Planned Various Fleet Command Ideas

[Nickizzy]

I think that is a self explanatory statement.

Yes, we don't have enough of them:D!

 

[splatthecat]

Lots of great ideas that I'd like add to.

I like the harvest sector and trade route ideas. I'm a big fan of the Star Squadron YouTube channels. Lenscap and others are developing a standard cargo system for their server and it would be fantastic to load up a cargo ship and send it on its' way or be working away at your station/base and have a cargo ship arrive for unloading.

Having the ability to assign escort fighters and associated commands and orders to these salvage/trading fleets would add so much to the game. Being able to send a cargo ship to a shop and sell contents before returning or sending a ship with a "shopping list" would be amazing!

Another "virtual" block that could be added to the game would be a holding position "dock". If a ship arrives at a station and there is no free physical docking port, these virtual ports could essentially show these ships as being "docked" for server purposes. Once a dock becomes available, the next ship can undock from the virtual dock and fly to the physical one. The docking "computer" would allow the player to assign docking bays or ports by ship type and public/faction settings. Docked ships could even be sent to the virtual docks to free up physical docks. Ships attached to virtual docks would not be able to transfer cargo or power, etc and would loose the protection of the station/homebase.

Another useful virtual block could be a "stacking" block. Incoming fighters/drones could head for this first and then head for the docking bay/hanger. Ships could fly a circular pattern around this block until they are able to land.

Did notice someone mention fleet movements can be blocked with physical entities such as stations which obviously need work and multiple waypoints would be useful to steer fleets away from pirate stations, stars or other such obstructions.

 

[Dannage]

I have two ideas for formations, as I've noticed so far, all my fleets have just adopted a straight line.

One would be some set formation styles, ala Homeworld. X, Claw, Wall, Sphere...

The other feels like it would be super cool, but I can imagine would make the code monkeys all explode! The idea is taken from the fact that you use a block placement interface.. Essentially, normal Starmade! You have a 'virtual' space, akin the that used in shipyards when you are testing your simulated ship.

You have a block with a simple 'arrowhead' graphic, in different colours to represent ships or ship classes. You then 'build' the formation by placing your simulated ship markers (A marker is assigned to a ship in the fleet menu)


(I do not know why screenprints sometimes forget the black background!)

devs, please don't shoot me for making that suggestion.

 

[Madman198237]

Perhaps fleet command could use a logic structure like the one in the linked suggestion about condensing logic, as in you need a fleet command area with various blocks, one per ship in the fleet, in order to give detailed orders. This block would keep track of the ship's assignments, could be edited by those with proper faction rank (Or maybe they could add a "Fleet Rank" system, so you can give permissions to members of a fleet [And get members of a fleet besides ships] based on which ships they may use). Each fleet command block (Maybe this can require an antenna/scanner array in order to transmit orders to the fleet...and they need antennae in order to receive orders. Adding usefulness!) has various places for choices of orders, as in "Stay away from enemies" and "Mine" and a place to give sector/ship/station-following orders.

 

[TheWurm]

A mapping command would be nice, just have a scanner equipped ship fly through the system and map out what station types are in the sector. This would become more useful, I imagine, once exploration is addressed (here's hoping for the next dev cycle after npc's!). That, and I for one could really use some (oddly very explosive) probes to find that pesky rebel base...

And of course once NPC factions enter, there's a certain ship that needs a five year mission to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

 

[GnomeKing]

a good step might be to streamline collision calculations/collision problems between fleet ships (that are not in straight line:/)> lag spikes from this could undermine higher level command structures, at least in terms of reliable server play-ability....

(i love fleets though - this is all great stuff, and i am sure not at all quick/easy to make work)

 

[Valck]

It might break immersion, but I am not even sure it is possible to create a system where ships are auto docking and transferring stuff and managing themselves without us telling them how to do it and defining every aspect of their capabilities. Expect this all to happen, just not so perfectly and realistically.

SkyLord managed the auto unloading/loading using logic, rails & timing.

Yes and as skylord stated it was an absolute nightmare to figure out the logic required to pull that off. At least for him. The system has to work for the average player, which means if we have to simplify it we will. Fleets come particularly useful for single players, and so they might not have the logic skills or design skills another player might have that would allow them to create a neat sorting and docking system.

True, but don't forget this was before the new launch and pickup rails, so he had to get creative with "magnetic" docking. And we all know how well that works.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

True, but don't forget this was before the new launch and pickup rails, so he had to get creative with "magnetic" docking. And we all know how well that works.

I understand it is an issue with the existing way rails are configured, but it can be fixed in one or both of two ways.

The one thing that makes the existing rail docking problematic with automatic transfer is the timeout for reconnecting once you disconnect.
If this was removed it would not be a problem and you would not require tricky timing.
The other option is to have activation logic control of the docking beam, which has been suggested many times in the past by many people including myself.

If we could remove the timeout, since this makes no senses anyway. It's like uncoupling a train from a carriage and then waiting 5 secs before reconnecting. In reality, you can couple, decouple, couple straight away. I don't see any logical reason for it.

As for the docking beam, it seems pretty obvious to me that this should be logic controlled to simplify docking. It also allows for robotic and remote controls.