I like the ideas and enthusiasm, ans soz MrNature.
I should clarify what my version is and hopefully it consolidates a lot of everyone else\'s ideas.
The \"channels\" would be per fleet. You can have up to ten fleets assigned under you (20 ships to a fleet), and one ship designated as the \"Command Ship\". When the Command Ship is destroyed, your control over the fleets tied to it are broken, and the AI in those fleets goes into default AI-ship mode. Having fleets tied to a specific ship makes the Command Ship more of a true \"mothership\" and puts priority on the protection of the human player by the AI fleet. On top of protection, it would be a truer simulation of millitary tactics where there is a priority target that is being defended.
The Command Block, which would show up like a weapon in the hotbar, would display a menu that shows possible commands for all fleets you have assigned to it- this makes giving and changing orders on the fly very easy and more practical to use in a combat situation.
Here\'s the command list format I\'d implement (if I were to code it myself, and I\'m willing to do that, Schema xoxo)- Passive Functions, Movement, & Active Functions.
Passive Functions include the formation a grouping of units make: straight line, multiple rows, a sniper column, fighterjet-V\'s, or circular/spherical. And they include how units behave when idling, either they are aggressive and actively persue any hostile units they see, or they gaurd and stand ground, only shooting from where they are and do not pursue the hostiles, OR an inbetween where they prusue a target and return to their initial area after killing the target. Oh, and no aggression at all, you can have them stay nuetral I suppose but that\'s boring lol.
Movement would be commands to have a fleet go to a specific sector, persue a specific ship or player (but you can only track them if you have the probe blocks I talked about in the other suggestion thread), or orbit/stay in formation around the Command Ship or other fleet ship. There would also be a \"patrol\" command where a list of sectors could be made and the ships would cycle through the sectors, defending from hostiles. This is where a 3d map view would be very benificial, because it would be a lot easier to see where the ships are patroling. An alert system can also be used by utilizing the probe units from the other thread, where if a patrol is attacked, you\'re immediately alerted of the attack and where it is.
The Active Functions are the fun ones: engage targets, engage and clear a sector, fall into War Formation, prioritize a ship besides the Command Ship, prioritize which enemy ships receive attack first second and third, have medical units heal or disengage and exit the battlezone entirely (and the damaged ships go to the medical zone after combat),. You could have \"disrupter ships\", that is ships with power drains and hacking blocks (like from the probe thread), interfere on cues.
Chat has told me that while typing this, mr Nature put up a similar thread, so we might consolidate some of this. But I hope you get the idea of what\'s possible with an AI Command Block.
