This, basically, is a frequently asked question. It should probably be in the forum’s FAQ thread.
The game definitively
is not an “RTS” game: it’s gameplay and UI are really different compared to the typical “RTS” game. In Starsector individual ships (or rather, their captains) are smart and largely autonomous. In so called “RTS” game, mobile units are like “I’m stupid, I’ll wait for your orders, God-Player”. Just for fun, search “warcraft 2 quotes sound effects” on Youtube if you want to hear a pretty accurate representation of this.
The question is addressed in-game in several ways:
Spoiler
(1)
Command Points
Command points are required to create assignments and give direct orders to your fleet. Once an order is given, all other orders are free for a few seconds while the command frequency remains open.
Cancelling assignments does not cost command points, and cancelling all assignments will allow your fleet to engage the enemy at will.
Ordering a full assault will cancel all assignments and also make your ships engage very aggressively. Cancelling a full assault requires a command point.
(2)
Engage
Order your fleet to engage the target and any nearby enemy ships, without exposing themselves to undue danger.
(3)
Eliminate
Order your fleet to launch a dedicated attack on this ship. Ships given this assignment will try to attach the targeted ship regardless of the tactical situation, exposing themselves to greater risk.
(4)
Some of the missions (I mean out of campaign missions), are there to teach player how to handle various tactical situations with various orders.
Sources of confusion are:
- the use of the word “order” or even worse: “direct order”
- the fact that the game has weak orders and strong orders
- and the expectations some players have for all those so called orders
- some players do not read (or understand?) the in-game description of the Engage and Eliminate orders
Some ideas to raise player awareness and hopefully adjust expectations:
Spoiler
- Have some more flavour text somewhere regarding what “order” really mean as far as ship captains are concerned (hint: it rarely mean “go there, do that” for sea ships or planes IRL, it’s much more subtle).
- Have some more varied out of campaign missions to teach player how to manage various tactical situations.
- Have some incentive for player to play battle tutorials and out of campaign missions, maybe display some kind of meter or percentage on the title screen representing an overall score/completion of said tutorials/missions so that player gets a overall assessment of his progress at learning the game.
- Display a warning when player tries to start a new campaign while this score/progress is too low.
- In some instance use the word “goal” (or “optional goal”) rather than the “order” noun, and use “assign goal” (or “assign optional goal”) rather than the “order” verb.
- Maybe… add an explicit “do not engage this ship” order. Which would be quite different than the “avoid this ship” order. But I’m afraid if such a thing was possible in a non-confusing way it would already be available.