to exclude these things, but it's a huge chore to try to assemble a large fleet or wage war.