Orders as Entities

[Zanthra]

So some of the best strategy games in my opinion are ones where orders are considered separate from the units that are assigned to them.

I imagine being able to set up a command group with no ships in it, assigning objectives to it, then assigning a group of units to that group and having them execute those orders. This would open up a huge number of other great things you could do with these command groups.

When preparing a set of orders, you could see a list of orders and options for them onscreen. You could reorder, adjust and modify orders without having to redo the entire chain of orders. If you think the order you kill the guardposts in is inefficient, you can switch the orders around until it is efficient. Settings like group move, attack move, or whether to focus fire on the guardpost before shooting at the defending ships when in range or not could be changed in place for each command.

You could prepare a 1/2 split of the command group and send half against one target and half against another, or other ratios. Each chain of orders for the subgroups would end with join the other half in their order chain, or continue with the command group chain.

You could easily assign more ships to a command group, or remove ships from a command group. For example if you are losing you could reassign the command group to a retreat command group that has orders for safe extraction of as many ships as possible.

If you need to do some changes to the plan in combat, you could normally grab a bunch of ships and give them move or attack orders without removing them from the command group, once finished with those temporary orders, or they are cancelled, they would join back up with the rest of the group. Of course you could break that group off from the command group entirely if you wanted to.

Form up points, such as wait for at least 80% of the command group before proceeding, or other thresholds, and triggers like wait for the AI Eye to be destroyed before proceeding, could provide even more strategic options.

I think that this would be a great addition to the game reducing micromanagement and giving a more strategic feel.

Thanks for reading at least,
Zanthra

[Pumpkin]

The specific behavior you explain here seems rather hard to both implement and use.

However the idea behind is interesting. Have you played Supreme Commander? It features a very interesting interface where orders can be physically displaced and removed by interacting with their "entity". For instance, patrol orders could be moved around and factories' exit could be added in very easily. The most advanced piece of this system was the automatic transport order: you could select an air transport and give it the "bridge" command toward a remote destination. Two "entities" were created: the  destination beacon (that you can move and cancel just like a move order) and the depart beacon. You were then able to add more air transports to the bridge by selecting them and clicking the depart beacon. You can send units to be carried through the bridge in the same way (they would wait at the depart beacon for a transport to be available) and even better: you can set factories' exits on the depart beacon for automatically produced units to be automatically carried to the destination (and displace the destination beacon as the front shifts onward or backward (or sideway)).

Ah, SupCom...

[chemical_art]

Sup com was so unique on how it approached its interface. I will certainly put it back into my game cycle. Which means I will play it next year

[Zanthra]

Sup com was so unique on how it approached its interface. I will certainly put it back into my game cycle. Which means I will play it next year

Forged Alliance Forever still has competitive multiplayer games with descent popularity. It was a very very cool game, and I always felt AI War had some similarities to it, especially with the zoomable planet maps, large scale feel, and the economy model.

PS: Forged Alliance Forever is a player made balance mod and matchmaking service.

[chemical_art]

Forged Alliance Forever still has competitive multiplayer games going at times even. It was a very very cool game, and I always felt AI War had some similarities to it, especially with the zoomable planet maps.

Yes its interface was amazing. I was spooked when I first saw the zoomed out maps. The maps looks eerily similar to how the C&C in modern (naval) ships display information. At least for at the time.

[Stormking]

I like that idea! An extended command-UI that can be ignored if one is only comfortable with the old way of doing things or for most situations that are too simple to bother with it.
But the possibilities here are great!
I can think of a few new ideas that would help with selecting units on the fly: have this UI open and hotkey-click on a guardpost: add all units to the command, that are strong against it (have multiplier). or are not weak to it (no multiplier on enemy)
Since these things change as quickly as the battlefield, I'd love to have some better on-the-fly selection than the right sidebar, and this UI seems like a good backbone for it.

Open - quick-select units - gather cmd - attack cmd - fallback cmd - go.
Better yet: have a template that has these most commonly used cmd orders ready. only add units, set target and go.