As a frequent user of groups, I have to report that the current group size of 8 players is not sufficent. I would like to see the maximum size of groups be expanded or have a raid party added.
I envision a raid party as a group up to 40 players in size. This raid would be useful for larger battles and convoys.

Yes I agree a new group system needs to be developed that can include more people. I believe the original restriction was based on HUD size. So my suggestion is just take it off the HUD :P have it as part of the PDA or something if the group is larger then can fit on the HUD.

Perhaps we should start by simply doubling the maximum size of the standard group to 16 instead of creating a whole new mechanism--the community isn't large enough yet to accommodate a 40-player group all at the same time.

I can see a group of 16-20 players working right now, though--the Deneb Run frequently requires TGFT members to use guild chat because of the number of other racers in the group.

Not only does group size need a boost, I think that multiple group membership is also required. This would allow to create command groups and such, to facilitate organization and coordination for when there's really lots of players online.

And I agree with what Durgia said: It would probably be best to incorporate it into the PDA, to enable mouse navigation. You could still show the current group you belong to in the HUD.

To cope with the increased space requirements for large groups, you could make it a usually hidden tab in the HUD, that slides in as you press a button (much like /hudmode switches between individual and group display). It should be sufficiently transparent to allow at least some kind of navigation and should not block the controls.

[stamp of aproval] (my first ever...and I keep up with the forums). (for the 16 group size) and prehaps you could just keep the hud how it is and scroll through the members of the group (much like the chat is now)

Yeah, I like this idea.

Scrolling would require scroll controls (within the HUD). Of course, those could be bound to the home/end keys by default, making them act like pgup/pgdown in chat.

Why hasn't this been done yet?

I like it myself.

Who else wants it?

I.

I think we could double the number of people in a group or more (maybe up to 20) if we changed the HUD display to show the health bar behind the name rather than below it. Then we could fill the list from top down in a minimal amount of space. If not in sector, location should be given via the PDA rather than the HUD.

There's no reason why group sizes shouldn't be entirely customizeable. In the event of large scale battles, I'd like to be able to organize my theoretical troops into 3 groups of 2 groups of 6. Or even 2 groups of 2 groups of 6, and a 3rd group of 5. Especially so such that chaning the orginization wouldn't kick people out. (Unless you wanted to.)

At the moment, you CAN end up in a group with more than 8 people in it in some of the larger Escort missions... and for people using lower resolutions (1024x768 or 800x600 and the like) it can start to overlap other items on the HUD. There needs to be a way to scale what is shown in the group list before the size of a player-only group can be increased, otherwise we'll end up with a really ugly HUD bug.

Someone posted an image of what it looks like somewhere, but I don't remember exactly what thread it was in. If someone could find it (or if they were the one who posted it, could repost it) I'd appreciate it.

Why not put player names on their health bars?

This is needed in the PDA

why not

not display the health bar at all instead have the hull percentage and the players name only

slime: what do you do about the location indicator then?

Put it on the health bar?

could we link groups somehow? the chat would function just like one giant group but the hud display woudl only show the one group.

i guess the white dot deal on the radar should also function like one big group or perhaps have the second group become white squares.

slime said: "Why not put player names on their health bars?"
I said: "slime: what do you do about the location indicator then?"
Mynt said: "Put it on the health bar?"

I say: What health bar? there's no ROOM for the location in that case if the name is already taking up the space.

have the text (name and location) scroll through the health bar?

Why not just have a quick reference button for your group?

So when you push it your group pops up and it reads out Name:Health:Location. When you let go it disappears.

If you don't mind temporarily blinding yourself.

This can be linked to a recent surge in FPS games that have a scoreboard. While playing you sometimes hit the TAB key to get a glimpse of the scoreboard. A risky move but you can get use to it.