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[Flare]

I just can't agree that balancing something by making it frustrating to do is a good way of doing things.

As far as I experienced it, it's only frustrating if you want it to be. Just give it a chance.

With queueing and an easier to use system, we would have time to both control our fleet and control our ships. This isn't RTS micro, it's just taking our current system and making it easier to use, really.

The old system did allow you to que stuff up. It really didn't do much in way of alleviating the need to sit in the warroom though. Even if you set timers on how long a ship should stay at a waypoint, being in the control room just allows you to be able to respond all the much quicker to the situation as it changes.

[CaptainCato]

I have too agree with Beagle on this one, like him, I just do not see the point of "Command Points"  really. I mean, IRL, a commander could give any amount of orders he would like, so this is unrealistic. Secondly, I agree that we should have more freedom. We should be able to scout simply by 1-2 clicks, not by putting 5 rally points and ending up losing our scouts. I understand this is NOT an RTS game, but we do need more freedom with what we can do in the UI interface, and in my opinion, the UI as it is right now is unfriendly to the player.

[Flare]

I have too agree with Beagle on this one, like him, I just do not see the point of "Command Points"  really. I mean, IRL, a commander could give any amount of orders he would like, so this is unrealistic.

Well if you want to go down that route, a commander certainly could. Although I think it'll only remain cohesive to the point where the communications officer relays it to other ships. From what I know of naval and land operations, a great deal of authority is given to the captains of the ships. There would be briefings to go over what objectives must be accomplished sure, but often how it comes about is left to the captain of each ship. This is done throughout communication technological leaps because when the firing starts, there's often way too much going on than any one crew or admiral can keep track of.
Admirals usually don't give out orders non-stop during engagement. There's often some basic procedure the ships and crew are trained to follow in reaction to events.

[BobHound]

When the new system came I was initially very frustrated and didn't understand how to command my fleet properly. Granted, before the new system came I spent more time in the tactical screen than I spent commanding my ships. I have since grown accustomed to it and I find it works marvellously. My main enjoyment from the game doesn't necissarily come from commanding the fleet, however.

These days I give out commands at the start of combat. Review mid-way through and can throughout any engagement focus on fighting. This works well for me even with large fleets.

While I can agree that some features can be added, like a good command for scouting, I do like the limited amount of orders you can give out. It gives the tactical combat a slight board-game style of strategy which I think works well considering what the main focus of the game is. Ship AI and priorities can be tweaked to make the tactical side make more sense, sure. But at the end of the day I think the system works as intended. That is by putting focus on fighting in your ship as opposed to spending time in an overview map.

[maqzek]

I'm not sure how to explain my idea, so bear with me.

I think it would be better if you could give more direct orders if you have a small fleet, consisting of frigates and destroyers, nothing bigger. In this case you're not fleet admiral, just a captain/commander of the leading warship, so you could communicate mid battle with other captains of other similar-class warships like it probably happens in real life. Now, when you get a bigger ship, your rank (this could probably either be made into player levels or just a simple ships-class = rank system) would be higher than a captain. For the sake of clear distinction, let's take a capital class ship and Admiral as rank. Now, since you're not a captain anymore, you don't communicate that much with individual captains, you're doing more tactics than battle (Obviously you still battle other ships, but it's more of a 1vsX rather than 2v2, 3v3 teamwork battle). All orders would be like now, kinda widespread and less specific, and it would all come down to captains of small ships to try and figure out the best way to complete this assignment.

I would probably advise against command points, since you won't need lots of them with this system, because its just a few general orders. What I would instead offer is to use command points on direct orders, like if an Admiral sees some rare opportunity that would help immensely or he has some specific plan/tactic that he would like to execute, he could override captains orders/authority and give direct order to specific frigate/fighter wing/whatever. This would fit nicely with limited command points, since Admiral shouldn't give direct orders often or to everyone, but if he has a request, it should be done, because well, he's an Admiral and he's more experienced so he should know better.

As you see, this would leave the current system intact for fleet wide battles, but will give more control for small fleets, if you can call them a fleet. This way it would divert focus for big battles from tactical screen to actual battle, but for people with small fleet/number of ships, they could spend a bit more time on tactical screen because it would be less frantic and hence consume less focus but give same amount of control in a way.

Thoughts?

[Beagle]

I'd much rather be able to play with a good control scheme no matter the size of my fleet. From the feedback in this thread alone there's clearly a wide range of desires, which is why I'd like to see the system just be open and flexible and let everyone enjoy it their own way.

[Bigeara]

As a heavy RTS player I to found the command interface limiting and found it frustrating at times often for the harder missions I found the surest way to win was to spend 90% of my time in the war room and I imagine if I had been around pre 0.35a I would have always played in the war room. After only a few days of playing the game my thoughts where very much "arbitrary restrictions" etc. etc. However the more I have played the more I realise that it is mostly about how well the AI acts or rather how the AI acts vs How you expect it to act. This requires 2 things you to know how the AI works and for the AI to be good enough. one of these things you learn by playing the game enough and the other is still a work in progress (fighters particularly I believe).

I think what I'm trying to say is at the moment I have my complaints but I can't wait to see where this ends up as it could be a great system and I think for the time most of the people that don't get on with the system need to be patient to see where its going to end up.

A good example of how the system has improved is before 0.5a once your units had captured a location they wouldn't care about it at all now however they are more mindful of trying to keep it under your control. Which is a vast improvement.

keep up the great work!

[imperialus]

First off I like the fleet control system, One thing that I think might improve on it though might be to work on giving different ships a "survival instinct".  You already have a RPS style weapon/armour system so why not have crews do a quick threat assessment of whatever it is they are about to engage and determine their behavior based on that.

[SgtAlex86]

why not play like i do spend 3 seconds during initial phase to order capture capture assault then ignore all your other ships for 20 mins then scream out loud when u are swamped by enemies once your AI fleet is dead ^^
(i gave up trying to command the fleet long time ago;3)

i might order cap or intercept order every now and then but really i just let em do their own thing i can usually take the enemy fleet with my 1 ship rest are just fodder to keep enemy busy so i can kill em one by one 

[Alex]

3) A "Scout" direct order (1 command point per ship)

Setting up that perfect flank or ambushing fire support ships means knowing where the enemy is. Assigning a ship as a designated scout is costly - it takes a command point and removes that ship from active combat - but I would love to see it as an option.

Hmm, yeah. I think I'll be adding a "Scout" order, similar to "Capture" but available only on waypoints. Will mull over your other suggestions, as well.

... With SF's fleet control, I can order all fighters to go after that fighter or go to that nav point, or I can try to reduce the size (since 2 squadrons should be more than enough) of the reactionary force by... issuing at least 2 other orders or more to be sure that some fighters are left to do what they were doing.

I think I already mentioned this - that's not how it works 

If you issue an intercept order on the enemy fighter, *one* of your nearby fighter wings (or fast frigates) will break off and go after it. If you need to beef if up, you could use a direct order to add another ship to the mix.

... which is why I'd like to see the system just be open and flexible and let everyone enjoy it their own way.

If one way lets you be more effective, most people will feel forced to play that way, regardless of what their preference might be.


Re: what you're outlining - that's rather close to how the current system works now. Sans the removal of command points, of course - but you'll be able to control how many of those you get by building your character to match your playstyle.

Do you know about the "Assign Task..." order? Just read through what you've said again, and I'm not sure you mentioned that anywhere, but I could be mistaken. It lets you assign specific ships to specific tasks, overriding the AI's assignment decisions.

[Maimuta]

Ok I'm a noob, but I sort of agree with OP on this one.  I think SMALL fixes could make it a little better.

Clicking/Shift-clicking - Allow direct orders like harass, etc to be ordered from a specific ship.  Keep the auto feature, so lets say I dont care who harrasses said ship, the game can still pick the one they think should be sent, but lets say for some reason I want a certain frigate with a special load out to handle the bomber wings, then I should be able to just click that frigate, select attack, then simply click which enemy and boom I'm done.  Thats alot more intuitive and user-friendly.  Shift-clicking comes in with the same idea just multiple ships, if I want two frigates to attack one bombing wing, I would click the first while holding shift, click the second, then release shift and the menu pops up, choose attack and I can click who I want them to go after.

As for the control points, I do agree in an analytical sense it doesnt make a whole lot of sense, but I love the strategy it adds to the game in that its not ONLY point, click, attack, repeat.  Maybe mix it up a bit?  Some larger battles have CP, others you just start with the whole fleet, etc. 

I LOVE the warroom idea as it allows you to choose which battles you want to directly control, but I agree it definitely could use some more user-friendly tweeks so that what you think you should do to make ships perform certain actions, is what you actually do.  I agree some of the warroom controls are really unintuitive and frustrating at times.

[Gaizokubanou]

I think I already mentioned this - that's not how it works  

If you issue an intercept order on the enemy fighter, *one* of your nearby fighter wings (or fast frigates) will break off and go after it. If you need to beef if up, you could use a direct order to add another ship to the mix.

You are right.  It's bit unpredictable sometimes (mainly due to strafing runs that AI performs, which changes the distance from the target and sometimes AI gets bit wonky over who to send where because of this) but I should've noticed this lot earlier.  My apologies.

I think I sounded like complaining asschat long enough, so time to mention something awesome about fleet control and question on its implementation if you guys could give an answer to it...

It's the priority system.  I noticed that Capture/Assault had "high" priority compared to "Patrol".  And Assault had priority over Capture in terms of the number of ships used for that command.  I really liked this because it lets me shift the main weight of my fleet to a more appropriate location while still have few fast ships go around capturing nav point.  All are orders that can be used to take over nav points, but gives you clear option on how you do it.  Really simple, clean, and extremely predictable outcome.

The question is... do you guys have plan to implement this kind of priority system variations to every commands available?  Like for example, once escort gets fixed, say I have a capital ship and 2 cruisers and want them all escorted by 9 fighter squadrons.  Will you let the game automate the priority based on ship value or whatever, or allow players to set it manually by having another optional option?  I think with the default option of automated with the option for players to redefine priority would be awesome.  I think you can already do this somewhat via direct order, but this optional way of doing things would cut down on some micromanagement.

[ClosetGoth]

(This post is not part of the Great SF Command Debate)

I would just like one small tweak to direct orders. If you give a direct order, a ship goes to fulfill that order. But, if you assign another ship to do it, the first ship breaks off. Could we have an option to "assist with order" as well as "assign order", so that we don't have to reassign the original ship to the order?

Okay, my wording of that isn't the best so I will give an example:
First, you set an order, and one ship – which I will call ship A – is going to follow the order. If you now assign another ship – let's call it ship B – to the order, ship A breaks off. You have to assign ship A to the order it was originally going to follow, taking 3 command points to send 2 ships at one order.

[maqzek]

- "Here we are with breaking news again, I'm Vanessa Drenn and we have an exclusive interview from a frustrated captain."

- "...so the last frigate was retreating as fast as he could, as usual", said the captain with a subtle smile on his face.
- "and obviously, we were ought to intercept it. The only ship that was close enough to almost engage it was 'ISS Mars', and seeing that this engagement would be no problem, I gave an order to capture any fighter wings left behind and switch to cruise speed to conserve fuel as my ship wouldn't make it in time anyway. What happened was", captain made a pause, trying to recall what he felt at that very moment.
- "...very unexpected for me. The frigate that was chasing the fleeing enemy, chose to stop the pursuit and follow my other order! I was speechless for a moment there, thinking could this be a bad dream, but that was enough for a fleeting enemy to get into a safe zone and engage FTL drives. He was gone. Just like that. Gone."
- "Very saddening news captain, but why did it happen, who's at fault here?", news reporter quickly asked.
- "I'm afraid fleet communications is at fault here. I never thought it could be a problem but after experiencing it myself, I definitely know now. They should do something about it."
- "Thanks for your story cap'n, I hope everything will get fixed and no enemy will dare to flee like that anymore.", the camera was now focused solely on reporter.
- "Stay tuned for an exclusive video footage on what could be an actual cloaking tech, according to latest rumors. This was Vanessa Drenn from News5."

[Alex]

It's the priority system.  I noticed that Capture/Assault had "high" priority compared to "Patrol".  And Assault had priority over Capture in terms of the number of ships used for that command.  I really liked this because it lets me shift the main weight of my fleet to a more appropriate location while still have few fast ships go around capturing nav point.  All are orders that can be used to take over nav points, but gives you clear option on how you do it.  Really simple, clean, and extremely predictable outcome.

The question is... do you guys have plan to implement this kind of priority system variations to every commands available?  Like for example, once escort gets fixed, say I have a capital ship and 2 cruisers and want them all escorted by 9 fighter squadrons.  Will you let the game automate the priority based on ship value or whatever, or allow players to set it manually by having another optional option?  I think with the default option of automated with the option for players to redefine priority would be awesome.  I think you can already do this somewhat via direct order, but this optional way of doing things would cut down on some micromanagement.

Hmm. The question, for me, is how much that would actually get you. It'll add some complexity - and I think we probably agree that less complexity is better here, to help with the learning curve. So I'll have to give you something of a non-answer - I'll have to wait and see how it pans out.

The scenario you describe - 9 fighter squadrons and 3 large ships - that's already 12 ships deployed. Sure, it'll come up, but it probably won't come up very often - probably in a fight where you have the edge in fleet points, and have captured a Comm Relay or two, to boot. If direct orders (via "assign task") are enough to deal with any needed details here, then that may be good enough. After all, chances are that auto-assign won't get it all wrong - you may want to tweak an assignment or two, but shouldn't have to reassign everything.

In general, I'm a bit wary about letting the player tweak priorities, because they've been assigned rather carefully. Changing them can lead to some unexpected assignments (don't have any examples handy, unfortunately). The most I could see doing is highighting a single assignment as a "priority" one, but then, a few direct orders should do the job here, too.

First, you set an order, and one ship – which I will call ship A – is going to follow the order. If you now assign another ship – let's call it ship B – to the order, ship A breaks off. You have to assign ship A to the order it was originally going to follow, taking 3 command points to send 2 ships at one order.

"Capture" is special that way - it only takes one ship. What usually happens is that if you want to assign something else to "Capture", you *don't* want the original ship to stick with it. If you want multiple ships to go there, "Patrol" is probably a better choice, though it probably needs to be a bit higher priority - I need to take a look at that.

Alternatively, when "Escort" starts working, you could assign a light escort to the ship that goes off to "Capture". You can still do it now, just don't expect the escorting ship to stick close by its charge when combat starts.