Non-military ships people want to be able to select with military

[keith.lamothe]

So, finally figured out how to make scout starships select like military by way of toggle.  I recall requests for other ship types to be able to do the same.  Transport and Cloaker Starship come to mind.  What else?

[Solarity]

Shards perhaps? Fortresses if they arent already?

EDIT :

Actually, not fortresses, that could mean things get a little silly.  Would it be possible for an escourt command, for example CTRL-ALT-E click on ship, then all ships forum around that one ship(s)?

[_K_]

Decloakers and cloak starships

[zoutzakje]

a toggle for martyrs and attritioners would be nice. Sometimes they get left behind and I forget I have them, simply because they don't select with the rest of my fleet. I wouldn't want them to select with the rest of my fleet at ALL times though, so a toggle in the controls menu would really be best for this.

[Minotaar]

Spire shield bearers! And attritioners too, I suppose. And whatever everyone else said. 

[Catma]

Is this a universal toggle for all these ships, or separate toggles for each ship?

[Hearteater]

Just to be clear, if Scout Starships are selectable with military units, what happens when I box a group of just Scout fleets ships and a Scout Starship?  Will the fleet ships be ignored since they aren't "military"?  Or is this a special third category of "non-military but select with military"?

[keith.lamothe]

Is this a universal toggle for all these ships, or separate toggles for each ship?

Generally separate, but if any of these make sense to combine that will save space.  As it is we're nearing the point of needing another page for the more specialized galaxy-wide controls.

Just to be clear, if Scout Starships are selectable with military units, what happens when I box a group of just Scout fleets ships and a Scout Starship?  Will the fleet ships be ignored since they aren't "military"?  Or is this a special third category of "non-military but select with military"?

Good question.  I don't know   Will check it out when I get a chance.

[LintMan]

This is great improvement.  But while we're on the topic, I'd like to bring up two related issues:

1) When you send scout starships through a wormhole as part of a military group, they flee to the edge instead of staying with the group.

If they stayed with their group at the wormhole, the group could benefit from their (IIRC) anti-dark matter defense radius.  Fleeing to the edge doesn't seem to serve much purpose in this case.


2) What should the non-shooting ships in your selected blob do when you issue an attack order?

Currently, they all move directly to the target and sit there.  I think this is generally useless and likely to get them quickly killed.  More helpful would be if they hung back with the crowd (especially for the spire shield gens and the scout starships).  A simple way to do this might be to give them a hidden "attack" with 0 damage and, say, 3-5K range.  A slicker way might be to look at the average actual distance of the other ships in the group from the target (or maybe their avg attack distance), and use that for positioning the non-attackers.

[Wanderer]

Keith, while you're looking into this, can you look into speed variances due to boost/non-boost for group moved units?

For example, grab your cloakers and transports in a Player Owned system.  Move them a few systems.  The cloaks outrun the transports, breaking the cloak field, due to them getting a speed boost and transports not.  It can cost you your transports if you don't micro them into enemy territory first.

[Wanderer]

This is great improvement.  But while we're on the topic, I'd like to bring up two related issues:

1) When you send scout starships through a wormhole as part of a military group, they flee to the edge instead of staying with the group.

If they stayed with their group at the wormhole, the group could benefit from their (IIRC) anti-dark matter defense radius.  Fleeing to the edge doesn't seem to serve much purpose in this case.

Check out the release notes for the next patch (.028).  It addresses that particular issue.

[Spikey00]

Keith, while you're looking into this, can you look into speed variances due to boost/non-boost for group moved units?

For example, grab your cloakers and transports in a Player Owned system.  Move them a few systems.  The cloaks outrun the transports, breaking the cloak field, due to them getting a speed boost and transports not.  It can cost you your transports if you don't micro them into enemy territory first.

(Relevant Mantis since 5.024:  http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=5677.)

Yeah, that would be a great fix to have--it really messes up group-moving units like keeping your Spire shield bearers with your fleet.

[Wanderer]

Decloakers and cloak starships

+1 to these.

[Spikey00]

Actually, would it be possible to put these in a context menu in the CTRLs?

i.e. "make civilian ships selectable as military ships" => popdown list with checkboxes

[Hearteater]

I could never use that.  I'd be selecting things I almost never want to select with military ships (like scout fleet ships).  My biggest problem with the existing select military+civilian is getting Fortresses and Force Fields.  I wish military+civilian selection ignored civilian structures.  I'm trying to think if I'd ever want to select both military units AND civilian structures (especially immobile civilian structures).