Team Control like StarCraft 2

[Veta]

Pretty self explanatory, would it be possible to patch in team control like what's in StarCraft 2 or is this beyond the scope of FAF for the time being?

Also what do you guys think of such an addition to the game (it would probably be a lobby option so you nobody has to use it if they don't want)?

[-_V_-]

What is that ?

[Pavese]

You can control your Friends unit and see what he is building.

Imagine its a permanent alt+f2 setfocusarmy where you can only use units and also can use your units at the same time.

[Veta]

Right... essentially you could control your allies' units and if need be micro them - or use their engies without having to be given them manually - I'd imagine I'd be pretty useful/strategic to have an entire team focus their engies on a single project then?

Anyway this could definitely be done with some UI changes and a mod right or am I wrong?

[-_V_-]

Could be an option but I, personally, don't want anyone having control over my units in game

[Veta]

Ya in SC2 it's generally only used when you know your teammates, in random matches it's not as likely to be used. But it's great when you're on teamspeak and you can just tell your friend you're going to send in all your team's units for an attack or if theyre busy on another front, you can pull their units back (instead of messing around with giving and taking units or UI mods). This would make much more sense in SupCom given that you already usually inherit the units of your defeated teammates as well.

Edit: Basically it wouldn't alter gameplay at all it would just optimize the sharing functionality.

[FunkOff]

Team control is possible, I think.... but the game isn't designed for it, so it might be a little clunky if it's implemented.

[Veta]

Team control is possible, I think.... but the game isn't designed for it, so it might be a little clunky if it's implemented.

Nice. I figured that it might be weird given that you can't normally select units that don't belong to you. Perhaps an FA version of shared control could work -- not sure if this makes sense but, it would be similar to StarCraft 2 in that you check a box with the specific players you want to hand over control to. However, and here's where it gets tricky, instead of treating the units like they are treated in StarCraft 2, you would essentially merge your economy/unit control/everything (or just what you choose) with the players that you decide to share with. It could be called Strategic Share .

The whole idea is to optimize the tedious process that is sharing/team control in FA. So in this regard you could essentially share EVERYTHING (without going back and forth with the share mechanic). The benefits are pretty obvious, but the negatives are that if the player you're sharing economy with crashes it would affect you too (unless you then turned off sharing). I'm guessing that to do this right then your overlay/economy panels would have to show the combined economy of you and whoever is sharing with you, rather than just you (whether you add another panel(s) for 'shared economy/ies' or just simply add the number of resources/storage another player has to yours would be a matter of discretion/difficult to code). Not sure how easily that could be done but it would be a cool 'SupCom' version of team control. And of course you wouldn't start digging into your allies' coffers until yours are cleaned out leaving you at +0 resources until they either stop sharing or run out as well. This could speed up the pace of team games too.

Then again just letting you move units around as if they're yours and letting you build with their units would be nice (and probably easier).


Edit: Off the top of my head, criticisms of this could include the fact that it would give noobs another disadvantage in games (in that it's another advantage to those who know how to use it), although keeping it as a game option could prevent that. Also the former idea for a 'strategic share' would probably require some pretty skillful coding/modding - given that FAF isn't a gaming company and all of their support is volunteer i'm not sure how viable that really is. If it's not hard to do the latter StarCraft 2 version of sharing would be an awesome optimization for the game. Not super-pertinent but nice nonetheless, so it could go on the longlist of to-dos. I'd also love to see FAF be able to monetize (and thus be better able to support, spread and market itself)... although that's a different thread entirely.