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[qwortec]

First, sorry if any of this has been raised elsewhere.  I did check the sticky and did not see anything so here's my personal thoughts.

I've finally got my character up to level 19 and I've got a fleet that's large enough now where I need to start paying attention to what's going on and not just have all of the ships escort my main ship.  For kicks I've been tackling fleets that are much bigger than mine and I'm running into two main problems:

1. It is difficult to keep track of where my fleet is and what they are doing.
2. There aren't enough options for how to let the AI handle things.

I have a few potential solutions for this that I'm going to toss out:

1. There should be a mini-map.  Preferably  make it toggleable so that people who don't want it can remove it.  It should provide a simple map with as little detail as possible, just different sized arrows representing your fleet and the enemy fleet. Having this on during battle would allow me to observe where things are going that are out of my screen space without needing to constantly pause the game and open the tactical view (which is a bit info cluttered right now IMO).

2. There needs to be a way to quickly jump camera view to different sectors of the battlefield.  As with most RTS games this should be accomplished with the mini-map where you can click on a location and have the camera instantly jump there.  This would allow me to jump over and watch an engagement in process without having to pause, go to the tactical map, choose a ship, and then select the camera view for it.  The less steps to reach the goal, the better.

3. Turning your main ship to autopilot should not cost any command points.  This is a big one because often I want to watch an engagement between part of my fleet and the enemy, but it is far away from my main ship.  Right now though, if I want to watch the battle I either have to let my ship idle, or I have to waste a command point to put it in autopilot for a few moments until I am done watching the engagement and am ready to pilot again.  If I want to set my main ship to autopilot and just watch the battle unfold while issuing orders, then that should be OK as well, just consider the second in command of the main ship to be running it while the captain makes large scale orders.  He won't be as good (AI vs Human), but good enough until the captain can focus on what's going on again.

4. I would love to be able to give basic AI commands to all of my ships regarding general orders.  What I mean is that I want to tell each ship how it should be behaving: Aggressive or Defensive, as well as setting target priorities (allow multiple instances of these): fighters, cruisers, etc.  These could be set as default settings for each ship outside of combat, and then if you want to change them in combat it could cost command points.  This would allow me to create more nuanced fleet tactics in an easier manner. 

For example, I may create a ship that's loaded up with point defense weapons whose role is to provide fighter/missile defense for a strike ship.  I would set the default orders for the defense ship to defensive (meaning it will stay within close range of its escort and not chase down ships) and set its target priority for fighters and frigates so that it doesn't spend time attacking an incoming destroyer unless it can't get away from it.  The strike ship would be set to aggressive (meaning it will chase after targets up to a certain range) and have its targets set to frigates, destroyers, and cruisers (but not capital class).  These two ships could then work as a unit with the defense ship guarding the strike ship, and the strike ship escorting a large capital ship or something.  Then you'd know that when enemies get in close to the capital ship, the strike ship will range out and attack any larger enemies and it will keep its fighter/frigate defense ship close by.

Thoughts?

[LazyWizard]

3. Turning your main ship to autopilot should not cost any command points.  This is a big one because often I want to watch an engagement between part of my fleet and the enemy, but it is far away from my main ship.  Right now though, if I want to watch the battle I either have to let my ship idle, or I have to waste a command point to put it in autopilot for a few moments until I am done watching the engagement and am ready to pilot again.  If I want to set my main ship to autopilot and just watch the battle unfold while issuing orders, then that should be OK as well, just consider the second in command of the main ship to be running it while the captain makes large scale orders.  He won't be as good (AI vs Human), but good enough until the captain can focus on what's going on again.

You don't have to use an order to go into autopilot. You can just press 'U' (this doesn't use a command point).

[Gothars]

First, sorry if any of this has been raised elsewhere.  I did check the sticky and did not see anything so here's my personal thoughts.

Don't worry, the sticky thread is just to prevent all to often made feature requests that started to annoy the community. Your ideas are well worth considering, I think

1. There should be a mini-map.  Preferably  make it toggleable so that people who don't want it can remove it.  It should provide a simple map with as little detail as possible, just different sized arrows representing your fleet and the enemy fleet. Having this on during battle would allow me to observe where things are going that are out of my screen space without needing to constantly pause the game and open the tactical view (which is a bit info cluttered right now IMO).

Some form of minimap or radar is (was?) under consideration. If it gets into the game it will likely replace the radar ribbon on the screen edge.

2. There needs to be a way to quickly jump camera view to different sectors of the battlefield.  As with most RTS games this should be accomplished with the mini-map where you can click on a location and have the camera instantly jump there.  This would allow me to jump over and watch an engagement in process without having to pause, go to the tactical map, choose a ship, and then select the camera view for it.  The less steps to reach the goal, the better.

I think so, too. A key to circle through nearby allies/enemies would be preferable, I think. Or at least faster/more standardized camera control from the command UI.
The Combat UI is not clickable, after all.

3. Turning your main ship to autopilot should not cost any command points.  This is a big one because often I want to watch an engagement between part of my fleet and the enemy, but it is far away from my main ship.  Right now though, if I want to watch the battle I either have to let my ship idle, or I have to waste a command point to put it in autopilot for a few moments until I am done watching the engagement and am ready to pilot again.  If I want to set my main ship to autopilot and just watch the battle unfold while issuing orders, then that should be OK as well, just consider the second in command of the main ship to be running it while the captain makes large scale orders.  He won't be as good (AI vs Human), but good enough until the captain can focus on what's going on again.

I don't know where you got that idea, turning on the autopilot doesn't cost anything.

4. I would love to be able to give basic AI commands to all of my ships regarding general orders.  What I mean is that I want to tell each ship how it should be behaving: Aggressive or Defensive, as well as setting target priorities (allow multiple instances of these): fighters, cruisers, etc.

The problem with allowing too fine grained control is that it can become easily annoying if the player feels forced to use it.
I'm hopeful though that the upcoming officers system will allow you to configure AI in a more immersive way: Assign an aggressive officer to a strike ship and a cautious one to PD escort duty.

[Wyvern]

I don't know where you got that idea, turning on the autopilot doesn't cost anything.

Oh, that's simple.  On the map screen, if you give an order that includes your flagship, it'll turn autopilot on; if you don't know about the keybinding for it, you could easily think that's the only way.

That said, I feel that giving an individual order to your flagship shouldn't cost a command point - while there's some slight potential for abuse by setting commands, then transferring command, I think the mechanics of "transfer command" are limiting enough to make that a non-issue.

The problem with allowing too fine grained control is that it can become easily annoying if the player feels forced to use it.
I'm hopeful though that the upcoming officers system will allow you to configure AI in a more immersive way: Assign an aggressive officer to a strike ship and a cautious one to PD escort duty.

Personally, I'm strongly in favor of more fine-grained control - and if that comes in the form of "Officers", well, I'll take that.  Especially if I can get an officer that hates fighters and assign them to my flagship, so guns on autofire actually get the targeting priorities I want.  >.>

[PCCL]

That said, I feel that giving an individual order to your flagship shouldn't cost a command point - while there's some slight potential for abuse by setting commands, then transferring command, I think the mechanics of "transfer command" are limiting enough to make that a non-issue.

Hmm, I like this idea, as well as the image of an admiral flying around the battle in his command pod and personally yelling at each captain until they are crystal clear about what they need to be doing

[Alfalfa]

That said, I feel that giving an individual order to your flagship shouldn't cost a command point - while there's some slight potential for abuse by setting commands, then transferring command, I think the mechanics of "transfer command" are limiting enough to make that a non-issue.

Hmm, I like this idea, as well as the image of an admiral flying around the battle in his command pod and personally yelling at each captain until they are crystal clear about what they need to be doing

Coms Officer: "Captain, we've just received orders to capture the Nav Relay in Sector Alpha-Delta Zero-Niner."
Captain: "Helm, put us on an intercept vector for that relay.  Make sure to avoid that Dominater-class cruiser on our approach."
Navigation Officer: "Understood sir, bringing us about now."
Coms Officer: "Captain, incoming command pod hailing us.  It's the Admiral, sir, he's requesting docking clearance."
Captain: :groan: "Let him in." :massages forehead: "I wonder what the problem is this time!"
The bridge's door opens and the Admiral storms in.
Admiral: "What's taking so damned long!  Put her to full power straight towards that relay!  Hold fire, take all incoming ordinance on the shields!  We'd have control of that point by now if you hadn't been pussyfooting around that cruiser!"
Navigation Officer: "We've reached the relay Admiral."
Admiral: "Good, now don't move from this spot until we gain control of it!  Take damage on your armour if you have to, I want this point yesterday!  Prep my pod for departure; I have to go teach that fool Wallace how to shoot torpedoes!"
Admiral rushes back to his pod.

[arcibalde]

^^^AHAhahahahahahahahahahahahahahah DUDE!!!! Good one man!

[Gothars]

@Alfalfa: Ha, that's pretty good

That said, I feel that giving an individual order to your flagship shouldn't cost a command point - while there's some slight potential for abuse by setting commands, then transferring command, I think the mechanics of "transfer command" are limiting enough to make that a non-issue.

I don't think so. Imagine if you are out of CP and still need to capture Objectives. I know I would definitely switch to a nearby frigate, give it the capture order and then switch back.

But such abuse seems to be easily avoidable by just removing free-given flagship orders after you disembark.

[Wyvern]

That said, I feel that giving an individual order to your flagship shouldn't cost a command point - while there's some slight potential for abuse by setting commands, then transferring command, I think the mechanics of "transfer command" are limiting enough to make that a non-issue.

I don't think so. Imagine if you are out of CP and still need to capture Objectives. I know I would definitely switch to a nearby frigate, give it the capture order and then switch back.

But such abuse seems to be easily avoidable by just removing free-given flagship orders after you disembark.

Hm.  I suppose that depends on your fleet composition & flagship of choice.  Still, removing free orders is certainly reasonable.