Formation and movement of ships

[Zoram]

More complex? Adding set formations just makes micro more simple and removes the need for APM. Dude how about you play something other than Rohan before spewing your opinion on navy all over the forum?

this could be applied to all units, not just navy. One doesn't need a rating over 9000 to appreciate how it would be nice to have more formation options.

If the skill gap has to be maintained by APM for the sake of APM I suggest we disable way-points, patrols, factory assists, repeat queue and all those things that take the fun out of clicking.

[yeager]

More complex? Adding set formations just makes micro more simple and removes the need for APM. Dude how about you play something other than Rohan before spewing your opinion on navy all over the forum?

This doesn't eliminate the need for micro, sera destro, battle cruiser, reg cruisers, etc, will all need jus as much if not more micro. Not only this but it means you can creat faction specific formations, once again, increasing gameplay. It will also allow strategy specific formations, shore bombardment, for example would be a formation that focused on protecting battleships and cruisers. Also it's not set, so different people will have different formations, adding to game diversity, this also means people who spend more time testing there formations will do better, increasing game interaction, so excuse me, but how is this bad?
And more importantly how on gods good earth does this close the gap between noobs and skilled players?

[yeager]

The point I'm making is that micro is in a good place. Current functions allow units to move pretty easily. Formations won't make anything more fluid and tbh will probably result in more bumper boats than normal. Not to mention that being stagnant in formation is generally poor micro outside of a few scenarios. There is no point adding things when they don't improve anything that was formerly an issue or create some added depth. I entirely disagree that this adds depth, it just adds a fun tool to screw around with that nobody will use if they have half a brain. These suggestions hold much more gravity if people would make mods and do a bit of testing first instead of random ideas.

There isn't anything with a little brainstorming, if your only real issue is you don't think it's worth the trouble then there is no reason to be an a$$ about it, and IF it ever was added to the game then guess what? You don't have to use it, but I assure you would tweak the base formation at least slightly

[Zoram]

The point I'm making is that micro is in a good place. Current functions allow units to move pretty easily. Formations won't make anything more fluid and tbh will probably result in more bumper boats than normal. Not to mention that being stagnant in formation is generally poor micro outside of a few scenarios. There is no point adding things when they don't improve anything that was formerly an issue or create some added depth. I entirely disagree that this adds depth, it just adds a fun tool to screw around with that nobody will use if they have half a brain. These suggestions hold much more gravity if people would make mods and do a bit of testing first instead of random ideas.

I think it would have been an awesome addition in a supcom "3", but that it would require a very strong UI tool to make it manageable. I can imagine plenty of ways how it would be nice to have more controlon how the units move.

I doubt it'll be included, or if it is to be used by yet another set of keybindings, it won't be ideal. But there's not much harm in throwing ideas around.

I just don't understand why you have to be an obnoxious know-it-all prick all the time. Well, it adds drama to the forums, it's kinda of entertaining I guess....

[pza]

I just don't understand why you have to be an obnoxious know-it-all prick all the time. Well, it adds drama to the forums, it's kinda of entertaining I guess....

...And it puts up this issue to the top, in addition to really showing that theres quite a couple people that agree that it is an issue. So I'm ok with it

Although what would be an argument though is implementation issues, which one should be aware of. Just creating a sensible UI would take alot of work I imagine. The more simple way would be to "fix" ship distances to match a proper formation. (well, that and maybe position of mobile shields...)

And tbh, whenever Briang posts anything it feels like he's doing everything to prevent new, or even average players from having a good time. Like if this game existed for the 5% elite that are used to some masochism.

[yeager]

Your arguments dont hold water:
You say we shouldnt try to fix formations because they dont work, but thats exactly why we are trying to fix them.
You say people wont use them but ask flip flapin anyone, if they could control unit coallition, they would abuse it to no end.
you also say making formations customizeable will be useless because it wont improve micro, well, taking control of eatch specific unit IS micro, so customizeable formations will by definition improve micro.

[Deering]

Formation move won't be an effective means of micro even if you make them customizable.

Then don't use it. Doesn't hurt you in the slightest and some people might like it.

[pza]

Here's an example of Cybran navy formations.

Unbenannt.jpg (215.79 KiB) Viewed 2237 times

There's a couple of things that you can notice:

1) Distance between ships depend partly on ship size of the largest ship in the fleet, although there is some inconsistency, since the cybran aircraft carrier is considerably larger than the battleship but projects the same formation distance. Same goes for t3 and t1 subs.

2) The point where those large formations become a problem is when you have mixed armies of battleships and large amounts of frigates, which would stand way off the battle in case of a frontal attack.

3) It is notable that formations seem to put the higher HP ships into the middle. whether or not this is good is to be decided by the player ofc, since it depends on what you are facing. But it's the main reason mobile shielding (or stealthing) vehicles tend to be placed along the borders. So I can imagine a possible fix would be to make those vehicles an exception to this rule, and creating their own rule for them.

4) Something worth mentioning that you don't see in the screenshot is the bumpedibump that happens all the time you turn your formation of ships by 90 degrees or more ( = move to the side), no matter the size of the ships. This happens in addition, or maybe because the first row of ships move first, then the second, then the third. a side movement happens in 3 steps: turn whole formation -> go to destination -> turn whole formation back. Although ships could just simply stay in their formation rotating not the formation but only the ships, basically staying in formation.

This basically sums the issues up again, just to make sure everyone's talking about the same problems.

[Col_Walter_Kurtz]

briang how is navy micro in a good place? The formations are just too wide and make zero sense. It would be better to have no ship formations at all, but just move clumps of units around in the order they are in. So basically you have a lot of stupid extra work now (moving your t1 separate from higher tech, babysitting shield / stealth).

[Zoram]

The extra work separates good players from bad. Dumbing down micro isn't the direction anybody wants to go with this game. Cough cough *PA*

You're not everybody. Having more options is not dumbing down.
If fast clicking for the sake of it separates good players from bad ones, let's have a rabbit run accross the screen, +100 mass if you click it, whoop. "Extra work" is not an argument. Or, as I pointed earlier, let's disable waipoints, ferry, editable orders and all the things that remove tedious micro.

I don't like PA, at all, however what they just did with units movements, like line movement, is impressive.

I don't believe it'll be possible to have something useful and workable with a nice UI in Supcom, but I'd like to be wrong.