Hiya. I'm throwing this into a thread here at first, before putting it on mantis, just to first see what other people think about it, and to some degree, also because I just might've missed some more elusive features hidden away in documentation somewhere that already do some of what I'm about to suggest. I ended up writing a somewhat run-on lead-in on the idea, so feel free to skip to the paragraph starting with "Thus", if the following text seems tl;dr to you.
One of the big gripes I always have about games in general, is when I get the feeling that my character (in an action game/RPG/whatever), my units (in an RTS), or whatever else there is, -should- be able to do something perfectly well, but I can't get them to do it right because I myself can't input commands fast enough, or the UI fails me in some other way. The first time something like this really drove me up the wall was way back when I was playing the VR missions in the PC version of Metal Gear Solid 2, and I wanted to get Raiden to walks down a damn corridor, and hide in a damn locker, with the right timing so a patrolling guard would just barely walk by without noticing. The timing window on this was tight enough that I needed six attempts, primarily because instead of getting into the locker, I kept accidentally leaning against the wall adjacent to it instead without wanting to. I kept thinking that this isn't a mistake that character would do realistically, and I wanted to be able to just tell him to run down the corridor and get into the locker as soon as I give the "go" signal, planning the maneuver out in advance.
Alas, basically zero games ever allow the user to do something like this.
Why do I write this out? Because I want to give some lead-in into the sort of thinking that got me to formulate this suggestion.
I mostly notice that I get frustrated trying to use teleporting ships, transports and other ships with similar functions to the best of their ability whichout hitting the pause button at every step. This isn't much of a problem in singleplayer, but in multiplayer we usually play with a "no pausing!" rule, so that option falls flat.
AI War is generally relatively relaxed when it comes to user input, as opposed to games like Star Craft 2, and I like it this way. I seriously fail at SC2, but I love AI War for this. But then, AI War still has situations that get rather frantic. One example that annoys me, for example, is when using bombers for gate raids, and moving them in with a transport. After unloading, they will instantly open fire on viable targets, unless low-powered, so one usually has to wait a full reload-cycle before you can actually get them to kill the gate. Or you have to power them up first, which also takes time. And time is something you do not have on maneuvers that are supposed to be more surgical.
Another example is those teleport transports, which are extremely mobile, and as such should be able to port in, drop the ships they're carrying and port out almost instantly, putting themselves at relatively little risk. But instead, you have to wait yourself until they finish unloading, and -then- give a retreat order, lest they start moving before all ships are unloaded. This gets rather frantic when you're also trying to direct the ships that pop out to do exactly what you want them to do. The same, to a lesser degree, affects normal transports, too.
Thus, I'd love it if I could queue orders up in advance, probably tied to a group node, without the unit(s) starting to execute the orders immediately, instead letting me queue up everything and only starting when I give the "go". At the same time, those orders should allow things like movement orders in target systems, rather than deselecting the units I'm giving orders to on a planet change. Consider this scenario. I have a handful of Mark V teleporting Spire Transports, and a handful of Mark III bombers. I can replace the bombers, but I want to make sure the transprots live, so it'll be a suicide run for the bombers, but not the transports. Ideally, I'd have a group of bombers, queue them the commands "enter available transports", "wait until unloaded", "attack this warp gate". And a group of transports, which I'd give "wait until go", "groupmove to this planet", "non-groupmove to this location after entering this planet", "unload", "move to this friendly system". I'd then wait until the bombers finish loading up, give the transport group the "go" signal, and then watch as they port in as quickly as they can, unload and get the hell out, while the bombers bust the gate and then do whatever they feel like on their own.
Functionality like this may seem like it'd make the game a lot easier, and it probably would, but the UI not letting you use the abilities of your units like you'd want them to (and like the AI could, if it felt like it), seems like artificial difficulty to me. Any sort of RL military move is planned well in advance, I don't see why games shouldn't give you the ability to do a "Alright chaps, listen, this is the plan." before commencing your assault. Except for the implementation being challenging, maybe.
I have a few ideas about how the actual implementation could look like, but rather than write them out and bloat this already ranty post even further, I'm interested in how the rest of the community would see a feature like this. After all, it isn't something that'd be trivial to implement and it is something that'd have very far-reaching consequences on gameplay.
