Often when deploying my ships i say to myself: “it would be so cool if i had this order”. I’m sure a lot of you feel the same, so how about we compile a list of the orders that people would really, really like to see added at some point in the future for your ships to follow. I’ll start:
Suicide: Similar to cautious, but with the ship captain instead throwing caution to the winds and simply attempting to get close and cause as much damage as possible to the enemy fleet. Could possibly be coupled with a module designed to make ships cause damage upon exploding for suicide frigates.
Attack X ship: Like escort but backwards, locking your fleet into attacking a specific ship until it is destroyed.
Wait X seconds: Basically, the fight starts, a ship with this order would wait a bit then start moving.
Attack shields: Lets you prioritise their target based on which ships have shields
Dont attack until shields are down: Like the above but would stop beam frigates wasting shots on highly shielded targets.
Weave and dodge: Makes a ship keep moving, regardless of whether its in range or not. Would let you give fast frigates a bit more survivability.
Hard Man: the opposite of vulture, letting your hard hitters cause more immediate damage to the biggest, strongest targets.
Organised: The opposite of co-operative, making sure that all your ships are firing at different targets. Would be very useful with ECM frigates
Thats a ‘short’ list of orders that i would like to see implemented at some point. Add more if you want.
That’s a good list. I’d like to see those implemented.
I few more:
Ignore: Order a ship not to attack either a particular named ship or a whole class of ships.
Claustrophobic: The ship keeps away from a particular ship at a distance (like a backwards escort), or tries to keep away from all ships. Would be useful if area-of-effect damage weapons become implemented.
Shield Tactic: Don’t turn on the shields until below a certain percent of damage. Would be useful in conjunction with repair components.
This would be like a mass Escort/Formation order, with no need to set a target. Set 4 cruisers down, set 4 anti-fighter frigs close to each cruiser. Double-click frigs, Support Nearest Ship. All the power of Escort/Formation, none of the repetitive clicking.
I like most of the suggestions so far. A few comments, then a couple ideas of my own.
I doubt any orders will be added that specifically reference enemy ships. After all, it wouldn’t be possible to select the target when issuing the order to the fleet you send with a challenge.
One hundred times yes! I am often frustrated by watching my fast frigates zip up to the enemy fleet without receiving a scratch, only to die in an instant when they stop at their desired engagement range.
As for new orders, I have two suggestions:
First, “Flank”. A ship with this order will try to maneuver around the enemy fleet and attack the ships in the rear. Optionally, there could be two versions of this order to flank left or right.
The second is for a pair of firing orders, “fastest” and “slowest”. This would let your ships with fast tracking guns deal with fighters and fast frigates while your Megaton missile cruisers focused on targets they have a chance of hitting.
I would also love to see these (some can be made with formation / escort commands, think of these as “shortcuts”):
Gang: Selected ships roughly stick together, like a Formation but loose as if Escorting, but not tied to one specific ship.
Circle / Attack Move: Same as a normal attack, but with this the ship will fly around and / or circle the enemy ship its currently shooting at, to add a bit of momentum and chance for the enemy to miss. Much like fighters.
Admiral: Any ships tied to the ship with this order follows it as in a formation, and attacks whatever the Admiral attacks, at all times.
As far as i understand it, the current Co-op order affects the entire fleet, not just so the selected ships assist eachother, right?
That’s a brilliant suggestion! It’d add some dynamism to the battle - at the moment, most fleets meet in the middle and are fairly static when they’re there. Nice work!
Withdraw:“Run away if you are taking X much firepower from the enemy”. Like cautious, but based on the rate of damage, not the amount. Could be very useful for longer ranged frigates, where you tell them to move back if they take even the slightest damage to make sure they stay out of the enemies effective range. Also would be useful for decoy ships. Wild goose chase anybody?
Right now, missile armed ships, which should outrange everyone given enough speed to stay away, can be caught in a orders conflict between Cruisers and Frigates. If you have them engage cruisers, but there are massed frigates in front, the missile ships will advance and get massacred by the frigates. If you have them engage frigates, they’ll sit there and pop frigates for a few minutes, then the cruisers finally come up and they’ll sit there popping frigates until the cruisers take them out.
Those are great suggestions. I started thinking on what I missed but all fell on already suggested orders.
And many seem really easy to implement, like the priorities on other conditions other than ship size. For example, “Shielded/Unshielded” could be treated exactly as a ship size, setting priority and distance; this way you could have a ship shoot from far away until shield is down and then close-in, or do the opposite.