Here is a list of things I often found myself wishing for over the course of my campaign, primarily pertaining to automation of frequently assigned tasks and micromanagement reduction:
General use:
Detach Sub-Fleet/Squadron / Absorb Fleet as Sub-Fleet / Absorb Fleet as Parasite OrdersThis one is pretty self-explanatory. Being able to control which ships can join and leave the fleet in advance without having to do it manually would be a huge micromanagement killer. Use cases that come to mind are using jump tenders to transit several jump points in a row (the tender can be absorbed into the fleet, but it currently requires player attention to detach, which is something you may want to do if your tenders are 40 years old...), seamlessly rotating military escorts of commercial convoys without wasting freighter time on escorts' overhauls and swapping ships between fleets on the fly, provided the Detach order will be able to target fleets same way
Release Tractored Ships does.
A
Detach Squadron order would help with automated parasite deployment or deliveries from one colony to another and an
Absorb Fleet as Parasite order would be of great assistance when dealing with the aftermath of fighter warfare, when many fighters have ran out of fuel or got crippled and immobilized, it can function the same as
Land on Assigned Mothership / Squadron, but from the carrier's side, only appearing when there are eligible parasites in the target fleet.
If order bloat is a concern, this could also supersede the
Detach Tankers/Colliers/Supply Ships orders which I personally don't find myself using very often. An argument could be made that a part of this functionality could be replicated with current tools by designating all ships to be detached as Tankers/Colliers/Supply Ships so they'd be affected by the aforementioned orders, but it's a very inconvenient solution, especially when the ships in question are military.
Additionally, an order to
Recall Escorts would serve a similar, but not an overlapping purpose, since it would only benefit Sub-Fleets that are a permanent enough part of their fleet to warrant assignment of Formation Orders, but it would allow the Formation functionality to be used in automated fashion as well. I am not suggesting a Detach Escorts order, because Detach Sub-Fleet can handle that almost as well.
Sub-Fleets/Squadrons retaining Standing/Conditional OrdersSub-Fleets being able to execute Standing/Conditional Orders they had prior to becoming a Sub-Fleet would supplement the above suggestion greatly by allowing even further possibilities, such as fully automating survey carriers, quickly detaching escorts or parasites to investigate POIs in system or convoys that only get escorted through dangerous territory, with their escorts speeding ahead to refuel and overhaul once a safe system is reached, though I reckon some sort of a "Join Anchor Fleet" Standing Order would be fully necessary for the latter.
I've been absolutely in love with how
Divide Fleet into Single Ships preserves Standing Orders ever since I used it to collect 60+ lifepods in a couple clicks, so improving on this functionality with a fleet potentially comprised of several sub-fleets, each being able to execute its own set of Standing Orders on demand, seems like a natural step forward.
Additive Order TemplatesOkay, I know this is a complicated one. I know templates removing all existing orders is declared as WAI, I know a similar feature has been proposed several times and I've seen at least two threads on the matter where the difficulty of dealing with templates was outlined. Even so, I still don't fully understand the reason for it. We can already issue invalid movement orders to ships by Cycling a non-looped order set, we can already issue invalid cargo orders to ships by creating a template to unload an item from a ship that already carries it and assigning it to one that does not (mentioning this because here
https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12188.0 Steve used "so you can't unload something you don't have" as an example) and the game seems to handle both cases fine.
If it was possible to assign a pre-existing template to a fleet based on the system where its current orders end, such a template would contain no more invalid orders than the same template assigned manually upon the fleet's arrival.
Still, I get that there are other reasons beyond my layman's comprehension, but surely not every type of order carries the risk of creating game-breaking bugs? We know the current error check code is robust enough to handle movement orders with missing destinations, at least. So in case fully additive Templates are off the table, what I'm proposing is to add a separate subset of Order Templates, classified as
Simple, or maybe
Movement Templates, denoted by
[S] or
[M] on the template selection screen. A regular Order Template will be assigned as such if it consists of only basic, "safe" orders upon creation (regular movement, jump/LP transit, join fleet, overhaul, refuel/resupply/load ordnance and variations thereof, etc.) that are guaranteed to be adequately handled by any fleet that might receive such a template. This new type of template, in turn, will be able to be executed additively by any fleet whose orders end in the system where it exists, be a valid target for a new
Execute Simple/Movement Template order as well as a
Detach Sub-Fleet with Simple/Movement Template order which, combined with my first suggestion, will open up possibilities for automation never before seen.
Combat use:
Auto-target priorityAuto Target BFC/MFC buttons come in very useful in large engagements where manual targeting is untenable, but the fully random nature of these options is a detriment. I would very much like to have BFC/MFC priority (1-10) settings for every alien class in the Known Class window that govern its weight as a target during Auto Target selection, so the alien classes designated with a smaller priority number would get targeted by more fire controls in beam and missile engagements respectively.
Assigning targets to Fire Controls instead of ClassesThis one might be influenced by my design philosophy, but my fleets are often composed of a couple types of hulls that are each subdivided into different variants. They all share Beam and Missile Fire Controls but some mount larger sensors, some mount Jump Drives, as such they are considered different classes and do not share targets when using any of the Assign buttons. I propose that the Assign Fleet/Sub Fleet/etc buttons would assign targets to every Class in the selected set
mounting the same kind of Fire Control, not just the same Class. If this is too drastic, adding separate buttons to
Assign FC Fleet and
Assign FC Sub Fleet would work fine too.
Fire at Will as a ToggleFire at Will option and its derivatives are kind of in a weird place, being strictly superior to Auto Target BFC/MFC in ambush scenarios (I've had a ship with Fire at Will open fire 5 seconds after conducting a standard transit, is this even intended?) but fairly pointless otherwise, as you rarely want to fire missiles in a beam fight (so the options are to either use Fire at Will FC for BFC + Assign Fleet/System for every class, which doesn't provide a delay reduction, is functionally the same as Auto Target BFC but with a lot more clicks or Fleet Fire at Will + Cease Fire Fleet + Fire Fleet BFC which is still more clicks than the alternative) and the normal firing delay is not a significant factor with a well-trained fleet anyway.
I propose changing it into a Toggle On/Off option where a ship with it toggled
will continously seek and engage new targets in FC range, perhaps with a purely random targeting or its current average probable damage targeting to differentiate it from my suggested BFC/MFC priority targeting, removing the need for tedious manual retargeting to finish off stragglers in the finishing stages of a large engagement. It would also make the player as effective at guarding JPs as the NPRs are, but if that's unwanted, it could either cause frequent interrupts or confer the same maluses Training Commands do to dissuade the player from leaving it on by default.
Thank you for reading, please let me know what you all think. As usual, hoping to hear Steve's word on this one.
