Fighters deployed from starbase won't auto attack

posted on April 17th, 2011, 4:02 am

I realize the idea of having fighters deploy from stations isn't unique, but I'm not looking to start a debate - just trying to make it work for myself.

Just for kicks, I replaced the pulse weapons on the Risner Outpost with a fighter bay (deploying the Avalon Peregrines).  The fighters fly the normal pattern around the base and stay linked to it.  The problem I'm having is that the fighters won't engage enemy forces until you manually order the outpost to attack them.  After the attack command, they engage everything in sight until destroyed - replacement fighters become dumb again until another attack command is given.

I've added all the versions of the Risner outpost to the Peregrines hangar list.  I've tried adding in the explore and sandd settings to the station, as well as telling the station it's a ship.  I even added a dumby weapon to the outpost (zero damage and no sprite) in case a weapon was needed that doesn't have the useprimarytarget set at 0.  Conversely, adding the useprimarytarget=0 command to the Avalon's phaser doesn't affect the fighers, so I don't think that is the problem.

If I use the editor to delete the outpost and put an Avalon on the map in the same spot, the existing fighters that deployed from the outpost transfer to the Avalon and begin engaging normally.

I still don't quite understand what links the fighters to the carrier since they're just created by a replace weapon.  Am I missing something, or does it just not work with stations at this point?

posted on April 18th, 2011, 5:45 am

My guess is that it has something to do with you not being able to order a station to attack a certain target however someone smarter than i will have to answer your Q.

posted on April 19th, 2011, 10:26 am

not sure about that either, we haven't tried to put fighters on stations yet...

posted on April 19th, 2011, 12:19 pm

The Undying Nephalim uses fighters on his stations - only I can't recall if those work that way or not... 

posted on April 19th, 2011, 1:49 pm

My guess is that it has something to do with you not being able to order a station to attack a certain target however someone smarter than i will have to answer your Q.

Yeah, I don't have that problem because the fighters I build from a base are not from a starbase, and I don't use the fighter classlabel.  You might try changing the fighters from the fighter classlabel to destroyer, or something else.

posted on April 22nd, 2011, 11:57 pm

My guess is that it has something to do with you not being able to order a station to attack a certain target however someone smarter than i will have to answer your Q.

I don't think so - I tried changing the Avalon's weapon to match the station settings and the fighters were unaffected.  If I understand it correctly, the station IS picking a primary target, but the individual  weapons are told not to use it (useprimarytarget=0). 

I'll keep playing around with it.  I eventually want to bring all my Babylon 5 stuff over to Fleet Ops 

[dragonmalice]

posted on July 4th, 2011, 4:55 pm

Last edited by dragonmalice on July 4th, 2011, 4:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well, after some experimenting, looks like this will have to wait for some programming changes.  Here's the rundown:

1) Changing the fighter ainame to "craftprocess" causes the fighters to stop circling.  They stack on top of each other as deployed, staying hidden by the outpost.  They DO attack anything that comes near, but it doesn't look right since they're all on top of each other and not moving.  This might be a decent solution if a single ship or fighter were being deployed.

2) Changing the fighter class label to "craft" - fighters launch and maneuver, attack anything near the base automatically, then fly off in a random direction never to be seen again.

3) Changing ignoreinterface to 0 in the fighter odf.  The fighters behavior is unchanged, but they can be selected and given orders.  If you order them to attack, they fire a quick shot and then resume their holding pattern.  Something is overriding the orders.

4) The big one and probably the answer to the problem.  I changed the ainame of the OUTPOST to "craftprocess."  Immediately, the fighters began working perfectly just like when deployed from the Avalon.  On the flip side, the outpost can't build anything with this setting    There's something in the ainame that makes the fighters work, and I'm guessing the "starbaseprocess" needs some tweaking. 

So, for now, stations that don't build stuff can probably be made to work great as fighter bases.

posted on July 4th, 2011, 5:02 pm

Perhaps if you deploy them via a "craft" pod

posted on July 4th, 2011, 7:01 pm

That would be cool, but how to I keep the pod indestructible, but have it be destroyed when the outpost is?

posted on July 4th, 2011, 7:03 pm

destroymewithresearchstation =1