Wingmen commands

Fantastic feedback. Thanks all.

It sounds like wingmen that are more unique and interesting would be well valued. And I agree that it would make the game experience richer. There are features of this nature on the drawing board for Traffic (wingmen retain prior faction and behave accordingly. Some steal your things, etc).

perhaps you can allow single ships to be given overriding commands in a group

An interesting idea. The real trick is that in combat you need fast ways of telling your ships what you want done. Without getting yourself killed by needing to navigate complex menus.

This gives me an idea for an alternate command structure: There are ship groups but the player can use them as short cuts to give only the most basic commands (attack my target, formate with me, approach my target, flee).

More complex commands are delt with on a ship by ship basis using the comms function. You have to talk to a ship to ask it to attach on an asteroid and start mining, etc.

Because complex commands are one on one communications the ambiguity goes away. Complex commands override simple commands until they are done executing or the player makes a comm order to stop the command. (orders a mining rig to halt mining operations and detach).

I was thinking of improving the comms function by giving the player a menu of choices of nearby comms targets, rather than using the cyan blue color. The main advantage is that some target information could be displayed at the same time (like what each wing man does, or what kind of NPC trader you want to talk to).

I like that idea; I'm still with JT on limiting group size... After all, "Dread Pirate Cal" should be able to hire a true fleet if his rep and cash support it! ^^, It also is another potential set of goals...

With big enough fleets, you could do "missions" such as:
- Attempt the criminal takeover or assume true governance of an entire system. Then taxes (or a cut of the swag if pirate) would go to you. You'd almost certainly end up with "rebel guerillas" as a new faction, xD plus other factions would have their own ideas about it, I'm sure. The carrot for assuming actual governance could simply be tax income AND control of that faction's relations. In a criminal takeover, the government wouldn't pay you taxes BUT you'd get some % of the take by all the system's pirates/outlaws. As a big-time crook, you might even come across missions to "suppress" a rival or subordinate, no?
- Attempt to defend an entire system, whether or not you took it over earlier. This would certainly help a trader trying to buy goods insystem (less risk + friendly merchants = lower prices). Attacking shipping instead would drive up prices but would be less useful; most non-underworld merchants would hate you.
- And other, more grandiose schemes.

Most players likely won't go that far, mind you, but IMHO it gives a real sense of "open-endedness" to the game. Even an established, filthy-rich player has another potential step. Hell, you could try to take over some or all of the entire Cluster!

Yes, JT has some excellent points. I am working on adding audio feedback from the wingmen so that you can organize your groups as you choose. There are other cases where it is really important (combat mostly) and so it is worth investing the code time to do it well.

Another way to organise things, might be to limit groups to a single 'entity'. However, allow this entity to be either a single ship, or squad of ships. Introduce hireable 'squads' into the game. They are hired as a group, and leave as a group, and act as a group. Mainly we would be looking at mercenary types ships. Perhaps a patcom, with 2 interceptors as his wingmen. The patcom is the leader of the squad, and all orders from you are handled by him. It could also work with ships like frogminers as well. A team of miners.

I am just imagining this as a way to keep things personable, and organised for a small time captain (we are not simulating armadas here), whilst still allowing for some substantially large fleets.

However, I have no idea how or whether this would work in code.