Leading players in group battles right now is hard, at a certain point, you just lose track of where your players are in the heat of battle. And even with Teamspeak/Skype/etc... Players who take on the command role have myopia.

So what I'm curious about, is whether the new UI would allow certain players to enter a Sector 3D map, where they could set waypoints for group/guild members, similar to what Natural Selection did.

Maybe this would only be functional from a capship/frigate, but it would make coordination interesting, players could recieve waypoints from their commanders and really build strategy on the fly.

I like it, I want it, do I think we'll get it?�c no.

this functionality should be added to cap-ships. and posably to some small ships (think AWACS, or raptor). but not a universal ability of the new client.

that way having a well coodinated strike force relys on planing and orginisation rather than switching to an alternate view. and destroying the command ship has a signifigant effect on the corrdination of the opposing force.

johnhawl, ever the optimist.

I wouldn't be surprised if the devs were already planning something like this. We already know we're getting waypoint navigation for the cap ships, homeworld style. The next logical step would be the ability to set waypoints for your fighter wings from the bridge of a carrier. Three useful commands I can think of would be [attack this target], [defend this target], or [control this area].

Great idea.

Incarnate's already said he likes the idea of a Homeworld2-style interface for controlling the capships. (Somewhere, I forget where.)

In fact, I'd like this kind of interface for EXACTLY the reason Shape said. Even if I'm in a Cent somewhere trying to coordinate a few people, it would be nice to be able to issue commands from a "top-down" approach.

Yes sir.

This is an awesome idea. It would make coordinated group combat possible, and make group combat strategy and good command a factor in winning large engagements. It would also be cool to allow that commander to order NPCs to certain targets and roles, with AI settings to control their behavior in combat. For example, you could set some of them to Defend a certain target, or agressively attack, etc.

In fact, you could even make the functionality the norm with group leaders who are leading from a command vessel (certain vessels would be hotflagged as command vessels in the buy prompt), but EXPAND the functionality for guild leaders.

Guild leaders, while in a station or in a HAC, could access a universe map which would allow them to track the locations of all their players, and scan sectors in which their players were located (within the range of their players' radar, of course).

A talented Guild commander could coordinate attacks all over the galaxy.

Very cool. I'm tired of having all my combat commands bound to "say_group" on my 1-9 keys. Very difficult to coordinate a large group of people so that fire is focused in the right places.

I was thinking (in my missiles suggestion forum) that a sort of AWACS taking up 2 L ports could be carried on Behemoths, Ragnaroks, and Centaurs and would not only provide long range radar support (excess of 6000m) for the long-range missile launchers, but to modify it, also support some sort of Homeworld style RTS view where you could control your own ship like Homeworld, as well as issuing orders to all the players under your control.

I like that idea, I think it would be a good idea if players could see like a icon on their HUD, much like a wh icon on the screen, and that would direct them to the area of engagement, etc.

i still don't think this should be available for every ship. i mean exactly how to you run a command center from the cockpit of a cent?

Maybe if they made a new ship for mobile command. Something pretty big, like the size of a trident, minimal weapons capabilities (maybe 1 or 2 tubes of missiles) and a few turrets for defense. It would be incredibly slow, slower than a moth, but would have armor around the equivilent of a hive queen or even a little bit more. The ideal strat for this ship would actually be to stay out of the battle. It should not be a combat ship, but have enough defense to at least last a while before being destroyed. A person in this ship (co-pilot maybe?) would have the ability to use the homeworld/command center like interface to issue orders, set waypoints, and further coordinate the efforts of his allies.

Note: This ship should be REALLY REALLY slow. The idea being that it is virtually useless in 1 on 1 combat, but has limited defences to assist allied fighters providing protection. As well as a lot of armor to take a beating before going down. Very similar to a hive queen, but even less manuverable. It should NOT be able to be used like a HAC, ie) going into the middle of the battle guns blazing. And guess what, having a ship like this would actually create a roll for bombers!!!!

P.S. !!!!!!!!

Edit: Hell, maybe they could turn the trident into something like this?

Yeah, a command ship like the Vagyr command frigate would be nice. They could have a trident varient with a few large antennas and radar dishes.

I likee this idea.

CP I don't think any of the currect playable ships should be able to have AWACS controls, those ships are all too small. Should be saved for frigate and larger ships, so trident and up. Anything with its own docking port.

I agree with Lord Q in that this should not be available to every single ship out there. Where to draw the line exactly, I do not know. I think that frigates are too small and slow to be that bottom line; corvette- or gunship-class ships would rather classify for that purpose, in that they would probably have fixed gun mounts, turrets (and therefore, multiple crew members), and a navigator/coordinator.

I do see the problem Shapenaji mentioned, however, just think about this: You won't be in that interface for just 10 seconds. You will probably spend at least half a minute in there. During that time, you are completely immobilized, save infiniboost (if your ship has that ability), and hence very vulnerable. As the title of the thread says, it is a command *room*. I think that if you want a military-style approach at command at the strategic-map-level, you need to choose between being in command and being in the fray (I think this way because of my experience in the army, from various tactical shooters and also multiplayer first-person shooters).

For squadron or group leaders, Instead of an entire screen, I would prefer it if a command interface were incorporated into the current chat and HUD system, with target transfer from ship to ship, plus an easy-to-use way to issue commands via the chat or HUD, requiring easier use of the variable %target%. This would of course also force the introduction of multiple targets, the ability to 'match speed' with target objects (think Wing Commander), and maybe an expandable group screen (where you see their ship, weapons, etc...).

One solution would be to use a tactical overlay in the HUD as seen in Rainbow Six 3, but that would pretty much exclude keyboard gamers from taking command positions.

Most of what I suggested has been said at least once, but in most cases multiple time, and I do not claim to be the first one to have mentioned them.

Furthermore, it is one thing to issue an order, and another thing to follow them. And then it is entirely another thing what to do when they are not being followed, but all of that is an entirely different topic, although not neglectable, at least not in my opinion.

Ideally, the whole being vulnerable sitting in the command room thing would be solved by the ability to have multiple players in one ship. One pilot, one for the command room, maybe more for some turrets (not the current beams 'o death that the HAC's have). Either that or hopefully the ability to have turrets on your ship autofire at enemies when they come within range.

Yeah, limit this Command -n- Control capability to folks who are in a larger ship (Trident or larger). I could see spending an ENTIRE battle just coordinating folks in the CnC room, not 10 sec or 30 sec. More like 5 minutes at a time, while I rely on the other folks in the ship to do other stuff.

However, the interface itself would be nice to have even when in small ships. Perhaps the communication capabilities are disabled, but it would be neat to have this interface option for mining, trading, exploring, etc. With the ability to "jump into" the usual 1st person mode at any time. Maybe just Centaurs, Marauders, Atlases and Behemoths?

I'd like to be able to coordinate mining events from such ship. :P Roid marking, getting information from mineral scanners on various ships, etc. ;-)