Fighter Strategies

[President_Elect_Shang]

All good advice but if he removes all unwanted target entries that will work. With both of the other suggestions listed here your fighters will still try to target vehicles you don't want them to if those other vehicles become legal targets. In other words it would really suck to have your dog fighters suddenly break off and engage a ship just because the ship got to close.

Oh let me clarify myself on one thing I have been vague about. I have said twice now to remove the unwanted targets from your fighter strategy. When I say REMOVE I don't mean delete. I mean go to the strategy you want to change and select SET ENGAGE DISTANCE for the targets you DO NOT want the fighters to attack to "DO NOT ENGAGE".

[Tnargversion2]

Thanks all, will give it a try. Now if I could just figure out a way for the AI to do similiar strategies and wish upon a star for them to design different types of fighters according to these new strategies.

[Raapys]

I mean go to the strategy you want to change and select SET ENGAGE DISTANCE for the targets you DO NOT want the fighters to attack to "DO NOT ENGAGE".

The problem with this is that you might want your fighters to engage those targets if they're the only ones present. If set to Do Not Engange, however, your fighters will just retreat at once if their priority target type isn't on the battlefield.

[Tnargversion2]

Interesting and fun battle to watch. I just had a battle in which my fighters set to an Air Superiority Strategy and my attack fighters set to an Attack Fighter Strategy. The air superiority fighters behaved I guess like you would expect an air superioty fighter would behave taking out all of the fighters weaving in and out heading one direction finishing off some fighters that broke through, then turning around to seek out some new fighters. Very fun they were all over the place and some good looking dogfights. All the while my attack fighters kept steadfast and true with their goal of taking out the larger vessels with standoff weapons.

For my air superority fighters I set their strategy to:
Targeting Priority Order:
Target Type
Has Undamaged Weapons
Least Damaged
Fastest
Nearest (absolute)

Target Type Order:
Fighter Engage Point Blank 100%
All others off

The only bummer was that I did this in the simulator so the enemy fighters had the same strategies whereas in real tactical combat in the game the fighters would assume their default strategies.

[thebigsilly]

I'm kind of confused about fighters - what's the real use of them? I tried to use some fighters in my own game, and they all die so fast that it seems like it would've been more worthwhile to just have a few extra regular-sized ships.

[Tnargversion2]

A handful of fighters usually don't last long, but if you have a carrier's complement worth, 40 or more they do wonders.

[President_Elect_Shang]

Raapys in response to my advice said:
The problem with this is that you might want your fighters to engage those targets if they're the only ones present.

I'm sorry Raapys but I don't understand what you are trying to point out; what targets?

Tnargversion2 in his first post said:
One of the things I am trying to do is getting fighter or interceptors to only go after other fighters

[Raapys]

Well, let's say you only have those interceptors left and you need to take out a stray colony ship, for example. If you've switched all other targets to Do Not Engage then you wont be able to take out that colony ship, because your fighters/interceptors will automatically retreat the moment there's no enemy fighter present in the combat.

This is why I'd not recommend making fighters the only available target, but instead make it the highest priority target.

By making other fighters the highest priority target they'll go after fighters until there's none left, at which point they'll help out with the rest of the fight, instead of just retreating as soon as the last enemy fighter is destroyed.

[President_Elect_Shang]

That may be a valid point but it wasn't what he was asking for. If he is asking about that level of strategy it is a safe bet he has already considered the very issue you bring up.

[Raapys]

That's true. Still, there's aspects about SE V's combat that has confused many of us again and again, so it doesn't hurt to be on the safe side.