Game-play suggestions

Before anyone jumps on me, I realize two things:

1) You lot at Uber are producing the game you want to make
2) This is the Alpha and these suggestions wouldn't make it in anytime soon even if they are adopted

That aside I have two suggestions for game-play, one is a game mode, the other may be a bit nit-picky so I'll start with it.

One of the most frustrating parts of TA and SupCom for me was that an assault occurred in dribs and drabs as your units arrived with no cohesive formation. This is a relatively small issue but movement in formation (at least with ground units) would be extremely nice from my point of view.

Next, the game-play type:
Some friends and I play airsoft and we have a game type called 'Wolf Pack'. In it, once you are shot, you join the team of the person who shot you until shot again or until your 'pack leader' is shot. in which case his entire pack now belongs to whoever shot him. A similar game type would help alleviate long down-time caused by games like SupCom, Sins of a Solar Empire, or TA and make it a touch more 'LAN friendly' in my opinion. Now whether the new pack members should rejoin the game at a new starting point or whether they should spawn near the commander of their killer and now have shared control of those units are all open to discussion, I'm not sure what would work best.

Modders, if Uber doesn't include Wolf Pack in the game, you should.

The gamemode you're describing sounds a lot like Assimilation.

Supcom (or at least FA) had unit formations. Hold right click if I recall correctly, then left click? to change from line to box then drag to angle then release right click.

I would like to see formations again. TA's moving AI was bad at times (especially when trying to move 200 rocko bots).

I would also like to see some advanced formations if necessary. E.G. longer ranged units to the back, support units spread between. Something like (if this turns out)

B B B B B B B B
B B S B B S B B
T T T T T T T T
A A A A A A A A

Bot, Support, Tank, Artilery. Where the ranges are A > T > B and Support units are something like engineers or mobile shields (as an example, not present in this game).

On of the things that drived me mad was that I'd have to use multiple groups to control my armies so that the shields would be spread out and not grouped up.

@veta

Maybe to some extent, but Assimilation appears to simply 'transfer' units that didn't die. My thought with Wolf Pack would be that the game effectively ends, and then you re-join as a brand new ally for your killer and begin anew.

Which brings up another interesting thought (I wasn't sure what to use to search this up so it might be a repeat comment, but...) Any thoughts anyone on how open the galaxy maps should be? I think it would be interesting (possibly suicidal) if players could join and leave at will, creating a dynamic galaxy where someone who has been playing for several hours might encounter someone who has been in the game for only twenty minutes (hence possibly suicidal).

A fricking fantastic idea. Hearing it put like that makes me think this should have been done years ago. And it solves so many of the annoy micro problems that pop up.

SupCom does this, it's just not always perfect.

What if you wanted the long range units to be in the front?

Put them in their own selection box and move them slightly ahead of the rest.

SupCom did have formation move but it was a bit clunky, especially when unit counts got high and you wanted to move in formation over a long distance.

I don't know how many of you are familiar with the Spring Engine, but it's basically an open source version of TA and it had a huge community of modders. They made this awesome tool for controlling your units and would really like to see it used in other games. Basically the way it would work is if you held down right click you could "draw" your formations, so if if you wanted to draw a front line you could select all your short ranged units and draw a line, then select your long range units and draw a line behind the front lines.

Here's a vid that demonstrates it. The whole thing goes for 10 mins but this link skips to the important bit, you only need to watch 10 seconds of it to get the idea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRNxdbEx6v8#t=0m49s

In fact that community has made tonnes of awesome widgets that make the game a lot more fun to play. (my favourite is the one which makes it impossible for you to miss a metal deposit with your extractor ) I would really like to see some of those bright ideas assimilated into PA. I might actually make a post specifically about all the cool ideas in Spring.

I am visibly drooling right now.

Uber. This must be implemented. RIGHT. NOW.

THERE IS NO EXCUSE NOT TO IMPLEMENT THIS! GET ALL OF YOUR PROGRAMMERS WORKING ON THIS ONE FEATURE, RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW!

Whoops looks like did a bad and posted before I searched. Uber have already put that on their suggestion list, RE: this post->
viewtopic.php?p=506682#p506682

Hopefully they do it!!

Well that kinda defeats the point of having set formations in the first place. If you can only use 1 default formation and it is only occasionally helpful while you basically want to use other setups.
Anyway. Customization is the key. I don't doubt modders will come up with other formations if Uber doesn't include it.

And yeah Custom Formations AKA Line drag commands are are awesome but I would also like some more distinct area commands integrated into the UI along with different formation tools. Maintaining several lines of units is a bit hard that with customformations. Maybe if the line draw tool could be set to make multiple lines of units if you wanted. That would cover almost all needs I guess.

yeah line-formations in spring are great. you could do an area paint equivalent for shape formations too

I generally find drawing a whole shape pretty tedious. It takes alot longer to draw than a simple line as you have to decelerate at every turn and every corner.
I think would be enough to make it unfeasible to use in most situations as a constant stream of reenforcement will mean that the numbers of units changes all the time.
Also the formation would likely be intended to face in a certain direction which means you have to be able to change the direction on the fly.
Maybe it could be useful if you draw a shape and new units joining the group would automatically find its place somehow and you could easily change the facing of the formation without having to redraw it again.
Implementing a powerful and easy to use formation tool most likely requires a holistic approach to the UI.

I was thinking a paint command, like painting the top of a plateau and units perfectly spacing apart on it. Or perhaps like the area commands in SupCom2 where you just drag-create a rectangle. Even so a tight zigzag line-formation in spring is basically analogous to an area formation and would be about as effective.

Yeah, but I don't think it would be quick enough if you are controlling an army on the move with units reinforcing and dying off. Mm... this is highly speculative though.
I'd like to try it out. Problem is that someone have to make it and integrate it with other functions though.

yeah this is purely speculative. I would be happy with just line formations anyhow.

SupCom 2 had some amazing pathfinding and unit formation programming. I really hope that PA creators solve those pathfinding and formation issues of Supcom. A simple way to create your own formations would to have some preset ones created by the developers but also a tool perhaps in the menu to set up your own formations. Then choose an icon you can remember so that it shows up when you select a group of units. That way you can make some formation presets before getting into the game. Cuz once you're in the game, I doubt many people want to bother with managing formations.

It largely depends on how useful different formations are and how easy it is to use or setup different formations.
I think using formations is really fun and is a step up from low level unit micro.

Ah, miscommunication, I meant that people probably would not want the trouble of setting up their formations manually while the game is running. Just another step to make in the larger scheme of things. Presets would simplify gameplay.