Is it worth to assign fighters to the station?

[mr.WHO]

Or should I stick with combat drones?
In X-Rebirth fighters were useless, but the ones assigned to the station automatically escort freghters in their vicinity - is this is still a thing in X4?

[Requiemfang]

Or should I stick with combat drones?
In X-Rebirth fighters were useless, but the ones assigned to the station automatically escort freghters in their vicinity - is this is still a thing in X4?

drones are limited to 1 weapon slot, are slow as bricks and are generally out-classed in weapons and speed by most any attackers, basically they're jokes as far as I am concerned. The fighters in X4 are better compared to XR fighters.

[caltrop]

A station can have *a lot* of combat drones and “quantity has a quality all of its own” Combine with a few defence discs and they can easily protect themselves.

In a hostile sector I normally assign a destroyer or L miner missile frigate plus fighter escorts or a wing of M ships to protect a station until the above defences are built though

[Requiemfang]

Drones are even more dangerous and somewhat useful when using the Drone Variety mod.

https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/269

changes the stats and adds different versions of the drones, some having stronger hulls, some having different speeds, there are also race specific ones and drones that have different weapon loadouts. Only issue you may run into with drones and stations is that you may have trouble docking or undocking if your station decides to spew all of it's drones out to defend itself, that's the current complaint I've seen from people here about drones and stations, that they have to use the same docking pads ships use to dock or launch assuming of course the station doesn't have an admin center.

[Falcrack]

Does anybody ever find their stations being attacked? I have no defenses other than a few drones, but nobody has bothered to attack me. Will factions attack your stations that are not in their sectors if you are hostile to them? Will Xenon attack your stations if your station is in a sector not adjacent to their sectors?

[waynetarlton]

Now that the stations' fighters are meant to stay with in a certain distance of the stations, it makes sense to use that option.

[caltrop]

Does anybody ever find their stations being attacked? I have no defenses other than a few drones, but nobody has bothered to attack me. Will factions attack your stations that are not in their sectors if you are hostile to them? Will Xenon attack your stations if your station is in a sector not adjacent to their sectors?

I find admin stations used to claim xenon sectors will get attacked, likewise stations used to guard gates to xenon sectors (if you set them up correctly to provoke the xenon lol). Those stations get turret discs, missiles and lots of drones

The rest just rely on a few combat drones and basically don’t get attacked. Even if they were I could intervene (or local patrols do) long before it becomes a problem...

[MurryChang]

I've found that even with 1.6 any ships you have assigned to a station will tend to wander all around the sector they're in and start fights with friendly's for no reason.

Patrolling anything is totally borked and your stations never get attacked if they're not in enemy territory. There's no point in worrying about protecting your stations as far as I can tell.

[Reposter]

I've found that even with 1.6 any ships you have assigned to a station will tend to wander all around the sector they're in and start fights with friendly's for no reason.

Patrolling anything is totally borked and your stations never get attacked if they're not in enemy territory. There's no point in worrying about protecting your stations as far as I can tell.

I set My Cerberus and 2 Fighter as 1 Wing to Patrol Argon Prime, and they did not start fights with Argon Ships... I think maybe they might have detected Contraband on your Flag Ship thus becoming Hostile and fighting with your Patrol Ships...

[Reposter]

Or should I stick with combat drones?
In X-Rebirth fighters were useless, but the ones assigned to the station automatically escort freghters in their vicinity - is this is still a thing in X4?

What Combat Drones are we talking about, Station Combat Drones or Ship Drones?

I myself am still learning the game, so how do you know you have Combat Drones and how to Deploy them, please Enlighten me, thanks.

[MurryChang]

I've found that even with 1.6 any ships you have assigned to a station will tend to wander all around the sector they're in and start fights with friendly's for no reason.

Patrolling anything is totally borked and your stations never get attacked if they're not in enemy territory. There's no point in worrying about protecting your stations as far as I can tell.

I set My Cerberus and 2 Fighter as 1 Wing to Patrol Argon Prime, and they did not start fights with Argon Ships... I think maybe they might have detected Contraband on your Flag Ship thus becoming Hostile and fighting with your Patrol Ships...

Nope, none of those ships have any cargo. I can tell it's still not working right because when I assign them to protect a station they do exactly what they did in 1.5: Fly away from the station.

[Reposter]

I've found that even with 1.6 any ships you have assigned to a station will tend to wander all around the sector they're in and start fights with friendly's for no reason.

Patrolling anything is totally borked and your stations never get attacked if they're not in enemy territory. There's no point in worrying about protecting your stations as far as I can tell.

I set My Cerberus and 2 Fighter as 1 Wing to Patrol Argon Prime, and they did not start fights with Argon Ships... I think maybe they might have detected Contraband on your Flag Ship thus becoming Hostile and fighting with your Patrol Ships...

Nope, none of those ships have any cargo. I can tell it's still not working right because when I assign them to protect a station they do exactly what they did in 1.5: Fly away from the station.

In my game, the ships just do what they are told, after I set them to protect my Station, blue Spheres appear around my Station, and my ships just Protect...

[pvarn]

A station can have *a lot* of combat drones and “quantity has a quality all of its own” Combine with a few defence discs and they can easily protect themselves.

In a hostile sector I normally assign a destroyer or L miner missile frigate plus fighter escorts or a wing of M ships to protect a station until the above defences are built though

I've seen drones only flight off a large station attack in the early game at Ianamus Zura.
-Pv-

[Bystander]

Patrol is generally safer than protect. The protect order will often result in your ships getting involved in faction disputes near your station - I think it's simply down to stray bullets hitting the station but not sure. E.g. You're +20 with HOP and PAR but a fight breaks out near the station and your "defence" ends up taking sides and killing one of them.

On the is it worth it front, personally I'd never experienced anything attacking a station - even when I built them in red sectors - until 1.6 when suddenly a XEN District 9 appeared out of nowhere at my base in the middle of Second Contact and assaulted my station.

The station had zero defences but the XEN carrier had barely scratched it after about 5 minutes when the local peace enforcement turned up and obliterated it.

So, currently I'd say defence drones are pretty much pointless.

[caltrop]

They may not be needed in faction space when you can rely on local faction patrols, but elsewhere, combat drones are useful as a basic level of defence as you don’t need to build turrets, defence modules etc to equip them