Need Help Keeping My Escorts Close By

[Tinjaw]

I am looking for some help on how to keep the other fleet ships under my command near my CC. I command the ships to escort me and they alway go off at attack the regions ODS and get destroyed. I can't seem to find the proper order, or combination of orders to give them to stop them from doing that. I don't want then to attack the ODS. I want them to stay nearby me and defend my CC. Any ideas?

[Supreme Cmdr]

*moved*

Did you actually READ the description for the thread where you originally posted this?

[Guest Shingen]

The AI during the beginning of the game is a little quirky because of the lower initial levels. This means that until you get an AI of 60+, you're going to have to babysit them.

Your best tool is TacOps/Hold command once you enter a new hostile system (and all your escorts have jumped). It stops time and lets you give commands without being in real-time.

Use defend instead of escort, or give your escorts a halt order before they reach the jump-point, then tell them to jump using their command palette. Once they jump, they'll halt after they jump through. This will give you enough time to jump yourself and issue new orders before your escorts default to SAD orders.

Generally, in my experience, with lower AI, it's a crap shoot. Spend a few days training your pilots in dogfighting and bombing runs.

Escorts are ten times more effective when they have some training under their belts.

[Tinjaw]

quote:

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Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

*moved*

Did you actually READ the description for the thread where you originally posted this?

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Yes I did...

Tips, Tricks & Techniques

Have a gameplay tip or technique? Share it or be assimilated! Looking for a gameplay tip? This is the right place to look.

and, BTW, the word you were looking for while you were slobering all over your keyboard during your dressing me down was "Forum", not thread. If you are gonna dot my i's please cross your t's.

[Tinjaw]

Thanks for the tips Shingen. I'll give those a try.

[Wolfheart]

quote:

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Originally posted by Enigma:

Tinjaw, the Supreme Cmdr is the man who made UC, he can say, post or do as he pleases on his forum. if you want to stay here long dont insult him

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I hope this wont be the first post a newcomer reads,as it would make him too scared to post anything.Relax a bit man,we are not in detention camp,Im sure SC wont be pissed of(let alone ban him or something) by a reply with a little bit of humor in it.

@tinjaw Shingen is one of the oldies around here

so "what he says"

And last,you may want to search the forum for anything in your head How to make AI escort the right way

Fighter pilots and other fleet craft taking suicidal initiative

Cannot stop AI escorts from attacking starstations.

[Tinjaw]

quote:

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Originally posted by Enigma:

Tinjaw, the Supreme Cmdr is the man who made UC, he can say, post or do as he pleases on his forum. if you want to stay here long dont insult him

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Enigma, I am well aware of who the SC is, but, hey, I didn't vote for him. I was trying to lighten the mood with a little humor and I do agree with his decision to move the thread. But having said that, let's move on or else this thread will be deleted for moving of topic.

quote:

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Originally posted by Wolfheart:

And last,you may want to search the forum for anything in your head

How to make AI escort the right way

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Saw that one, but it didn't really address the issue. It just suggests micromanaging, but doesn't say how. (I already knew one should try timing the jumps together).

quote:

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Fighter pilots and other fleet craft taking suicidal initiative

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Some good info there. Don't know how I missed that one when I searched yesterday.

quote:

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Cannot stop AI escorts from attacking starstations.

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Don't know how I missed that one either.

So, there, that shows the SC made even another mistake. He should have deleted my thread as redundant instead of moving it.

I am excited now. With this new info I might last more than two jumps. I'm off to reload my latest save and try these tips out.

Thanx everyone for your help.

edit:

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I just realized that in the big picture this thread hasn't added any new info just rehashed old info. So, to give this thread some value let me summarize what the other threads said.

[*]Make use of TacOps and the HOLD feature.

[*]Specify DEFEND over ESCORT when appropriate. (Using ESC|F1 from the TOM allows the AI to choose between the two.)

[*]The escorts are doing what they are told (i.e. protecting you from hostile forces in the region.)

[*]Use some micromanaging to keep all their jumps timed toghether.

[ 08-01-2004, 10:02 AM: Message edited by: Tinjaw ]

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

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Originally posted by Tinjaw:

quote:

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Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

*moved*

Did you actually READ the description for the thread where you originally posted this?

---

Yes I did...

Tips, Tricks & Techniques

Have a gameplay tip or technique? Share it or be assimilated! Looking for a gameplay tip? This is the right place to look.

and, BTW, the word you were looking for while you were slobering all over your keyboard during your dressing me down was "Forum", not thread. If you are gonna dot my i's please cross your t's.

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If you read and understood what I wrote in that description, you would know that the thread is for posting and reading about tips. Not for REQUESTING tips. For that, we have this forum where what you asked about has been discussed in no less than eight or nine threads. The forum has a search function, USE IT.

quote:

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Originally posted by Wolfheart:

quote:

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Originally posted by Enigma:

Tinjaw, the Supreme Cmdr is the man who made UC, he can say, post or do as he pleases on his forum. if you want to stay here long dont insult him

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I hope this wont be the first post a newcomer reads,as it would make him too scared to post anything.Relax a bit man,we are not in detention camp,Im sure SC wont be pissed of(let alone ban him or something) by a reply with a little bit of humor in it.

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I agree. Post removed.

The point of the people posting in the correct forums is so that newcomers find stuff easily and so that the forum search function comes up with fewer false positives. This forum has been running since 1998 and all posts are here. Imagine have to dreg through four years of posts - mostly false positives - because some people refuse to abide by the posting rules. These rules were implemented for a reason. They work. They are not meant to be broken. By anyone.

quote:

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Originally posted by Tinjaw:

So, there, that shows the SC made even another mistake. He should have deleted my thread as redundant instead of moving it.

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I made the decision not to delete it because your date of registration indicates that you are as Green as a leaf and I didn't want you to hurt yourself trying to figure out why your post was deleted. At least the next time you do this - and your post automagically disappears, you won't be guessing why.

[Guest Shingen]

quote:

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Originally posted by Tinjaw:

edit:

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I just realized that in the big picture this thread hasn't added any new info just rehashed old info. So, to give this thread

some

value let me summarize what the other threads said.

[*]

Make use of TacOps and the HOLD feature.

[*]

Specify DEFEND over ESCORT when appropriate. (Using ESC|F1 from the TOM allows the AI to choose between the two.)

[*]

The escorts are doing what they are told (i.e. protecting you from hostile forces in the region.)

[*]

Use some micromanaging to keep all their jumps timed toghether.

---

You seem to have forgotten the most important one: Training!

If you go into the Roster and look into your pilot's stats, those numbers are very important to overall performance.

If you don't spend some initial gametime just training your pilots, don't expect them to handle hostile situations very well against higher AI NPCs, stations, bases, ect.

Dogfighting is the most important, and if your pilots don't get a "kill", then their stats won't raise all that much.

If you are playing as a raider or merc, using Fleet C&C, you get what you play for, 'cause you can't train NPC escorts, and you don't have access to any pilots/fighters.

[Tinjaw]

quote:

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Originally posted by Shingen:

You seem to have forgotten the most important one:

Training

!

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Am I missing something? Can you tell the fighters to go practice/train? Or do you just mean use them and they will get better with experience?

[CedricB]

I'd suggest just hanging around Galcom and killing the hostiles that turn up there every now and then as a way of "training" your pilots before you go galavanting off into the great unknown where the meaner nasties live.

And place every marine on Search duty, save for the 10 which are split between the Medibay and detention center... and put a few in each shuttle to reduce the threat of theft.... I can hear them... they're in the air ducts....

[Supreme Cmdr]

Thanks to Shingen's input, we can move this one now I think.

[DennyMala]

In a densely populated hostile zone you can even assign your escorts the FLY TO... (your CC) order so that they will stay very close and be ready for you next order to engage.

[Guest Shingen]

quote:

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Originally posted by Tinjaw:

Am I missing something? Can you tell the fighters to go practice/train? Or do you just mean use them and they will get better with experience?

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It's all in how you approach the dynamics of the game. Most people (IMHO), are looking for a "quick-fix" combat rush, so they'll load up a game of BC and send of their CC and fighters into the brink of death and wonder why they didn't live very long.

The jist of BC boils down to it's "AI". 9 times outta 10, the internal NPC AI will spawn higher than your internal crew/pilot AI. So, when you first start a new game of BC, the player AIs suck. Derek made it this way for a reason, so that you'd have to work at the game to see any true benefit (the evil bastard).

Training basically means, work. Just as in real life. You control the circumstances at any given engagement, and have either your pilots or bridge crew perform duties that you have laid out for them.

Training DOES NOT mean actual combat (though it can, if you want to take the risk of losing the pilots/fighters). It means training.

Your pilots build AI, not only by being onstation, but by killing things, and also how the thing was killed (ie: dogfight-[space/air] or bombrun-[ground-based]) It doesn't matter what they kill, as long as they register a "kill" in the Roster. Number of sorties also plays a large part in how fast your pilots advance in AI lvls.

Simply keeping pilots/crew/marines "onstation" will increase AI, but not combat performance! This is because of the way the AI is coded. It learns. Good and bad things that you teach it, by how you play the game.

I could prolly write an entire FAQ on how to train BC AI, but i never seem to have enough hours in a day.

[DennyMala]

So true.....

BTW nice quote in your sig...UP THE IRON!!!!