I’d love to see an order which gives players the option to set weapon targetting priority based on weapon type for a ship. Actually, setting priorities isnt required, just a checkbox to enable/disable targetting of each class of ship by that weapon type.
Create Order -> Weapon Targetting -> Add Order
Select weapon type from a list of those present on the selected ship(s)
Check/Uncheck boxes for fighter/frigate/cruiser to enable/disable targetting of that ship class
Save Order
Example:
Create a cruiser with a mix of weapons. Leave ship targetting priorities at default, then add a weapon targetting order which stops torpedoes and heavy missiles from being fired at fighters (actually that might be multiple orders, one for each weapon type). This ship will move and engage enemies as normal, but wont waste shots on things it cant hit with weapons it cant hit them with.
Alternatively, disable all targetting of fighters by deleting the default ship prioritisation order, then add a separate order for suitable beam weapons which re-enables targetting of fighters. This ship wouldnt move towards or engage fighters, but suitable anti-fighter weapons would still fire at them when within range.
I was thinking about this sort of thing earlier – makes sense to me that an anti-cruiser weapon wouldn’t bother trying to hit swift fighters.
I’d even like to take it a step further: allowing an order to pursue certain ship classes. In combination with weapon-use settings, I think we could get some really great behavior. For example, having an anti-cruiser ship actively target and pursue an enemy cruiser, while also swatting at fighters with any equipped anti-fighter weapons (and saving the big guns for the big targets).
Not that it isn’t funny to see massive energy weapons searching the stars for that tiny spec of a fighter, but it is irritating to see it happen when a perfectly good, oh-so inviting frigate is in range. As it stands now, I have given up mixing anti-fighter weapons / orders on anti-ship loadouts and escort them with fighter-killer ships instead.
I’ve got an idea, how about giving fighter squadrons targeting instructions to take out cruiser modules such as weapons or shields?
Wouldn’t it annoy the hell out of cruiser captains with super heavy shields to be taken out by the tiniest of fighters getting in under them?
You could set a targeting priority list like for ships classes but for different types of modules.
I really like these suggestions. I was just about to create a new topic asking about priority setting. Even when I delete the ‘attack fighters’ order and set the other attack orders to 100% priority, I still have my cruisers with only slow, long range weapons, running around in circles trying to get fighters. It seems like in some battles the only option is to destroy all the fighters before moving on to the main attack. It seems kind of silly that I can’t order my cruiser captains to ignore the fighters and let the other ships that were designed to deal with them actaully do their job.
Having priority for individual weapons is even a better idea, especially since people already want to be able to set orders in the design stage. Combined with spinaljack’s idea of setting fighters to go after particular weapons, you really start getting some nice strategies working. For a basic example, you might have slow, heavy weapons on your cruiser to get rid of the enemy’s frigates quickly, but the enemy knows is likely to be the case to this so he sets up fighters to specifically attack these weapons on the cruisers. Now you know you’re either going to need anti-fighter weapons on your cruiser or escorting fighters to defend the ship or else your cruiser will become useless without these weapons.
Picking a specific weapon to attack might not work as you don’t know if the enemy will have that particular weapon or not, but may there could be classes of weapons or you could set the fighters to attack weapons with certain attributes, such as ‘weapons with a range over 700’ or ‘weapons with damage over 10’ or ‘weapons with a tracking rate over 1.0’, etc.