Improved Naval Organization

[DreadPirateLynx (OP)]

Just got into this game thanks to Quill's Let's Play, and I'm having a lot of fun with it.  One thing that is kind of bugging me however is I'm not able to organize my fleets in a manner that pleases me.

Take the following organization as an example:

Fleet Headquarters
       1st Survey Fleet
              1st SF - Alpha Group
                     SS Survey 1
                     SS Survey 2
              1st SF - Bravo Group
                     SS Survey 3
                     SS survey 4

What I'm wanting to do is use Empty Task Groups as parents for lower level formations.  Give an order to a formation and have everything below it comply.  This is technically possible, but it starts to get messy when you're giving orders more than one level up the chain.  As it currently stands, if I give an order to the top most group, I have to copy it to its subordinate groups, then go into each subordinate group and copy to their subordinate groups, etc, etc. . .

I would love to be able to give an order to an upper level group and have it automatically propagate down the chain (same with default/conditionals as well).  It would also be great if you could clear orders in the same way.  Also let us propagate default/conditional orders without having to give some other order along with it (I can't seem to do so with an empty orders list).

[Vandermeer]

While I agree with the chain effect, how do you actually use empty task groups to further the command? My sensing is that as soon as you leave the system with just once subordinate, it would either trigger an error, or simply not work. The empty task group does not "go anywhere" unless you use SM to displace it maybe, and you definitely need it to see current system bodies in order to make assembly calls or filler/null-commands that enable you to spread default and conditional orders.
I haven't tried that method though.

[DreadPirateLynx (OP)]

You know, I've only just gotten to the point where I'm getting ready to colonize other systems, so I hadn't even considered the fact that the empty groups need to move (SM is probably the answer to this particular problem for now, although adding a way to switch which system's bodies are visible in the orders list would go a long way towards fixing things).    It also turns out that you're right that you can only copy orders to groups that are in the same system as the parent, so my idea is completely shot at the moment.    We really need to be able to copy orders to all subordinate groups, regardless of location.    A check box to toggle the functionality next to the other three would work perfectly. 

EDIT: Another thing that would be nice to have is a button on the "Naval Organization" tab in the "Create Task Groups" section that will create empty groups and assign Superior/Subordinate Groups automatically to maintain the heirarchy.

[AL]

With the new unlimited pathfinding we could just let ships autoroute jumps to systems in which orders are being given in before queuing in the new orders. Alongside being able to issue orders originating from any system you choose, you should be able do exactly what you want once (if?) the cascading order feature gets added.