Basic strategic view: easy fleet control.

[Mariux]

With the upcoming AI update, large fleets will be possible. However, with huge amounts of ships comes a large amount of complexity in controlling them easily and efficiently. I suggest adding a basic strategic view. It would work similarily to the buildmode camera, except when clicking on other ships it displays various AI commands, for example: Follow me, Standby, Attack nearest enemy and so on.

This feature could be enhanced even further by adding "wings". You can add ships to a wing and control the wing as if it was a single ship. That way you don't have to give commands to all the 50 fighters you have in your carrier seperately.

EDIT: Yes, I've made a thread on this nearly a year ago, but as WarSong suggested, I'm making a new one.

 

[Jake_Lancia]

I actually really like this RTS-like element, it will help me immensely controlling things like drones or fighter wings. Or just have a fleet of planet-crushing titans and wreck things xD
+1

 

[Nauvran]

If we would be able to control AI ships and see our faction members on the galaxy map and from there give them orders. Then I would be so happy.

 

[MossyStone48]

I got cited. Woo. I'm famous on the cattubez.

Fleet command and control. How Homeworld got it right:
They just did, moving on. How could/should StarMade do it? ALL THE WAYS.

Multiple ways to interact.
StarMade has always given you more than one way to accomplish something. A healthy mix of using the Galaxy Map with a sector specific 2D targter mode like you'd see in older RTSes would be nostalgic and effective. Using that as a default mode within a flagship would be pretty cool. Using the old WW2 sim or MechWarrior method of a radio to issue commands to members of your wing (If you lack fleet control and are a squad leader) Would be great to have and should be the default if you are not in a flag ship. Using a full on 3D system should be reserved for those controlling multiple fleets simultaneously. This is the most advanced and flexible system to use but has a pretty harsh learning curve in comparison to the other two.

Ship roles and NPC influance.
The asset's role defines what commands it can be issued. First what NPCs are on board? To issue commands to designated capitals you need a comms tech. To issue attacking orders you need a fire control officer. To tell it to even move you need a helmsman. A single NPC could do the job tho: A Combat Pilot. Even if you only have a Captain NPC on the ship you could issue all those commands but there should be microbuffs to larger ships using the proper NPCs for the tasks. The Captain allows you to issue more than one command simultaneously. But to make effective use of any NPC you need the right tools for the job. You can't tell a warship to go mine out an asteroid and RTB when the hold is full unless it has at least one turret, mining ship docked or main weapon system that is salvage capable and at least one plexstorage to use as a hold. Infact even with that equipment if there's not an Quartermaster NPC onboard capable of a salvage/mining OP the command shouldn't even appear.

Non-combat and AI.
With a single Captain or Combat Pilot NPC you have access based on what is installed on the ship with exception to non-ship-combat functions. Salvage, repair and medical tasks would require the corresponding NPC. Boarding would require at least one Marine NPC. A systems tech would allow Bobby AI units to be managed much like a Captain allows multiple commands. Bobby AIs would get nerfed to only use one weapon system at a time unless the systems tech was active on the same ship. Then all AI driven turrets would fire as they do now. All weapons at once. An engineer would enable the use of stealth systems and give a buff to jump time outs and overdrive boosts both active and passive. Even a radar interpretation officer could be shoe-horned in to make detecting cloak, tracking ships through jumps and improved radar range/accuracy possible. Essentially every system type should have an NPC that provides for it to be used or optimized when taking commands from the field marshal. Sure a Captain can fire a cannon but can they do it while making full use of the subsystems assigned to it? Better get a fire control officer on that ship if you wanna use explosive effects. This is just the tip of the specialized NPC iceberg.

The high cost of crew loss.
Specialized NPCs should only ever have one job. And you had to teach it to them. Capturing and stealing crew or ransoming them could be very lucrative. Taking their ship near intact would also be a good idea as you could easily redeploy them against their original commander. Killing someone else's NPC should cost you faction points. It's wasteful. Having them join you has the benefit of forgoing training and having their buffs assist you. If you are factionless you lose reputation. Eventually trade guild, neutral NPCs and players will see you appear as red on scans. You might be able to get in cozy with the NPC pirates to use their station shops or get recruited by a fringe faction already designated hostile. Even in a faction making a crew go rogue with you would be as much a dent to your rep as having killed them all. And you've doomed them and yourself to open hostility. Make sure to hijack something good. A trade guild Isanth would not be a good place to start. But it would net you a Pilot NPC.

 

[Mariux]

I got cited. Woo. I'm famous on the cattubez.

Fleet command and control. How Homeworld got it right:
They just did, moving on. How could/should StarMade do it? ALL THE WAYS.

Multiple ways to interact.
StarMade has always given you more than one way to accomplish something. A healthy mix of using the Galaxy Map with a sector specific 2D targter mode like you'd see in older RTSes would be nostalgic and effective. Using that as a default mode within a flagship would be pretty cool. Using the old WW2 sim or MechWarrior method of a radio to issue commands to members of your wing (If you lack fleet control and are a squad leader) Would be great to have and should be the default if you are not in a flag ship. Using a full on 3D system should be reserved for those controlling multiple fleets simultaneously. This is the most advanced and flexible system to use but has a pretty harsh learning curve in comparison to the other two.

Ship roles and NPC influance.
The asset's role defines what commands it can be issued. First what NPCs are on board? To issue commands to designated capitals you need a comms tech. To issue attacking orders you need a fire control officer. To tell it to even move you need a helmsman. A single NPC could do the job tho: A Combat Pilot. Even if you only have a Captain NPC on the ship you could issue all those commands but there should be microbuffs to larger ships using the proper NPCs for the tasks. The Captain allows you to issue more than one command simultaneously. But to make effective use of any NPC you need the right tools for the job. You can't tell a warship to go mine out an asteroid and RTB when the hold is full unless it has at least one turret, mining ship docked or main weapon system that is salvage capable and at least one plexstorage to use as a hold. Infact even with that equipment if there's not an Quartermaster NPC onboard capable of a salvage/mining OP the command shouldn't even appear.

Non-combat and AI.
With a single Captain or Combat Pilot NPC you have access based on what is installed on the ship with exception to non-ship-combat functions. Salvage, repair and medical tasks would require the corresponding NPC. Boarding would require at least one Marine NPC. A systems tech would allow Bobby AI units to be managed much like a Captain allows multiple commands. Bobby AIs would get nerfed to only use one weapon system at a time unless the systems tech was active on the same ship. Then all AI driven turrets would fire as they do now. All weapons at once. An engineer would enable the use of stealth systems and give a buff to jump time outs and overdrive boosts both active and passive. Even a radar interpretation officer could be shoe-horned in to make detecting cloak, tracking ships through jumps and improved radar range/accuracy possible. Essentially every system type should have an NPC that provides for it to be used or optimized when taking commands from the field marshal. Sure a Captain can fire a cannon but can they do it while making full use of the subsystems assigned to it? Better get a fire control officer on that ship if you wanna use explosive effects. This is just the tip of the specialized NPC iceberg.

The high cost of crew loss.
Specialized NPCs should only ever have one job. And you had to teach it to them. Capturing and stealing crew or ransoming them could be very lucrative. Taking their ship near intact would also be a good idea as you could easily redeploy them against their original commander. Killing someone else's NPC should cost you faction points. It's wasteful. Having them join you has the benefit of forgoing training and having their buffs assist you. If you are factionless you lose reputation. Eventually trade guild, neutral NPCs and players will see you appear as red on scans. You might be able to get in cozy with the NPC pirates to use their station shops or get recruited by a fringe faction already designated hostile. Even in a faction making a crew go rogue with you would be as much a dent to your rep as having killed them all. And you've doomed them and yourself to open hostility. Make sure to hijack something good. A trade guild Isanth would not be a good place to start. But it would net you a Pilot NPC.

I think it would be best to display the strategic map either as a "real" buildmode-like view, or if you zoom in on the galaxy map enough, you can see all the ships under your command and issue orders that way. I also like how it ties in nicely with planned NPC updates.

 

[toasts]

So, something similar to build mode, where you can fly and look around in free cam, whilst in this mode rather than having the block cursor, when you look at a AI ship a lists of commands pops up? If what I wrote is what your suggesting I think it would be cool. This could also allow for a crew in a ship, one person to pilot and another to command.

~Toast

 

[MossyStone48]

Well I'm just sayin' it'd be cool IF the NPCs worked that way.
An issue I glossed over is how we'd even teach them the needed skill. I was thinking of sending them to a training computer and that machine pops up a dialog for training you can buy. That unlocks those abilities for training. The long they do that job the higher that skill gets until it hits the cap. Say a Captain NPC can only have a max AITech of 32 while a Combat Pilot has a max of 16 and an actual Syetems Tech Officer has a max of 64. For a ship's turrets to fire all weapons at once you need at least 48 AITech. So two STOs at 50% or one at 100% would do but you could also get a Captain and Combat Pilot both at 100% to get the same ship perk.

Altho thinking about it now the killer losing FP for shooting out an NPC instead of re-purposing them doesn't seem like enough of a slap to stop people from wasting NPCs. No. The NPC should respawn in their original homebase but missing a % of their abilities. The original faction gets their guy back. It'd be better to keep him alive to keep him from going home. And the original faction won't want to kill the NPC either to avoid the cost of training them back to 100%.

Again all theoretical. And Kinda hijackish. Back to fleets.

Fleet command needs to have a pecking order. IE: A Field Marshal's commands cannot be overridden by a Squad Commander and a Squad Commander's order cannot be changed by a Wing Leader. This ofc applies to NPCs issued orders. A Player Character can honey badger at any time and go home for a nap and some cheesy poofs. Let there be consequences. But the interface should be more advanced and require some increasing learning curve to use the high you go. With exception for Faction Leaders. Assigning assets to NPC and PC should be straightforward. Assigning roles for NPC and PC characters should be a Faction Leader Only ability that requires -0- knowledge of the fleet command system. Just pick someone else to be your Marshal, assign them some Commanders and a few Leaders. Give them their initial assets. Then let the Marshal do their job while you go back to managing the Miner NPCs and slaping around the shipyard quartermaster for the lack of undeathinators.

 

[Mariux]

We could even have a block that physically displays a holographic map of the surroundings like this:

 

[Nauvran]

We could even have a block that physically displays a holographic map of the surroundings like this:

Maybe just show a simplistic version of the galaxy map while accessing the block will open another version of the galaxy map that will show scanned enemies last location and the current location of all factioned and allied ships within the radius of the communication array?

 

[Mariux]

Maybe just show a simplistic version of the galaxy map while accessing the block will open another version of the galaxy map that will show scanned enemies last location and the current location of all factioned and allied ships within the radius of the communication array?

I imagine it would be something similar to what you described.

 

[zigyzigy]

Good idea, you should be able to issue orders from the galaxy map and the navigation menu as well, the more places one can control their fleet from the better.
Also maybe a new system type -communication array in ships and stations that define how greater distance you can control ships from as well.
Thought their should be a basic minimum distance so you can still control ships in your system if you are floating around in space without a ride.

 

[Mariux]

Good idea, you should be able to issue orders from the galaxy map and the navigation menu as well, the more places one can control their fleet from the better.
Also maybe a new system type -communication array in ships and stations that define how greater distance you can control ships from as well.
Thought their should be a basic minimum distance so you can still control ships in your system if you are floating around in space without a ride.

True that, though I think scanners can do the same task as communication arrays, but that's up to devs to decide if it's worth to have two seperate systems for the tasks. I'm fine either way.

 

[jayman38]

We could even have a block that physically displays a holographic map of the surroundings like this:

Now that you mention that, it would probably be pretty easy for the devs to recreate the map view in some sort of defined area (E.g. A group of area activation blocks linked to a display block instead of an area control block), where you could physically move around the map, move and orient the current "viewpoint", place way points, select entities, focus the orientation on that entity (so that the entire holographic display rotates around that object as it turns), and provide commands to those entities. It would use things that are already in the game, and the devs have already expressed interest in holographic displays.

I don't see why this couldn't also be used with a "zoom" feature to get a holographic display of your ship in real time. People have been faking that already, so we absolutely know it's wanted.

 

[Wrexin]

O.k.this is a very cool idea but I don't think having multiple titans in one fleet would be very good much less a titan wing. Maybe a cap of how many titans there is in one fleet could be helpful?

 

[Master_Artificer]

This is a great idea!

Maybe you can only issue orders to ships with equal or lower mass? Each ship linked drains energy? Issuing commands takes energy?

Maybe you need a crap-ton of sensor blocks to be able to issue orders in a wide radius, and it might force you to make a dedicated command ship/flag ship of your fleet?

What about crew members on your ship? Issuing commands like: "Attack enemy port side" or "Increase froward firepower, I don't want anything getting through" or "Switch shields to double front"? Or maybe your on a turret, and you can press "insert key here" to bring up a quick command list, and you press 1-9 to "say" that command, like "turn starboard" or "Ascend" or something (to get you back in arc). Their could also be heath bars on systems, like sending crew members to either buff the systems, or repair it. Each of these could probably be done via computers.

 

[Lecic]

O.k.this is a very cool idea but I don't think having multiple titans in one fleet would be very good much less a titan wing. Maybe a cap of how many titans there is in one fleet could be helpful?

And how do you define a Titan? Mass? Dimensions? How do you account for everyone having a varied definition of what a Titan is? A hardcap is not the way to go. You'll just have people building just under it.

A better solution would be a Faction Point cost to field a ship that increases with the mass of that ship.