Bullethead
11 Aug 06, 01:36
In keeping with the "player as admiral" mentality of this game, I think it would be not only very appropriate, but also quite helpful, if the players could do like real admirals when giving orders to task forces. Specifically, I'd like the ability to give a task force an order to be in its objective location doing its main mission at a specific time on a specific day. That's what real admirals do, after all :).
Suppose I want to send minelayers out so they arrive at their objective at night, with enough darkness left when they get there to do the job and leave before sunup. And suppose I want a supporting force in the adjacent square to the mine objective, to sit there while the mining is in progress and then escort the minelayers home. At present, there is no effective way to do this. I can't find any way to tell WHEN ships will be in a given location along their path until AFTER I give them orders, and I see what the trip duration will be. Then I have to look at the current time and guesstimate when they'll be on the objective. This is VERY inconvenient.
So in the above example, let's say I give my minelayers orders to go to the Elliott Islands. As soon as I click on the objective for the mining, I'd like a box to pop up asking for the date and time I want them there. When I enter that, the game figures out when the ships will leave port. Likewise for the supporting force, which will patrol nearby. I want a popup to ask me when I want them to be on station, and when I want them to leave, and the game would decide when they'd sail to be on time.
For other types of missions, it would be nice to be able to specify departure and return dates and times instead of objective times. Such as, I might want some commerce raiders to slip out of port at night to avoid the blockade, go sweep the seas, head home, and then make the final dash into port at night to again avoid blockade.
Anyway, I think this would be a much more useful system, and also more realistic, than what we have now.
Suppose I want to send minelayers out so they arrive at their objective at night, with enough darkness left when they get there to do the job and leave before sunup. And suppose I want a supporting force in the adjacent square to the mine objective, to sit there while the mining is in progress and then escort the minelayers home. At present, there is no effective way to do this. I can't find any way to tell WHEN ships will be in a given location along their path until AFTER I give them orders, and I see what the trip duration will be. Then I have to look at the current time and guesstimate when they'll be on the objective. This is VERY inconvenient.
So in the above example, let's say I give my minelayers orders to go to the Elliott Islands. As soon as I click on the objective for the mining, I'd like a box to pop up asking for the date and time I want them there. When I enter that, the game figures out when the ships will leave port. Likewise for the supporting force, which will patrol nearby. I want a popup to ask me when I want them to be on station, and when I want them to leave, and the game would decide when they'd sail to be on time.
For other types of missions, it would be nice to be able to specify departure and return dates and times instead of objective times. Such as, I might want some commerce raiders to slip out of port at night to avoid the blockade, go sweep the seas, head home, and then make the final dash into port at night to again avoid blockade.
Anyway, I think this would be a much more useful system, and also more realistic, than what we have now.