[Order Idea] Change Targets if <condition>

An order to have a ship change to a new target if, say, the target’s shields drop (for your cruiser laser ships if you have dedicated laser ships), after X seconds of failure to do damage, or if the ship camouflages, for instance.

I don’t know if this has been suggested before but I don’t see it on the first two pages of suggestions so finding an old thread on it would be necroing anyway.

I would like this too.

it was,it came up in some composite orders suggestion thread
and yeah,we pretty much need that

A “Target ships with shields down” order specifically might be nice too, but that basically is Vulture.

I would actually want the inverse, a “ignore ship if shields are down” order (and as a natural consequence, a “ignore ship if shields are up” order, as well).

What, you can’t tell me the ability to have your CL ships focus on ships with shields up and have your beam laser ships finish them off once they lose shields doesn’t have interesting tactical applications…

It would be pretty awesome if we could order the orders. As in:

If X is possible, do X.
If X is not possible, but Y is possible, do Y.
If X and Y are not possible, but Z is possible, do Z.

That way we could do sophisticated things. But we’d need conditions first. :slight_smile:

Final Fantasy 12 has such a system, though it’s not very interesting because the options are very sparse.

Hmm. [If X then Y else Z] orders as well as derivatives of that system (If X and ~Y then Z else Q, If X then ~Y else Y, that sort of stuff) would certainly add depth, but would also be rather ambitious in terms of needing a lot of possibilities.

There could always be a flow-graph layout where you put down battle orders before the game starts

I’m not sure if I like introducing conditions, even though it would certainly add a great deal of depth. It would also add a great deal of complexity, and that’s the primary problem I have with it.

I wouldn’t be against something like ‘Effective Fire Only’, though, where the ship will switch targets if it’s doing less than a certain percentage of its theoretical damage output against the current target.

the way i see it is that you wouldnt have to use it if you dont want two, the missions dont require you to use complex battle orders, it could just be to look cool (having curisers flank the bad guys)(theres no differance if location damage) and provide some tactical benifites (splitting up the fire etc…)

but a efficetive fire only would be good, then you wouldnt have rocket crusiers firing endlessly at sheilded ships whitch they cant damage

We have something like that now with the use of the percentage slider. Gunners tend to pick on slower and larger targets of a given class whenever possible, unless orders like cooperative or rescuer are influencing them.