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The look of the formation interface.

#1
When I'm thinking about the formation interface in LT I'm imagining a holographic screen, like showed in the video.
This screen has a point telling me where the centre of the formation is. This way I can orientate myself better.
Next, it allows me to draw lines in 3D space. This is probably the hardest part. Since a screen is 2D it's very hard to actually draw in 3D. So what I'm suggesting is that the screen is divided in three parts. The X-plane, the Y-plane and a render of the 3D model that's combining the X and Y.

At the side there's a panel with some drawing options:
- Single ship placement. (A box that will contain a maximum of one ship)
- A line/vector which will put as many ships in it as possible.
- A circle (will dynamically divide the number of ships)
- A sphere (will dynamically divide the number of ships)
- A direction marker. (which way will the formation point?)
- An object of interest.
- Another formation. (creating and combining formations to make an entire fleet fly in formation, this is similar to the object of interest, except that it's created already)
- Tactics line (A line to create a link/relation between a formation and an object of interest, could be anything: follow the lead (do what the OoI does), protect, follow, scout, dock with, or any tactics the player can create)

Every item that can be put down has a few handles. A bit like drawings work in Powerpoint. You can rotate or stretch them in the X or Y plane, with or without automatic symmetry.


Creating a formation would work like this:
The player enters the formation screen and selects to create a new formation. He puts down one or more objects of interest in the X or Y view. In the other view, the player can move these objects around so they can be moved in 3D. There's a 3D view of the formation that turns around (or can be made static) so the player can see what he's doing.

Each object of interest can be named and doubleclicked. The game zooms in and the player sees an empty formation screen. Here he can again make new object of interest or draw actual formations.

There are multiple ways to draw formations. The player could put down single ship assignments or draw a line that would make LT put as many ships in it as possible.
The same would go for circles and spheres. These objects can all be moved in 3D space by moving them on the X or Y plane.
Now you have an object of interest and a drawing of a formation relative to it. What you need to do now is assign the tactics that each part of the formation has in relation to the object of interest. Perhaps the OoI is a carrier and the tactic is that the fighters will automatically form a sphere around it when an enemy is spotted, and dock when the coast is safe? Perhaps there's a wide circle formation around the carrier that has a few scouts flying in it.
Whatever the tactic is, the only thing you'd need to do is draw a line from the formation object to the OoI and choose the tactic from a dropdown box. (or create a new tactic?)


This ability to go multi-level will cater to the people who want to assign a formation to their entire fleet, without losing the ability to finetune the relations and tactics of each part of this fleet. Allowing the player to name each level of his formation would make breadcrumbs really useful.

Assigning ships to an actual spot in the formation could be done by selecting the name of the build from all existing ships, but that would leave out all future ships. That's why I think that using tags in ship creation and in the interfaces could work very well.

This might sound like a lot of micromanaging, but for me the whole idea of assigning tactics and formations is so I don't have to worry about them on the battlefield. If I want my fighters to only dock with the carrier to reload, I can do that. if they only should come out when there's an enemy, I can do that too.

I like the idea of creating formations that are built around a purpose, and that's what the object of interest is for. It will allow me to select any number of ships and assign a formation to them, knowing that only the ships used in that formation are "taken" and the formation looks exactly how I want it.
If I have created a formation with 1 transporter and 3 protecting fighters, I could select a group of 100 transporters and 300 fighters, click the formation once, and have 100 formations created for me. Without an object of interest in the formation editor, I'd first have to create a formation for the 300 fighters, then assign each formation to protect a transporter.
If I want to have a carrier protecting a destroyer, I can configure the formation and tactics in such a way that the fighters of the carrier will protect the destroyer, without having to click a dozen time each time you want to set up such a relation for a new carrier and a new destroyer. Or even 10 of those.


Another important aspect of a formation is the distance between ships. Some formations only work when ships are flying very close together, others would have many problems with that. I'm not sure how scale can be added to the formation editor without making it too complicated. A capital ship can be 100-200x the size of a fighter. Perhaps a good way to solve spacing is to have a minimum distance based on the size of the ship. For instance, a capital ship of size 50 will need 200m at each side. So two capital ships of size 50 in formation next to each other will leave 400m in between.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
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Re: The look of the formation interface.

#2
- A direction marker. (which way will the formation point?)
Superfluous. A flight of ships will always face in the direction of its target/direction of travel, else it won't stay in anything resembling a formation at all.
- An object of interest.
IMHO, this has absolutely NO business in a formation editor - "follow this" and "protect that" type orders belong into the tactical interface, as it's pointless and fidgety to define the object beforehanded. I'd want "Escort group, general", not "Escort group for my favorite pink freighter called USS Binky". You know, KISS and stuff...
- Another formation. (creating and combining formations to make an entire fleet fly in formation, this is similar to the object of interest, except that it's created already)
Pretty much the same - If I have to build a formation by assigning formations for existent formations, we're hitting redundancy central.
"Yo dawg, I heard you like formations, so we put formations into your formations so that you can form formations while you form formations..."
- Tactics line (A line to create a link/relation between a formation and an object of interest, could be anything: follow the lead (do what the OoI does), protect, follow, scout, dock with, or any tactics the player can create)
In the tactical interface, yes. In the formation editor - NO!!!


Seriously, the formation editor is one of those tools where you want to spend as little time as possible in - it's function is to assign positions for ships in relation to each other/a leading craft. It's not supposed to fulfill the tactical interface's function, and to be honest, I'd like to see the thing structured as simple and intuitive as possible.


Personally, I do not believe that a) any formation will survive the first 20 seconds of combat intact and b) I doubt the tactical value of a formation in a six-axis-of-freedom environment, besides the obvious benefit of concentrating a certain amount of firepower by having the ships close to each other. I'll admit that it'll look pretty, though. My suggestion is to run combat tests with the AI and see whether a formation offers any real benefits in an engagement, as opposed to just looking pretty and then devolving into a furball once the plasma hits the shield lattice. (Which was the case in both Sword of the Stars and pretty much every X game, so yes, I'm a bit biased.)
Hardenberg was my name
And Terra was my nation
Deep space is my dwelling place
The stars my destination
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Re: The look of the formation interface.

#3
Hardenberg wrote:
- A direction marker. (which way will the formation point?)
Superfluous. A flight of ships will always face in the direction of its target/direction of travel, else it won't stay in anything resembling a formation at all.
How will the game know the difference between a claw or a pyramid formation, if it doesn't know front from back?
- An object of interest.
IMHO, this has absolutely NO business in a formation editor - "follow this" and "protect that" type orders belong into the tactical interface, as it's pointless and fidgety to define the object beforehanded. I'd want "Escort group, general", not "Escort group for my favorite pink freighter called USS Binky". You know, KISS and stuff...
Take a X formation for instance. How will the game know that you want to position this formation around an object you're protecting, and not behind it, or infront of it? If you don't put a point somewhere that's tells it where the formation should attach itself?
I might want an X formation that has a transporter in the centre, someone else might want an X formation that's following a transporter.
- Another formation. (creating and combining formations to make an entire fleet fly in formation, this is similar to the object of interest, except that it's created already)
Pretty much the same - If I have to build a formation by assigning formations for existent formations, we're hitting redundancy central.
"Yo dawg, I heard you like formations, so we put formations into your formations so that you can form formations while you form formations..."
Nobody forces you to use multiple levels if you don't want. Me, I do like my fleet to move in a more or less coherent way. This isn't an RTS with certain types of units where the game can know where each unit goes. The way you build your ships will dictate what formations and tactics are viable. The game can't extract that for you.
- Tactics line (A line to create a link/relation between a formation and an object of interest, could be anything: follow the lead (do what the OoI does), protect, follow, scout, dock with, or any tactics the player can create)
In the tactical interface, yes. In the formation editor - NO!!!
Why can't the two be the same? A formation isn't just a pretty way of letting your ships fly around. Formations are the beginning of a tactic.
Seriously, the formation editor is one of those tools where you want to spend as little time as possible in - it's function is to assign positions for ships in relation to each other/a leading craft. It's not supposed to fulfill the tactical interface's function, and to be honest, I'd like to see the thing structured as simple and intuitive as possible.
That might be the case for you, but personally I'd love a formation editor that offers as much power as the player wants to use. If you want to use basic formations and don't bother will all the details, then that's possible. However, I don't want to go to the formation editor each time I want to setup a formation for some new ships. I want to setup the template of a formation and then use that on as many ships as I want.
Personally, I do not believe that a) any formation will survive the first 20 seconds of combat intact and b) I doubt the tactical value of a formation in a six-axis-of-freedom environment, besides the obvious benefit of concentrating a certain amount of firepower by having the ships close to each other. I'll admit that it'll look pretty, though. My suggestion is to run combat tests with the AI and see whether a formation offers any real benefits in an engagement, as opposed to just looking pretty and then devolving into a furball once the plasma hits the shield lattice. (Which was the case in both Sword of the Stars and pretty much every X game, so yes, I'm a bit biased.)
To give formations a real tactical advantage you have to entwine tactics with formations. You could make them as simple or complex as you want, so that your formation behaves as a fleet. You could select the entire formation and command it.
Take X3 as an example. You'd have to tell each ship what formation you wanted it to use. The formations were hardcoded and didn't have many options. Then you assign ships to do something, eg protect another ship or follow it, or ... The moment you want to let one ship do something specific, it breaks the formation and you have to start over.
What I'm proposing is letting ships figure this out themselves. Create a formation in the editor. Then select any number of ships and apply that formation to it. In this formation you can already specify what behaviour the different ships need to have towards each other and the enemies. A formation becomes a unit, but it's still possible to command a specific ship to do something while in the formation.

Also, a formation doesn't mean ships have to stay close to each other. Once an enemy is spotted different actions can be taken by different ships. The carrier would stop and launch it's ships. If there's an enemy capital, your caps will move to intercept, otherwise they'll stay by the carrier. The fighters of the carrier will scramble to intercept. Bombers and corvettes can all have different tactics assigned depending on the enemy.
After the fight is over, ships will go back to the positions they were in.

I am in no way proposing that tactics should be at the level of the entire formation. That way you'd get X3 situations where an M5 is followed by a battlefleet containing 3 destroyers and 2 carriers.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Post

Re: The look of the formation interface.

#4
This formation system is super-micromanagey because you liiterally have to assign every ship to a specific part of the formation whenever you join it to this formation.
In effect you are calling up the formation editor every time a new ship joins the formation.


The only way around this (and to make formations proper templates that can be re-used) would be to have ships automatically find "their" spot in a formation.
For that to happen you need some way to tell ships apart.
In X3 this would be easy because every ship has a class.
  • This ship is a destroyer because the class tag says so. "Destroyer" is also a member of "big ship" and "huge ship".
    A ship of the "Destroyer" class can be found by searching for each of these three object classes.
If you have some object properties / classes to work with, you can build re-usable formations.
Without that, formations will never be useful because the placement of ships does not further the specific purpose of a formation.

The core module system I proposed could be used to tie some useful designations to ships.
That would make it possible to give ship classes predefined positions in a formation as well as making it possible to display them as icons at long range.
Much like X3's object class tree (Page 107 of the MSCI Handbook - may require an Egosoft forum / game registration to access), a core module could carry several class "flags" that make sense for it's purpose.
An option would be that the player can manually edit these to better organise his own ships.

For instance, there could be core modules for civilian / supply / repair ships. They would go into the center / rear areas of a formation because those positions are tagged for "civilian".
There is no "I" in Tea. That would be gross.
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Re: The look of the formation interface.

#5
There's some limited information available that LT can use to see what ship goes where. But LT would never be able to do this as smart as a formation designed by the player to be used in tactic. But yes, your core modules would lend to this task, but then I still wouldn't want to leave it up to LT to decide where my missile defence boat goes best. I wouldn't mind having to drag & drop core modules inside a drawing of a formation so LT knows what goes where.

When you create a template for a ship, LT can ask you to describe this ship with a few tags. These tags you can use everywhere. You could use the tags in the formation editor, to filter out the property list or highlight on the universe overview.

Uses of tags:
- Suppose you have a home sector and have a fleet there, you could select all these units and add the tag "homefleet" to it. In the property list you can then easily check up on this fleet by just selecting its tag.
- You create 4 different kinds of small spacecraft, all fighter class. A fast fighter with lasers, a normal speed one with kinetic weapons, a bomber, and a slower one with high shields. Tags could differentiate between all these types of crafts, even future crafts. Suppose you find/discover/research a new technology and create a new ship with a different module and tag it with "interceptor", then this would still work in the formation.


I don't mind micromanagement, as long as it's avoidable. Whatever the interface will look like, I'm sure Josh will be able to come up with some standard values that work good enough but leaves room for improvement. I think anything that can add depth and variety to a game can be considered micromanagement at some point.

What I want to accomplish with a formation editor like this is that you can actually select any number and type of ships and apply a formation to them. Ships not configured in the formation would be left alone. In the end, a system like this will allow you to save a lot of time creating and recreating the same formations over and over again. It would allow you to think of your spacecraft as an actual fleet instead of just a pretty layout.
This formation system is super-micromanagey because you liiterally have to assign every ship to a specific part of the formation whenever you join it to this formation.
In effect you are calling up the formation editor every time a new ship joins the formation.
I don't agree. At the top of my post I propose to give the players a tool that assigns either a single ship, or a line/vector. In this line LT would try to put as many ships as it can.

For instance: You create a formation that consists of three lines next to each other. These lines are set to only accept ships with the tag "unarmed transporter". You could now select all of your ships and apply this formation to them. Only the ships with the tag "unarmed transporter" will actually move into formation. They'll form a group of 3 transporters wide, and it will as long as needed to fit all those transporters in.

The same logic would work for circles and spheres.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
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Re: The look of the formation interface.

#6
Thanks for the details, Katorone! For the most part, our conceptions of the formation editor are in agreement. It seems like the only difference between your idea and my notes is that, as Hardenberg pointed out, direction and origin markers aren't really necessary. The reason is that I will display an origin and a directional arrow at the center of the editor to orient you, so you will be creating a formation relative to this origin/direction. In some sense, it's what you were saying, except that the direction and origin are already built into the editor, they needn't be placed.

As for filling the formation, my instinct is that, when you are defining a new "fleet" and you select a formation, the UI will display a number of "container"-like widgets where you can drop the icons of your ships. Each container corresponds to a sub-piece of the formation. There can also be an "auto" area, so that you can drag your ships there and forget about it if you don't want to manually control the assignment.

I have not yet thought about such advanced features as annotating sub-pieces of the formation so that they will perform smart automatic allocation of ships without requiring the user to drop them into the corresponding containers. But it would certainly be useful when empires start getting big. I'll start thinking about that a bit more...
Gazz wrote:This formation system is super-micromanagey because you liiterally have to assign every ship to a specific part of the formation whenever you join it to this formation.
In effect you are calling up the formation editor every time a new ship joins the formation.

The only way around this (and to make formations proper templates that can be re-used) would be to have ships automatically find "their" spot in a formation.
Well, we will separate the editing interface from the allocation interface, so it won't be quite as difficult as actually bringing up the formation editor. The sub-pieces of the formation could be baked into a UI choice group, along with an overhead picture of the formation that highlights according to which choice you're hovering over. This would allow fast and intuitive allocation of a new ship to an existing formation.

But of course you're right, the only way to avoid it altogether is automatic allocation.
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.” ~ Henry Ford
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Re: The look of the formation interface.

#7
Without some sort of auto-allocation (ships finding "their" spot) you don't need a very advanced system.
Formations would only work with identical ships... in which case you don't really need a formation.

While manual (and every time) setup of a formation would technically work for the player, it wouldn't work for the AI.
If the AI is supposed to properly use formations, it needs to be able to figure out what the purpose of a ship is! Which ones are to be protected, which ones are doing the protecting.

I would favour a system that both the AI and the player can use. Yes, I get it. You don't want a "class system". =)
But if the AI is going to figure out every ship individually and then assigns an unofficial class to it, then you might just as well make it official.
You'll need some sort of class to define tactical roles, AI priorities, fleet make-ups... and the positions in a formation. It doesn't have to be a rigid system. What I suggested above isn't even very specific, more a direction.

What actual classes will eventually exist... I won't even guess. That will depend on what works in the game.
Without limitations there can be no balance. Complete freedom is complete chaos. The Michael Moorcock kind. (and then your soul gets eaten... but that comes later)
Make up your mind! =P
There is no "I" in Tea. That would be gross.
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Re: The look of the formation interface.

#8
Gazz wrote:Without some sort of auto-allocation (ships finding "their" spot) you don't need a very advanced system.
Formations would only work with identical ships... in which case you don't really need a formation.
Not sure I understand...why? Without auto-allocation you just drag your cargo ships to that center group, drag your fighters to the outer bubble group...done. Maybe we're talking about different things, when i say allocation, I mean assignment of ships to a sub-group within the formation (sub-shape being a line, sphere, box, etc...). Maybe you were talking about automatic calculation of correct location in 3D space after assignment to specific sub-groups (i.e., automatic expansion/contraction of the fleet to handle large ships)? In that case, it's a given, we need that regardless. But I definitely don't see how not having a smart mechanism for automatic allocation to sub-groups would void the point of a formation? I can still drag my ships to the proper sub-group, the formation will calculate the exact positions.
While manual (and every time) setup of a formation would technically work for the player, it wouldn't work for the AI.
If the AI is supposed to properly use formations, it needs to be able to figure out what the purpose of a ship is! Which ones are to be protected, which ones are doing the protecting.
Sure, we will certainly need an automatic mechanism for the AI. But it's not really the same problem - for the AI, our goal is to do something "sensible." For the player, the goal is to do something that they want done. In the case of the AI, it suffices to come up with a nice heuristic for allocation to sub-groups. Plenty of solutions come to mind (ex: radial sort by defense capability * speed, which puts weak targets at the center, surrounded by progressively stronger and faster defenders). But in the case of the player, you guys are talking about wanting a manual mechanism to exactly specify how the auto-allocation is done. I.e., tagging a sub-group with "cap ships" "fighters" etc.

I'm honestly not sure it's worth the effort in that case, though. Only in the event that you are dragging 100s of ships into a formation with at least 10+ sub-shapes can I see it becoming useful. And even then, it still would take less than a minute to drop them where you want them. Seems like setting up a fancy automatic allocator would be an unnecessary optimization? Open to arguments to the contrary.
I would favour a system that both the AI and the player can use. Yes, I get it. You don't want a "class system". =)
But if the AI is going to figure out every ship individually and then assigns an unofficial class to it, then you might just as well make it official.
You'll need some sort of class to define tactical roles, AI priorities, fleet make-ups... and the positions in a formation. It doesn't have to be a rigid system. What I suggested above isn't even very specific, more a direction.

What actual classes will eventually exist... I won't even guess. That will depend on what works in the game.
Without limitations there can be no balance. Complete freedom is complete chaos. The Michael Moorcock kind. (and then your soul gets eaten... but that comes later)
Make up your mind! =P
Oh no, you've got me all wrong! I am all for a class system. I think it helps to break up the homogeneity, so that ships don't just become a tick on a continuous slider bar. Feels much cooler to be able to say, wow, there's a battleship! Than to say...wow, there's something that's at least scale factor 100!! Plus, I want different icons for each class :D The official class list is very similar to your listing in the "Core Modules" post of that epic thread that we all know and love :) Pretty standard progression for space games.
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.” ~ Henry Ford
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Re: The look of the formation interface.

#9
What I'm worried about, concerning formations, is finding the exact ships you had in mind for that formation.
Suppose the player makes the equivalent of M5 traders. These ships would act as transporters, but look as fighters. Their icon will be that of a fighter too.
How will the player easily find these specific ships on the universe map to put in a new formation?
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
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Re: The look of the formation interface.

#10
JoshParnell wrote: I definitely don't see how not having a smart mechanism for automatic allocation to sub-groups would void the point of a formation? I can still drag my ships to the proper sub-group, the formation will calculate the exact positions.
I just wouldn't want to do that for the 200 fighters of my carrier task group.

Maybe the misunderstanding is that I'm not really thinking of a super complex system. =)
Image Placement rules:
(looks like a lot but it's all based on only two values per ship!)
  1. The fat lines are big ships. The other ones medium and small ships.
  2. The colours are always the primary consideration for placing ships. military, civilian, either.
    A military ship is never placed into a slot designed for merchants and vice versa.
  3. The engine starts placement with the largest ships, starting with sub-formation 1, and counting up until a place could be found.
  4. Placement in a sub-formation starts at the anchor point. That's how a wedge formation like "5" starts at the center.
  5. Some numbers occur multiple times, like for the small fighter screen "4" ahead.
    These sub-formations are filled equally.
    If you assign 7 fighters, there will be one group of 1 and three groups of 2 fighters.
  6. If no place in a sub-formation of matching size could be found, ships can be put into sub-formations intended for bigger ships.
    Extra fighters might spill into the "5" slots, for instance.
    "5" is the first slot that is one size above "small ship".

    All big ships have already been placed at that time so there's no collision.

    @ Katorone
    And this is why you don't need to worry. =)
    Smaller and medium traders would automatically "spill" into the slots designed for large civilian vessels.
  7. I'm not sure if this is necessary but "8" is defined as infinite.
    Any medium (and spill-over small) ship will find a place there.

    If I had defined "7" as infinite, no medium / small ship would ever reach sub-formation "8".

    This is how you would define a generic wedge or multiple wedge formation.
  8. Formations turn around the anchor point of sub-formation 1.
    That way you can put the heaviest and least maneuverable vessels around that area.
  9. Every ship remembers the last formation type that was assigned to it.

    If I drag-select 10 fighters from different carriers and groups and tell them to fly to a point in space, they would automatically do that in wedge formation without me having to touch any formation settings at all.

    If multiple formations were used before, the formation(s) of the biggest ships in the selection applies. Otherwise it's a majority vote.
    This way a "random" selection of big and small ships would automagically assume the "scout ahead and screen the capital ship" formation... temporarily.

    If you pull the fighters back out of this group, they would revert back to the wedge formation which was the last one you specifically assigned to these fighters.

    Ships always using "intelligent" formations without me having to baby-sit them goes a long way with immersion.
    (besides being pretty as hell)
  10. While it would be neat to have geometric shapes like circle or sphere, they are quite optional.
    With this system you can construct something very similar from short lines, then assign the same ordinal number to all of them. These formations will then be filled equally if you assign enough ships.
    It may not be perfect but this way you can create any shape and personalise your fleet.
    Have your ships always fly in a formation that is your company logo when seen from ahead? The ships could still be spaced in depth to actually make it a useful formation!
If you want to define the most basic wedge formation, all you need is 2 yellow lines for "big ship", both labeled "1". Done.
If the yellow / big are the default selections, every noob can define a basic formation in seconds.

Every ship can then be placed there. No questions asked.
The biggest (flag) ships would still be placed in the center, the smaller ones around the edges.
It still looks reasonably pretty even though you have to spend zero effort on establishing this formation ingame. Drag a border over a mass of ships, tell them to fly in wedge formation. Done.

It also works reasonably well because when the formation needs to turn, the smallest (and probably fastest) ships are in the outer positions where they have to travel the longest way to maintain formation.


If I want to do something really complex like having my missile artillery ships hang back behind the main formation, I put them in a separate formation, following the first group or one of it's ships.
No need to bog down the formation editor with things like that.
There is no "I" in Tea. That would be gross.
Post

Formations

#11
I was just catching up on the last couple of weeks of dev logs, and I enjoyed thinking about formations. I like the way it's heading, but I'd like to share a few of my own thoughts about what I'd like to see in formations.

We should be able to define a ship's position within a formation, for example I want the capital ship to take teh centre of a sphere formation, not drifting around with the other ships on the edge.

I'd like to see a hierachy of formations, so a carrier could be surrounded by cruiser ships in formation, and those cruiser ships could be surrounded by corvette ships in their own individual formation around the cruisers. With maybe a separate swarm of fighters around each of the larger ships.

It would also be nice to define whether a formation is "fixed" (so maintain formation under attack), or "swarm" (where the ships are free to move and independantly maneuver whilst fighting - within a certain range?). Fighters would typically swarm whilst capital and other large ships would maintain a more fixed formation.

Ship alignment is also important, especially as we're thinking of the 3D of space, and not a flat plane. Maybe my cruisers have a lot of top-side/front/sides/back weaponary, but they have a weakly defended underside? In this case I might like them to have their underside facing the capital ship where possible, and have a swarm of fighters inbetween the capital ship and the cruisers to handle that aspect of defence (along with the capital ship's own weapons of course)?

These are just my initial thoughs, I'm not sure what other people think about this?

-- Pete.

[ Topics merged - Gazz ]
Post

Re: The look of the formation interface.

#12
Perhaps some complex formations could just be groups of simple formations ? :idea:

or instance say you have 8 cargo ships and 8 dozen fighters.

you could make a formation around cargo ship one, with a dozen fighters in a sphere pattern.
repeat for the other cargo ships and fighters...

...then select each formation and have them form up as a cube,
with one cargo ship at each corner surrounded by a sphere of fighters.
Last edited by N810 on Tue Feb 19, 2013 9:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
- Arthur C. Clarke
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Re: The look of the formation interface.

#13
N810 wrote:Perhaps some complex formations could just be groups of simple formations ? :idea:

or instance say you have 8 cargo ships and 8 dozen of fighters.

you could make a formation around cargo ship one, with a donzen fighters in a sphere patern.
repeat for the other cargo ships and fighters...
there was something similar to this in Homeworld. i tended to set up a formation of larger ships ( wall formation ) and tag on a large group of smaller fighters in sphere formation around them for guards. it was a simple system with like 4 formations that auto adjusted when ships were lost or added to the formation it also took ship size into account and auto allocated larger ships into the core of the formation.
If I've rambled and gone off topic im sorry but i tend to be long winded as you might notice if you stumble across my other post XD. thanks for reading.

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