Yes, for controls that would be nice.

Turret Coordination between ships

it would be nice to have if groups of ships would "watch out" for other fleet members actively
(in contrast to how many games do it: everybody for himself and if it accidentally helps a friend, good)

for example:

carrier with its fighter escorts
they get attacked and the fighters are close to the carrier

one of the fighters gets targetted by a missle barrage

the fighter "asks" for support and the carriers point defence shoots down the missles that target the fighter


other example:

same situation as above, but one of the fighters gets focused by a couple of enemy ones.

other fighters abort chasing an enemy fighter but instead switch over to defending the focused fighter.


the two examples could also overlap

fighter gets focused by missle fighters
carrier shoots down missles, allied fighters shoot down missle fighters


etc

i hope this makes sense

Makes sense to me. +1 to that idea. I like it.

Coordination between ships could also be expressed in coordinated fire, 2 capitals which guard the blind spots of the other.


The effectivity of coordination could be limited/defined by the comms bandwith thats available between them.

If you have a C&C ship that provides comms for the fleet all ships that are connected have a high grade of coordination and would act more effective because of this.

But if the c&c ship gets jammed or destroyed the overall effectivity of the fleet goes down because they lack the bandwith to talk to each other effectively.

This could also be influenced by tactics/coordination software, the better the software and the more it is integrated into the comms network the better it works.

(The more i work out comms, the more i think its required for interesting advanced gameplay..)

I'd like a cup holder in my spaceship to hold my beer. Don't you hate it when you spill it while driving?

/sarcasm


Having some kind of ship that provides a tactical or communications advantage to your fleet would be an interesting component. Would encourage more varied fleets rather than just one huge cannon fodder fleet. Or a realistic variation.

Fleet coordination commands certainly would be nice. Getting units to assist each other properly via micromanaging is hard. A prioritized list of orders for your AI would be good too. Something like:
1) stay alive
2) defeat the enemy
3) keep friendly target(s) alive
4) stay in formation

EDIT:
while on the topic of fleet orders, wouldn't it be fun to park active fighters on your hull and use them like turrets? Give them all large bubble shields and your cap ship suddenly has not only a reconfigurable point-defense, but an overlapping shield network. Even better, the docked ships can shunt all their thruster power to guns and/or shields.

Overpowered as all get out and definitely not to be added to the vanilla game, (without some serious balancing) but fun nonetheless. Maybe a simple "land anywhere" mod for later.

That would be cool! I don't think it would be overpowered, as you would have to spend a lot of time "redirecting" the shield network to where you need it. And you lose some/all of your fighter screens. It would be cool to just set these networks up anywhere, and control them as a single unit. You could define the network's shape and use it as a mobile missile defence screen, or use it to provide cover for frigates or whatever.

What if instead of just linking shields you could also link weapons or other effects to a network? This would allow your fighters to form and quickly fire off an anti-capital ship level laser pulse, and then split back out to avoid retaliation. Balance comes from the level of tactics required to make use of such a tool and the challenge that comes with keeping your fighters alive and in close enough proximity to each other to make such maneuvers effective. Also interesting design decisions emerge. 'Do I make a cheap fighter that can network in greater number, or a more expensive fighter that does better un-networked?' One has a higher damage potential but suffers more from losses, while fighters designed to work alone may have better survivability but have lower up front damage.

Graf wrote:That would be cool! I don't think it would be overpowered, as you would have to spend a lot of time "redirecting" the shield network to where you need it. And you lose some/all of your fighter screens. It would be cool to just set these networks up anywhere, and control them as a single unit. You could define the network's shape and use it as a mobile missile defence screen, or use it to provide cover for frigates or whatever.

What if instead of just linking shields you could also link weapons or other effects to a network? This would allow your fighters to form and quickly fire off an anti-capital ship level laser pulse, and then split back out to avoid retaliation. Balance comes from the level of tactics required to make use of such a tool and the challenge that comes with keeping your fighters alive and in close enough proximity to each other to make such maneuvers effective. Also interesting design decisions emerge. 'Do I make a cheap fighter that can network in greater number, or a more expensive fighter that does better un-networked?' One has a higher damage potential but suffers more from losses, while fighters designed to work alone may have better survivability but have lower up front damage.

That's actually a bit more complicated than what I had in mind. My idea is to park (mostly immobile) shield ships all over my hulls so that their shields overlapped, thus forming an extra layer of protection. The intent is to give large ships regional shields so that you don't have face the "one goes out, they all go out" issue. The OP part is that the capitol ship could put up a shield over top of the parked ships and never have to worry about fighters slipping under. Even more dangerous is that you can set up the fighters' and host ships' power configurations to compliment one another. The docked ships could "run cold" and be hidden by their hosts' energy signature.

Imagine: You duck under a capitol ship's shields, hoping to take out a turret or get some hull damage in but, surprise! In addition to the turrets, you're up against over twenty well-armed and well-shielded craft. You have no backup, because your allies are still pounding away at the main shields. You do no damage, because these ships have fully powered shields. You have no escape, because you're dead.

Still, I like the way you think. Almost anything, when used effectively seems OP. The question lies in how many people exploit it before it gets labeled as such.

"ghost" movement commands.

a way to show the "ghost" of a ship when issuing movement orders

that way you can see how the ship is gonna end up in space when its done its movement.

you can also reposition and reorient the ghost to tune the final position of the ordered ship

instead of just an abstract point movement order.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:"ghost" movement commands.

Sounds like a good idea. You'll probably "infinite pause" to take full advantage of the feature.

Even better, if you could preview/simulate all queued/ghost commands simultaneously during pause and see how not just one or two ships will move, but how the entire fleet will attempt to execute your orders.

People who want to use it in real time could have the "ghost" spawn at the intended location with a little line depicting its path.

Jazehiah wrote:

Cornflakes_91 wrote:"ghost" movement commands.

Sounds like a good idea. You'll probably "infinite pause" to take full advantage of the feature.

Even better, if you could preview/simulate all queued/ghost commands simultaneously during pause and see how not just one or two ships will move, but how the entire fleet will attempt to execute your orders.

People who want to use it in real time could have the "ghost" spawn at the intended location with a little line depicting its path.

Who says we will be able to pause?

Cha0zz wrote:
Who says we will be able to pause?

I do. If not, I will post a bug report. Because it cannot be that in a game for a single player, with strategical components, pause is not available.

Comment: if we are not allowed to discuss in circles about our orphaned status, let's get one other topic for eternal circular debate!

i only say 2 words

Fortress Shields



explanation: big bubble shields which are generated by specialised ships or stations intended to house multiple friendly ships under it.

for LT 2 variations could be used:

Internally projected, generator ship sits in the shield, shield is to keep things out

externlly projected, multiple generators around the shield, to keep things in the shield (For example to blockade a wormhole or to contain an anomaly)

CSE wrote:

Cha0zz wrote:
Who says we will be able to pause?

I do. If not, I will post a bug report. Because it cannot be that in a game for a single player, with strategical components, pause is not available.

Comment: if we are not allowed to discuss in circles about our orphaned status, let's get one other topic for eternal circular debate!

Katawa started a very good thread on Pausing As A Gameplay Mechanic.

I wouldn't object to seeing that thread resuscitated. There were some pretty interesting opinions expressed there.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:Fortress Shields
explanation: big bubble shields which are generated by specialized ships or stations intended to house multiple friendly ships under it.

Shield ships. Good idea. Technically, we can make bubble shields through lots and lots of research, but I don't think that's what you have in mind. As for stations, that should be pretty easy to implement, right? Just stick a bubbly cap-ship shield on a space station. If you can't get a big enough shield, I'm sure it will be easy to add a research node.

One-way shields for containing anomalies would have so many other applications such as containing enemy ships. You could probably also set up shielding on space stations. I imagine baiting enemies into a position, popping a one-way shield, and either nuking the inside or repositioning my own fleet.