I miss "Attack all enemies" and other stuff

[Scoob]

Hey all,

I miss this command. While the new GUI is powerful, it's very clunky when it comes to issuing simple orders.

For example I have four squads in my current Zone as there are LOTS of Kha'ak causing havoc. However, issuing attack orders is...painful. For example, I ask the leader of each group to attack a single target. Simple enough, but subordinates will often totally ignore this order as they're "stuck" with the "Move to" order that got the squad to the sector in the first place. They've long completed that order, but it won't clear. So, I have to select ALL subordinates for ALL squads and manually clear ALL orders before they'll follow their leader again. Note: it's just the squad leader that gets given the move command, but it gets stuck in the subordinate queue for some reason.

Then I want my ships to attack multiple ships, I can do this via the command and highlight who I want them to attack, but I can only draw a rectangle around one group.

Now, I can issue an attack command, then go into ship information, then choose behaviour, then check "Attack all enemies" so the ship - and hopefully the squad, will attack that one foe and then carry on attacking enemies. That works. However, what a bloody nest of commands to go through!

I'd LOVE to see additional right-click command for:

Attack ALL enemies - when a hostile is selected
Patrol Sector - when anywhere in the sector is clicked on
Defend Area - do so, precisely where clicked for, perhaps, a configurable radius

To name but three. Default behaviours are all well and good...well, they're not, they sorta suck as they're equally clunky to the above and they're NOT "behaviours" at all when it comes to combat, but specific orders. A "Patrol" or "Defend area" order HAS to have an Sector / area set, whereas I'd prefer it if they "Patrolled" or "Defended" where I sent them, as per the suggested order above, once the move order is complete.

I feel that the abilities we need to manage our assets in combat are there, but they're buried under too many layers. I HAVE to pause the game constantly to manage my small fleet of just four squads else it'd all just take too long. So, some extra right-click options would make this much more streamlined.

Also, some way to say "do this NOW" and make that order go to the top of the list would be useful. This would allow the player to react to a changing situation. Currently we have to juggle the queues manually, which can be done when paused thankfully.

What do people think?

Scoob.

[Wou]

What do people think?

Scoob.

Yes.

[(/\)arped]

Yes.

I really like the new UI for orders in general, but some things are actually slower now, like this.

Not to mention the whole "getting stuck" on older orders you didn't realise were still being carried out. Most of the time I'm glad that orders get queued, but I've had more than a few times that I've accidentally queued something instead of making it happen immediately, and have to fiddle with the order queue.

AND if you've had a crew member fly for awhile on some order, and kick him out of the chair and take over, I've noticed the ship will remember the last order it had when you leave again. So you leave the ship, tell it to go do something else, and it returns to whatever it did before you were flying it. It's a bit frustrating when you like standing behind your pilot regularly while they fly and you issue orders on the map.

There's also no "escort" order for protecting ships other than your own (wanted to assign a plot freighter an escort) all it could do was follow... Which (previously) was not the same behaviour.

[ZombiePotatoSalad]

I also liked the "broadcast to all X ships in sector" command.

[Scoob]

I also liked the "broadcast to all X ships in sector" command.

Yeah, that's a good one.

Regarding "sticky orders" it's more of a problem with Squads because you only issue the order to the leader - let's say it's a move command - and the subordinates just have to follow (ideally stay in formation, they don't) but after the leader is finished, ALL subordinates then show the move command which never clears. So, say you then issue an Attack order to the leader, the subordinates don't follow. These orders don't stick like this all the time, but often enough to be a pain.

The leader should always control the subordinates.

Scoob.

[ajime]

What do people think?

Scoob.

Yes.
I pretty much highlighted my preference of event based commands last time as it was much easier to understand for laymen. i guess they've already made decision anyway. I am struggling to do a simple "Move to my position", "Attack my target", "Stop and do nothing". Sure you can set behavioral for an advance management setup but these are basic features which should have been carried over from x3 to xr to x4 like the rest of the stuff.

[Scoob]

Don't get me wrong, I think command queues are a fantastic addition to the game - something we've wanted for years. However, it needs to be quick and easy to issue certain orders, as well as to be able to communicate that some things are meant to be done NOW. Perhaps some sort of Shift+Click or Ctrl+Click when giving the order to make it first in the list, then the ship will continue with its prior order afterwards.

Another thing, linked to this, is quite often we lose options when selecting multiple ships. I.e. we can order one ship to do X, but select two or more and the option is gone. Not in-game at the mo, so can't give specific examples, but it does frustrate me.

Still, the foundations (see what I did there) of a great system are in place, so it can certainly be refined.

Scoob.

[Viper185]

Absolutly yes!!