Irritating game issues.. argh

[Gam]

I feel about ready to toss this game out the window...

My saga of tonight with EAW:

 

First, I get to deal, as always, with the artificial stupidity. Yes, during space battles I group units and tell them to attack an enemy unit-- instead of doing so, most of them just stop, and/or engage different units. I even have seen cases of a unit, having been instructed to attack another unit, turning in a full circle AWAY from that unit. PLUS, I have a bunch of units, usually corvettes, which will sit and do NOTHING whilst enemy fighters swarm around them. They won't shoot, not at all, unless I order them to.

 

Then, as always, in attacks on space stations a single Tartan Cruiser will come in and blot 5 squadrons of Y-wings out of the sky in 10 seconds. No exaggeration. There isn't even time to get the Y-wings out of the area. Oh, and no matter how many times I order my 4 assault frigates and 2 nebulon-b frigates to attack them, half the time most of the frigates decide to attack something else. Bye-bye Y-wings, et bye-bye to any chance of taking out an L4-5 station.

 

Then, I start on the mission where Han and Chewie have to find a container in the Vergesso Asteroid Field. Hmm.. well, seems straightforward enough.. a bit of sneaking around. Yes, except for that either Han or Chewie seems to have either an extremely itchy trigger finger or a death wish, as whenever a TIE squadron comes into range, even when the Falcon is hidden in an asteroid field or nebula, the Falcon will shoot at it, thus alerting the Imperials and bringing down loads of fighers and patrol cruisers upon our poor smuggler duo. Result: disabling of the Falcon, and another 10 minute wait while Han and Chewie respawn.

 

THEN, for some reason the game decides it doesn't want me using reinforcements in space battles anymore. As a result, I get to fight battles against Imperial fleets and-- worse-- space stations with only the initial 25 units. My umpteen corvettes, frigates and fighter squadrons in reserve don't get a chance to do anything-- the 'request reinforcements' button is grayed out. I guess these guys are out at lunch or something, so instead of an easy victory half the time my units get trashed by a bunch of Star Destroyers which would have been easy game for the combined fleet.

 

Finally, as if that wasn't enough, after Han and Chewie FINALLY respawn, the game decides it doesn't want to let them fly to Vergesso anymore. Yup, I can drag and drop them in 50 times and they won't go there. Oh, they'll move to any other planet, mind you, just not the one they need to go to in order for me to advance in the campaign.

 

Saving and reloading solves none of these issues. Frustration to the extreme..

[kookaburra]

Actually I share your frustration Gam, my units don't even attack either. They seem to have a mind of their own. And Yes you can't call for reinforcements which stinks. Let me set one example, I had a few ships plotted against an entire fleet of Tie Fighters and Star Destroyers! now how the hell do several very tiny ships defeat massive Star destroyers and million of Tie-Fighters? lol the chance of survival for those tiny little star wars peoples flyinmg those x-wings is zilch. I must say it can get frustrating so really i don't with space battles much. I just stick to the smirmish game at the moment until I am advanced enough to out wit all those bots...maybe even still i might not still beat them becausde of the chances of extra poweful Star Destroyers and millions of Tie-Fighters.

[Guest DarthMaulUK]

If you send fighters in to attack other fighters or smaller ships, theres a good chance that by the time your ordered units are within firing range, that target has been destroyed and they dont appear to be searching for others to attack.

 

The units wont always go after something if its not in firing range but they do attack, especially in space comabt.

 

I have noticed problems on ground mostly where the AI acts just like the AI on BFME 1 did...badly. It does need tweaking - but you adapt and make up for that in combat. Turns you into a better commander!

 

DMUK

[[AS] Dodger]

I had that problem with the Falcon too. "STOP SHOOTING!!" I was yelling!

 

Most RTS have some form of agression setting - Shoot anything, shoot if fired on, or don't shoot under any circumstances.

 

EAW could benefit from that.

[gswift]

This may help sometimes. In space:

 

When you have a group of ships in a nebula, it tells you that the nebula is interfering with their sensors. You sometimes need to issue orders to each ship by itself because of the nebula. Especially when using the double-click orders. That may have been planned to be that way. Nebulae and Ion storms are nasty business for ships.

 

When issuing orders to a group of ships, there are two pathfinding routines.

 

1-If you single-click, the group will try to stay together and organize itself, moving at the speed of the slowest ship in the group, and avoiding asteroids if possible. They'll tend to stay together rather than chase nearby targets.

 

2-If you double-click, each member of the group will act by itself and move as fast as it can to the destination, large ships will NOT attempt to go around asteroids. They'll fly right through in thier haste to obey your emergency orders. Small ships will be more likely to attack nearby targets independently.

 

 

Also, it helps if you group your ships by type. That way, your small ships won't try to coordinate movement with the larger ships. For the very-large class ships, each one should be assigned it's own group/hotkey and be given it's own movement orders. When they start to move or turn in the wrong direction, use the stop button and issue a new order. In most cases, it's not a good idea to use ctrl-a and issue a move command to a large fleet all at once...

[falconeer999]

In re: gswift's advice

 

I highly recommend his grouping suggestions. First thing I do when entering battle is Ctrl-Click on each ship type and assign each class of ship it's own number. Cruisers get 1, VSD get 2, Broadsides 3, Vader (if he's fighting) 4, Tie Fighters 5 and Tie Bombers 6. Every battle I assign them the same number so in a panic, I don't have to think about which number the ships are assigned to. ie: If I see y-wings approaching, I know to hit 1 and attack, 5 and attack.

 

I very rarely have issues with ships not attacking who I want or not going where they're supposed to go.

 

When moving, this also allows the faster moving ships to get to an area first and start to secure it. My cruisers are always the first to an area and can get rid of the y/x wings so my capital class ships just have to get rid of the bigger ships.

[wedge2211]

I'm pretty sure that in space battles move and attack orders are dealt with separately. That is, if you order a ship to attack another ship, it will concentrate fire on that ship but won't necessarily move to engage it--you can give it a move order, however, and it will move and attack at the same time. If the ship doesn't have a target assigned, it'll fire at everything in range. The tricky bit is that if you give an attack order and then move the ship out of firing range of the target, I think it'll keep its guns trained at the old target. So if you forget the ship has a target and move it out of firing range, it won't shoot at anything. For this reason I've started making liberal use of the STOP button, which clears the targeting information as well as movement information. Usually I only give move orders to small capital ships (GREAT for anti-fighter ships), and only assign specific targets to the large ships.

 

I also suspect--but have not been able to confirm--that if you use the MOVE button on the console, your ships will hold their fire as they move. I haven't tried it because associating a move order with a right-click is so ingrained in me by now. If that's not true (and I'll have to try it out), then I totally agree with Dodger above.