Topic: SFC2: OP - Problem with Fighter Control / Attacking Non-Specified Targets

[Kumerian14]

Hello again, folks.  Separate question...

I don't know if the fighter AI is at fault, or there is something in the Convoy Raid mission causing this, but my fighters are rather blatantly ignoring my orders.  When I start a Convoy Raid, I often tell a group or two of fighters to start attacking a particular freighter while I tackle the escort with the other 2 groups.  However, nearly every time I have launched fighter groups in this mission, they ignore my orders and start racing toward the nearest freighter.  This occurs regardless of proximity, as I've had PFs and capital ships within 15k of my ship while the nearest freighter is 45k distant.

From what I can tell, this happens when I tell the fighters to "harass" a nearby target.  "Defend Me" seems to work OK in keeping them nearby, unless there's a freighter fairly close, then they sometimes break formation and go for the freighter.  I've also noticed that Tirak has the same problem on occasion in his YouTube play-throughs.  I have seen him battle this issue with more than one race and in more than one campaign.  His videos seem to confirm that this problem is much more prevalent  on Convoy Raid missions.

Any thoughts?  If this is just an AI bug with the fighters always fixating on the "easy pickings", then I'll figure out a way to work around it somehow.  If this is a mission scripting issue or some type of issue with a setting in one of the files (e.g. "fighter aggressiveness" = ?), is there a way to adjust this?

Thanks again for any help, folks.  When you're flying a Hydran Monarch-V with 4 fighter groups, this gets annoying really fast!

[TarMinyatur]

Fighters will preferentially attack certain vessels regardless of their "orders" from the shuttlebay UI. A single enemy fighter will draw the attention and weaponry of 24 Hornets.

There is no customizable setting by Taldren to improve fighter obedience. Telling one fighter to defend another allied fighter is best for their survival in terms of speed (i.e. stay at max speed).

You could play and customize the Hot & Spicy 1.1c package that gives all races PFs (which can be directly controlled one at a time) and remove the finicky fighters. Hydran PFs are potentially nasty with a Suicide Overload Fusion Beam with a max range of 1.9k. If you are playing 2.552 OP, you are missing out on 5 years of development.

Get 2.564 and the SFC Launcher and SFC Editor at least, if you haven't already.

[Kumerian14]

Fighters will preferentially attack certain vessels regardless of their "orders" from the shuttlebay UI. A single enemy fighter will draw the attention and weaponry of 24 Hornets.

There is no customizable setting by Taldren to improve fighter obedience. Telling one fighter to defend another allied fighter is best for their survival in terms of speed (i.e. stay at max speed).

Rats.  I was hoping that there was some way to affect this more directly, as my "waste" rates are high on missions with lots of targets.  That said, I honestly had not thought about telling one group to defend another.  Interesting idea.

You could play and customize the Hot & Spicy 1.1c package that gives all races PFs (which can be directly controlled one at a time) and remove the finicky fighters. Hydran PFs are potentially nasty with a Suicide Overload Fusion Beam with a max range of 1.9k. If you are playing 2.552 OP, you are missing out on 5 years of development.

Get 2.564 and the SFC Launcher and SFC Editor at least, if you haven't already.

Well, funny that you should bring that up, actually.  I downloaded the latest version with all the suggested add-ons.  However, I'm running this under Wine (stably, so far) and it just doesn't like the SFC Launcher.  I've tried several ways to get this to run, and it just doesn't seem to like Wine.  Any suggestions or feedback from other Linux users?

I haven't had time to get into the Editor yet, as I just re-installed everything after a total hardware platform replacement.  Is the 1.1c package that you referenced part of the stardard downloads, or is it a separate mod?

Thanks for the help.  Any comments about the Launcher would be appreciated, but I wouldn't be surprised if data on Wine installs was lacking.

[TarMinyatur]

The SFC Launcher sets values in sfc.ini. You can play OP 2.564 without the launcher if you edit the configuration values manually.

Linux, Wine, etc... I have no idea about that. I play SFC on a 2009 laptop that originally had Windows Vista. Free updates to Win 7 and 10 thereafter. I pretty much only use it for playing Orion Pirates, which it does easily.

Hot & Spicy 1.1c is primarily a PF mod on Falconer's test server, based on the standard 2.564 August update (aka 1.0z).

[Kumerian14]

Thanks for the extra info.  I don't mind editing the sfc.ini at all and I already have to try to fix my sound issue (separate thread; still no luck tracking that down).

Hmmm...I'll have to take a look at that PF mod.  The thought of Hydran PFs running around is enticing.

(EDIT: Part of post removed--found link on H/S forum after posting message.)

[TarMinyatur]

You will need to set a "jump ship" hotkey to manually control one PF at a time. There is no button in the UI for this action.

Set fleet control level to "tight", target your PF, jump into it, hit your target, jump back to mothership before it does something stupid while under AI control. (Tight fleet control will prevent your mothership from firing weapons offensively.) Lather, rinse, repeat.