Prerelease 3.026 (Improvements to formation movement, arc move, plane nerf)

[Kjara]

Further arc ideas.  It would be nice to be able to thicken the arc(or the ideal would be an autothicken-- calcuating the area in the arc and the area taken up by each unit and deciding how thick the arc needs to be to hold all of the units).  When I want to stack arcs as follows: bombards->frigates->anti-armors->fighters->polarizers->bombers, if I have as many frigates as bombers, ideally my frigate arc would be thicker(aka perhaps 2 or 3 frigates thick) since the radius is possibly quite a bit smaller.  The only way to do this right now involves breaking the frigate group up into more than one group, etc.  If you don't do this and you have too many units for the given arc, they seem to fall back on their random scatter, meaning its hard to get another arc around them(and when its dreadnoughts randomly scattering....(or anything that displaces other units)---micro ahoy .  

Edit attached is what I mean:  Note that the bombards had to be broken down into 3 groups, as did the frigates.

[x4000]

Atm i am not sure what exactly the purpose of formations is in AI-War. Just select my ships and group move is still faster than formations. And given the scope of AI War, i don't even know what I'd ever use formations for.

I agree, I've never been one to be excited about formations in any game, let alone AI War.  I don't think I'll ever use them, myself.  But, I know that some players really want them either for aesthetic reasons, or to make ideal fleets grouped around starships, etc.  So, from that angle, this feature helps those players to play the way that they want, and I'm glad it is there for that reason.  But, it's not the sort of thing I am partial to myself, hence why I never implemented it in the past.

The time it takes to make a formation perfect you could be blasting a planet to smithereens with a group moved fleet.

That is largely my gripe with them, too.  And I just don't like micromanaging my stuff to that degree, either.  But, to each his/her own, right?  I don't begrudge the feature for those who do find them useful, and I'm glad that it fills a niche for those who want it.

[keith.lamothe]

Yes, the formations are largely aesthetic in appeal, though I think they will help speed up the reforming of munition-boosting and counter-shot formations, etc.  But mainly it's just a cool factor that appeals deeply to a certain subset of players (myself included).

[quickstix]

From a practical perspective, formations work well in defensive situations. For example, creating a circle of missile frigates around a wormhole provides a solid defense as you can surround the enemy from every angle, which is great for wormholes in the middle of a map. Being able to build in formations (ie, such as definable arcs for turrets/mines) would be the next step up from that.

I will admit it does have a fairly niche appeal, mainly towards aesthetics, the cool factor and micro, and these are things I'm a big fan of.

But, to each his/her own, right?  I don't begrudge the feature for those who do find them useful, and I'm glad that it fills a niche for those who want it.

Definitely.

[RCIX]

I really like the new formation move stuff; thanks!

[Temper]

Yes. I have waited, watched the time go by... and now?  Force Field Bearers with a boosted radius spread in a circle around my fleet?? Finally! My favorite ships are really worthwhile.

[Ozymandiaz]

Hmm, I forgot about that shortcut. Basically any letter that is not used is good with me.

My 'perferd' list:

a/A

r/R

u/U

or even ' . ' or ' , '

All of those are used :p

Dang, thats what I get for typing this up at work (and my innability to remember all the commands form AI war)

how about ' < '?

or ' - '?

Tho that is getting kind of onvscure maybe, or maybe used ?

If there is any letter not currently used, I would be happy to use that letter, don't really mind which . Unfortunalty I do have a norwegian keyboard and is is all too used to it, and it has bugged me before as well in other games ^^.

[I-KP]

Just dropping in a note to big-up the Formations.

I find formations vital for maximising the coverage of attack boosting[1] (Starships, Munitions Boosters et al) and the defensive assets (Cloakers, Deflectors et al) which used to all go to pot when moving things around without Formations.  I always found that I had to micro my coverage assets into better positions once move orders had completed so IMO Formations haven't increased the amount of micro involved at all, they've just moved it.  I can understand why some people can't be bothered with setting up formations, and in instances where boosting coverage isn't an issue formations are probably only OCD eye-candy. 

[1] Which is currently hugely over-powering, IMOH, but that's another moan for another thread.  I should have put this one up for nomination.  Damn.  Too many to nominate.

[akronia]

On my german apple usb keyboard the arc-move is not working at all 

On german layouts comma and semicolon are on the same key, so I need to press shift to get the semicolon.

The problem is that SHIFT+, for "selecting all idle military ships at current planet" seems to over-rule the normal shift-modifier to get a semicolon.

That happens to both the LSHIFT and RSHIFT keys.

[Kordy]

n'thing the ; problem - it's not the printed key, even, and I too need to use shift, just like akronia posted, with same results.

Now, I don't have a laptop, so I'm not sure if the keys are present, but having three four zoom level keys, zoom-in and out keys AND the mousewheel is a bit redundant. So maybe it's possible to remap Q, W, E and R key functions to insert, home, delete and end, right next to the variable zoom keys, and move the stop command and blob command to QWER. We already have backspace to scrap stuff, anyhow. This might help a lot.

[x4000]

New version here:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,3696.msg24244.html#msg24244

Regarding the semicolon discussion, that's something we should have more of a fix for in 3.028.  Thanks!

[keith.lamothe]

Indeed, for 3.028:

-Changed arc move key combination from ;+right-click to shift+Q+right-click.

Not any less ridiculous, perhaps, but hopefully more compatible with other keyboards.

[Ozymandiaz]

Indeed, for 3.028:

-Changed arc move key combination from ;+right-click to shift+Q+right-click.

Not any less ridiculous, perhaps, but hopefully more compatible with other keyboards.

Should work well I would assume!