Sticky rallying

[BadgerBadger]

I did an experiment where I had a starship constructor on planet A rallying ships to my Ark. The Ark was on planet B. The Ark was moving to planet C, but still on planet B. The ships rallying to the Ark would get to the Ark, then not inherit the Ark's move command and just sit on planet B once they got to the Ark and stopped rallying.

I would like to propose the following. If the target of a rally is moving, and it is moving to another planet, anything rallying to that target should inherit the move commands of the target upon reaching the target.

[keith.lamothe]

How about we do this:

Rallying ships do not drop rally mode when they reach their lead ship. Instead, they drop rally mode when given an order by the player.

?

[BadgerBadger]

Sounds like it might work.

I spent a minute trying to come up with some hypotheticals where it wouldn't work, then I realized that it sounds like a really change to make. So lets just try it, then we can give feedback as to how well it works in practice.

[keith.lamothe]

Sounds like it might work.

I spent a minute trying to come up with some hypotheticals where it wouldn't work, then I realized that it sounds like a really change to make. So lets just try it, then we can give feedback as to how well it works in practice.

On reflection I realized that it would probably be a more commonly-desirable thing to do what you suggested: when dropping rally mode, copy the lead ship's current orders to the ship that's dropping the rally mode. If the player wants the ships to continue copying the lead ship's orders after that point (which is similar to rallying) then they can select the group and give it orders that way.

That said, we can try the other one after that if it sounds interesting, or "sticky rally" (just stay in rally mode unless given another order) could be a control-group toggle. I'm guessing it's a more specialized behavior than the other.