Newcomer / Intro How to properly create a wing and play with friends?

[Kezha]

How to properly create a wing and play with friends & Combat question regarding guns

As the title says I'm curious to how this works?

Got two friends to join in and figured we'd try playing together, and we sort of got it to work. But I got a feeling we are doing something wrong as it is fairly clunky.

We added eachother to friends, and then managed to create a wing\group ingame and go to the same space station to meet up. We where unable to find eachother here and headed into supercruise and saw eachother OK.

The problem was when wanting to do a mission together and help out my friends since I Had a better ship and could help in combat etc. Dropping out of supercruise together and close, as well as traveling in supercruise, is there a way to do this without both pilots or more having to be seperate and being close before being able to drop in at the same time?

Example: Instead of entering supercruise and flying as 3 individual ships to a location, and waiting for all 3 to be close at the same time before dropping in, it would be easier if one flew and the others sort of followed and it was in formation?


Question 2 as well that I just remembered but figured i'd not make a new thread for. Combat and guns, Even though I have all power allocated to my guns and I use a Eagle with 3 pulse lasers on that are gimballed (if that has anything to do with it) I often seem to have the enemy infront of me, locked on, yet only one gun seems to fire, and sometimes non at all. And even if all 3 fire, the power is no issue and seems I could fire infinitly. Is there a reason to why sometimes only 1 or 2 guns fire of all 3, even if they are on the same firegroup?

Hope someone can help if it is possible

 

[Winterwalker]

I THINK it's possible to slave your SC drives to a leading ship (the formation flight you want) but I'm no expert. Try this tutorial video .. until someone who knows how this works comes along

 

[Kezha]

I THINK it's possible to slave your SC drives to a leading ship (the formation flight you want) but I'm no expert. Try this tutorial video .. until someone who knows how this works comes along

Thank you that is the one i found yesterday that allowed us to join in together!

Might also be that we are just clunky because we are still inexperienced getting out of supercruise efficiantly without zooming past the target 2-3 times before being close enough hehe

 

[Winterwalker]

Yes, it sounds like you might be getting out of range ..
I think the solution in that case (if lead drops from SC but others don't) is for lead (now in normal space) to drop a beacon and let wing members home in on that.

there's a thread (created when wings was released) .. from that;

Wingman nav-Lock
You can slave your ship’s frame shift drive to a wingman’s vessel. Select a Commander from the Comms Contacts tab in the Comms panel who is listed under the “Wing” heading and choose:
[ENGAGE WINGMAN NAV-LOCK]
You will see a square marker appear on the wingman’s status element in the wing interface.
When you are nav-locked, the following effects occur *automatically* if you are close enough to them.
When the nav-lock marker is cyan, you are within nav-lock range.
When the nav-lock maker is red, you are out of range.
· You will follow the wingman into and out of super cruise
o Standard requirements still apply (retracted hardpoints and gear, etc.)
· You will follow the wingman into a hyperspace jump
o Standard requirements still apply (retracted hardpoints and gear, capable FSD, fuel, etc.)
· You will follow the wingman’s wakes
o Standard requirements still apply
Note, you can only slave your drive to a single wingman at a time, but you can change the nav-lock target freely.
To turn off the nav-lock, select the nav-locked Commander from the Comms Contacts tab in the Comms panel who is listed under the “Wing” heading and choose:
[CANCEL WINGMAN NAVLOCK]

Interesting .. glad of the opportunity to educate myself on this, while beta servers are updating!
Good luck!

 

[Kezha]

Yes, it sounds like you might be getting out of range ..
I think the solution in that case (if lead drops from SC but others don't) is for lead (now in normal space) to drop a beacon and let wing members home in on that.

there's a thread (created when wings was released) .. from that;

Wingman nav-Lock
You can slave your ship’s frame shift drive to a wingman’s vessel. Select a Commander from the Comms Contacts tab in the Comms panel who is listed under the “Wing” heading and choose:
[ENGAGE WINGMAN NAV-LOCK]
You will see a square marker appear on the wingman’s status element in the wing interface.
When you are nav-locked, the following effects occur *automatically* if you are close enough to them.
When the nav-lock marker is cyan, you are within nav-lock range.
When the nav-lock maker is red, you are out of range.
· You will follow the wingman into and out of super cruise
o Standard requirements still apply (retracted hardpoints and gear, etc.)
· You will follow the wingman into a hyperspace jump
o Standard requirements still apply (retracted hardpoints and gear, capable FSD, fuel, etc.)
· You will follow the wingman’s wakes
o Standard requirements still apply
Note, you can only slave your drive to a single wingman at a time, but you can change the nav-lock target freely.
To turn off the nav-lock, select the nav-locked Commander from the Comms Contacts tab in the Comms panel who is listed under the “Wing” heading and choose:
[CANCEL WINGMAN NAVLOCK]

Interesting .. glad of the opportunity to educate myself on this, while beta servers are updating!
Good luck!

Cheers for that! will give it a whirl later on and see how it works out, training makes perfect hehe

 

[Universal Evil]

Your wingmans navlock can also be bind to a key of your choice in optionsmenu/control as well as binding keys to wingman #1, #2, #3, and there is also an option to bind a key to your wingmans target...

Spoiler

hope this will help you find the bindings cmdr...

 

[Kezha]

Thank you Universal!

Gonna have to look at those bindings for sure, managed to do some bounty hunting with someone last night and we managed by going from point to point by just communicating where we went, worked well enough once we where both a bit more familiar with the flying

 

[Certacito]

The only problem with saying where you are going and each of you navigating there is the there is a potential to end up in different instances. Therefore you wouldn't be able to see or help each other despite being in exactly the same place. Being in a wing helps with this and using Nav-lock also has the added bonus that when the wing lead drops out on a target, the others in the wing can enter at full speed without having to slow down as you would normally do for the "Safe Disengage".

 

[DNA-Decay]

Wings rock.
Everything is better in a wing.

I have F1 F2 F3 set to wingman 1 2 3 and F4 set to "Select Wingman's Target"

Make sure you can all find yr Enable Wing Beacon option and your Nav Lock button.

Hooking up with a player group will speed up your learning, but the key is to get some flow to your combat.
Generally Teamspeak is preferred to in-game voice comms but whatever suits you.

So wing combat workflow usually has someone lead and choose targets and the others follow.
Lead cycles through targets and chooses one. Others then hit F1 if that is the wing leader for them and then F4 to select the same target. Kill. Profit.

Tips and traps. If the wing leader is not quick in choosing the rest of the wing might hit F4 and select too soon. This will mean they have chosen different targets. Wingmen should keep spamming the F4 key until the Wing Lead has settled.
Well that's how I roll when I wing with strangers.

With pro's the wing lead usually announces the target "Conda" and wingmen also cycle through targets announcing candidates so the wing lead knows what else is here and can announce they're changing target. "Elite Python here"

Its usually pretty casual i hear people say "you wanna pick targets?" Rather than "I'll be wing lead"

Other thing to keep in your flow is to have Select Previous SubSystem bound to a key or button. The subsystems vary a lot with their order but the powerplant is always six clicks previous. So my flow is F1 (or whichever is lead) select wing lead, F4 select their target six clicks "previous subsystem" and I'm on their Power plant. You'll hear some stuff about how the powerplant isn't an instant kill anymore, but it does still make a difference so do it anyway. Uh also gimbaled weapons will hit the subsystem for you.


Uh - now when you've got a bit beat up and you need to go lick your wounds here's a trap I always forget.
With NavLock on you always drop in on your Wingman's beacon. So you go to supercruise away and you drop straight back into the combat instance. So before you go to leave the CZ combat zone, turn off Nav lock.

Enable Wing Beacon as soon as you wing up, and leave it on. It's up to the player leaving the CZ to turn off Nav Lock.


Uh. so that's combat wings. But EVERYTHING is better in wings. Not just for the chat, although you learn a lot winging with pros.
Trade has a bonus. Exploration shares data. Mining - you each get a full dose of the 'roids resources - so you only have to find one Painite and you all get it. Missions, if one person need a stolen item another can buy it - leave wing - jettison and then that item has the stolen tag.

Join player groups.

Wing up with strangers.

Wing up with enemies.

Just wing up.


Edit: instances.
These are pretty good now, but occasionally they still break. There are some people I can wing with, but not get into an instance with. So winging early while you are still jumping to the system helps the game get you into the same instance. If you do still fail to get into the same instance jumping between supercruise and normal space or in and out of system can help, but I have some people I've never got in the same instance. Uh not being in the same instance is like - you are winged up, each is outside the toast rack of the station, you can see the wing icon, but no blue square in the scanner and no wingman hanging around the entrance. It's to do with the peer to peer thing for open. Also one player with a long ping kinda stuffs up the instance for everyone. Again it's the peer to peer thing. I'm in Darwin IRL so uh my wing mates hate me sometimes.


Alliance oriented players should check out the Alliance Elite Diplomatic Corp in the Groups thread.