How to control fighters?

System

I've looked around and can't find a conclusive guide or even a discussion on how to control fighters from either your FDC or carrier. How the 4 commands your given work or any significant info. I'd love to know all about it. Things like why do my recalled fighters refuse to attack something when i click attack. Anyone care to enlighten me/others on how to control these cool little ships?

Archived Post

I have a voquv and use 2 bop hangar bays pretty much exclusively so bear that in mind as my experience with ordering around ships. iirc the 4 commands you get are attack, intercept, escort, and recall. frankly i've never used intercept or escort, maybe those commands would be more useful with support ships like repair drones. i have the bops set to attack almost all the time, however i've noticed they generally don't attack a target unless i've already engaged the target. once a target comes within 10km range and i start shooting at it, the 4 bops charge into the fray. i rarely use recall since if the ships are too far away i just launch new ones. i'll only use recall if the bops are around 15km or less away from me, and once they're close to my voquv i'll switch back to attack so i'm ready for the next fight.

Archived Post

Well, when I use recall, they come back, but when i click attack they don't attack anything. even if I engage a target, they just fly behind me like TRIBBLE puppies. Or they go off attacking whatever they want when I have them on attack and I can't focus them on a target. Sometimes I"ll have 2/3 fighters on one target, 2 on another, and one TRIBBLE off wandering in the street. I"d just like a more clear explination of how stuff works. I click on a button once and it turns white rimmed, click it again and it cycles, click it again and it does nothing. click it again and it turns white rimmed again. what do these mean?

Archived Post

I suspect Recall is bugged, I have the same problem.

How things work for the other 3 commands (as I presently understand it):

Attack: Pets will all attack your currently selected target and ignore everything else.

Escort: I've only used this on myself, so it may work differently in a group. That said, it *seems* to have your fighters attack whatever is attacking you. Only really matters if there is more than one enemy ship, as with Attack they will never split up to attack different ships, while with Escort they will. Sometimes. It's iffy.

Intercept: From what little I've used it, I think it sends the pets after a target, but won't swap their target to yours if you change targets.

Recall: All pets come to you. Pets can go Full Impulse with you. Unfortunately it seems like nothing can make them attack again after using it.

I want to reiterate that I have relatively little experience with Escort and Intercept, but that's what they seem to do with what experimenting I've done.

Archived Post

Ahahaha. Not sure if serious.

Generally as far as I have experienced. Just use attack.