One of the things I dislike about this game is that combat seems unnecessarily fiddly. This is mainly due to certain actions needing confirmations, others not, and generally there being too many clicks needed to accomplish basic functions.
The current flow of the combat is:
Move>Firing Mode>Potential Confirmation>Next Turn
I would like it changed to:
Move and optional Firing Mode change>Next Turn
For this to work, let us say that the Autofire/Fire at Selected Ships/Fire at Exact Point/Hold Fire GUI is visible and usable during the move phase. So, when the game says Set Movement, the player would at this time also have the option to toggle their ship into one of the different firing modes – let's not forget that the game has already set a precedent for other actions such as Specials being available during the move phase.
Let's say that the default firing mode upon first entering combat is Hold Fire, and the player would like to change to Autofire. I'll try and break this down.
The first thing the player sees is Set Movement, and the message "currently holding fire" underneath. The Hold Fire icon could also be highlighted on the GUI. The player now has the option to toggle to a different firing mode BEFORE making a move action if they so desire. Let's say the player chooses to only move this turn, this would result in the player moving to their location while maintaining the current (default) fire mode of Hold Fire. At the start of the next movement phase the last action is always remembered, which in this case is Hold Fire. With this in mind, the player can now move easily around the map, holding fire, with only a single click for movement. No confirmations necessary.
OK, so let's now say that the player is bored of holding fire and wants to switch to Autofire. This is accomplished with a single click on the GUI (or keypress) on the next move phase. Now the ship is set to Autofire, and under the Set Movement message it could say "currently autofiring". The player can then take move actions and single click their way around the map while maintaining this Autofire until they decide to change the firing mode. This is a single click versus the current two clicks of the current system.
Hopefully the general mechanics of the simplification are understandable based on what I've written so far. I will quickly go over the other firing modes, and any complications, though.
If the player chooses Fire at Selected ships, the choose targets overlay would appear with the message about using shift for multiple targets, however there would be no confirmation, to maintain consistency. Instead, if the player were to shift click multiple targets, the action would be set on depress of the shift key (as long as at least one target is selected).
Fire at Exact point would work very similarly to it currently does, which would be consistent as no confirmations are currently requested.
Something along these lines would be a considerable improvement in usability. Of course, feel free to point out any flaws in the idea.
To sum up: firing mode can be optionally changed before taking a move action. No changes would result in the last firing mode being set. The player would not be caught in an endless loop because the move phase will always allow the player to switch to a different firing mode.
Thanks, guys!
