Wingmen Not Following Orders

[EA6B]

OK, so yesterday I was playing a custom mission where the goal was to controll the sector. The resistance consisted of two turret rings, and two enemy squadrons. On my side, there were four friendly squadrons, plus my own squadron. The mission was designed in such a way that the friendly squadrons would advance and engage the enemy squadrons, at a short distance from the turret rings. My squadron consisted of three
2-J-45-116s. Those are my standard cheap ships for attacking turrets. A squadron of three of them can easily destroy a couple dozen turrets, but they are defenceless against enemy ships, so my plan was to keep my squadron in reserve until the enemy ships were destroyed, and then move in and attack the turrets in saftey. I brought my squadron to a full stop, and ordered my wingmates to stay in formation. A few turns later, they decided to break formation and enter the large dogfight that was going on. The 2-J-45-116 has very little thrust or turning, and no shields. Naturaly, my wingmen were killed, and neither of them did any damage to the enemy. When the dogfight ended, the friendly squadrons had done their job and destroyed all the enemy ships, as well as a dozen-or-so turrets, but there were still about twenty turrets left, and no other ships besides mine. I moved in and attacked the turrets. I launched fourty-five Yataris (thirty-nine of them were hits), but in the end, I ran out of missiles and had to hyperspace, leaving just four-or-five turrets intact. If my wingmen had stayed in formation like I ordered them too, we would have had more than enough ammo to finish the battle, but since they decided instead to enter the dogfight which their ships were not designed for, they got killed and I was forced to attack about twenty turrets by myself. I did destroy around fifteen turrets, but that wasn't quite enough, and the mission was a failor, all because my wingmen didn't obey orders. Has anyone else had that happen to them, where you enter a battle with a perfect plan, it's sure to be a victory, and then your wingmen do something really clumsy that spoils it?

[Andy]

perfect battle plan, LOL!!!!!!!!!
________
Topaz

[Fuzzy Wonky]

Has anyone else had that happen to them, where you enter a battle with a perfect plan, it's sure to be a victory, and then your wingmen do something really clumsy that spoils it?

Hum, no, I never had any such thing happen to me... Rofl Lmao (*)

(*) You bet I had. And I soon had to completely re-think any previous notion of a "perfect plan" (without necessarily shooting down all the wingmen first... )...

[umeboshi110]

my wingmen have never disobeyed orders like this. they do move under the stay in formation order when they are shot at, though.

[ichbinsehselber]

These are my impressions:

Wingmen follow orders exactly to the word, as long as no enemy is nearby. The wingmen usually react to enemies in higher priority than to your command and usually this is desirable. If a missile comes flying towards a wingman and you still have stay in formation

Asteroids may delay the completion of a command.

[TheKangaroo]

Guess they just saw one of those nasty missiles coming at them. I noticed anyway, that the 'Avoid Contact' order works pretty well for situations like that.

[BoxZone_Author]

Add my vote to "Avoid Contact".

[Zephyr]

There needs to be an option like "Attend to the mission objective", i.e. form a perimeter around whatever you're supposed to be defending, or ignore enemy fighters and attack whatever you're supposed to be attacking.

As it stands at the moment, whenever I get a "Destroy..." mission I *HAVE* to fly a bomber with max Plectrons or Oriks, because I *KNOW* that my wingmen will get distracted by enemy fighters and not bother with destroying the objective.

[umeboshi110]

oriks suck

i usually go with a mix of daycorn, plectron, and geenee and destroy all enemies and then destroy the objective, but this is later in the game. well, the odds are stacked against you in the very beginning