How about a Zero-K style line move?

[Darloth]

(I realize this would maybe be better posted as an idea to the mantis tracker, but I've forgotten my password there and the reset option is either very slow, or just not working for me, so I'm writing it here to not forget)

While the selection tools in AIW2 are pretty good, it's still somewhat difficult to get the composition of ships I want exactly where I want them. Sure, micro is to be minimized, but if we could quickly and fluently position ships in meaningful formations then it would help with that and unlock quite a lot of tactical depth.

As a description of what I mean, I'd like to be able to select, say... some tractor beam ships (etherjets maybe) and right-click and hold, draw an arc between a wormhole and some important target, or maybe draw a circle all around the wormhole, and then all of those ships I have selected receive separate move orders to distribute themselves along the line I drew. They don't have to automatically stay there or do anything fancy, the ship controls we already have will work fine for that.

Here's a video in another game showing off what I mean - I realize the style of game is quite different but I hope you can see how it would be pretty useful for quickly reorganizing big balls of ships into differently oriented layers of different ships! Once they're in that shape you can use group move, or not, as you like.

https://youtu.be/if8g0YIDJ7s?t=60

From 60 to 120 seconds or so.

[LikeableHades]

I'm not entirely sure I understand what is going on there, but I didn't study it either. It sounds like "line move" refers to the ability to paint a formation on the fly, rather than using set formations. That sounds interesting, but as of right now, we don't really have much in the way of formations.

[Darloth]

Indeed not - and with that you wouldn't need to. Since it's so easy to use you can make most formations almost instantly, and they don't need any special support for the game to hold onto them since you can just make them again somewhere else.

That said, I think group move is already working and it would maintain them just fine I believe.

[LikeableHades]

It seems interesting. I posted it on Mantis ( https://bugtracker.arcengames.com/view.php?id=20920 ) and credited you. It does seem like it might be hard to actually program properly, so that's one concern I have.