Originally by: Ricky Bolt

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Well, I think the "keep at range" option kind fills this role. Say you've got a 4-man gang and you want to fly a certain direction. Have everyone select the slowest ship and position themselves in different spots around said ship. Then they select "Keep at range: 500m" or however far. When the selected ship starts moving, everyone else will automatically go the same way in a (less-than-perfect) formation.

But, if the Devs have time to throw in the option, an official "formation" option would be a nice (though minor) feature.

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Originally by: Grumples McGee

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Edited by: Grumples McGee on 03/08/2009 20:26:04
The real question is:
Why?

If formations did any good, we'd already be doing them. Like in Pirates of the Burning Sea, basic formations serve a real purpose. Namely, the "line" formation (ships going in a line nose-to-tail) serves the purpose of whichever ship starts to take too much damage can fall out of line and get blocked by the ship behind it.

Or the "wheel" formation has ships passing by a target in single file doing a big circle so that no single ship can be focused on but they all get shots off on the target.

These formations are not enforced by the game in any way, they are simply how players manually maneuver their ships, because it makes practical sense to do so.


I'm in favor of formations but first I think we need some kind of mechanic that would make formations useful.

I'm not really sure what that would be, short of imposing something completely artificial ("Ships in the V formation get a 10% DPS boost. Why? We don't know! They just do.")

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Originally by: Cors

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This would make ship movement in PVP actually mean something instead of just distance/radial velocity.

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Originally by: Grumples McGee

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"Shield Resonance Module"

When turned on, it generates 2 points equidistant from your ship. Ships in your fleet can see these and interact with them in the usual ways (approach, orbit). Fleeted ships within 2km of one of these points will share your damage taken (one ship per point). If one point is occupied, the damage is split 2 ways. If both points are occupied, the damage is split 3 ways. Multiple modules can be run to give more "formation points" (4 modules would give 8 points and the ability to split the damage 9 ways).

In theory, multiple ships running multiple modules could form a sort of "grid", as damage to a central target is split to targets around him, which split it to targets around them, etc, distributing incoming damage across a fleet (although the primary target still ends up with most of it).

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Originally by: GTN

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Edited by: GTN on 01/08/2009 15:01:02
it would really help alot to enjoy this game if CCP gives us an option to fly in formation like GMs are doing in trailers
just watched http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08hmqyejCYU&hd=1
and notice what happens from 0:50 to 1:35, everyone is flying in the same direction, something impossible to do atm for normal playerswho wants to fly in formation sign this and -maybe- a dev will look at it

EDIT: just noticed that GMs are flying in formation in EVERY trailer, form the first to the last

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Originally by: Hrodgar Ortal

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Sure it would be fun.
But to make them at all matter a lot of things has to change with the mechanics of combat.

The most important (they won't make it so that you can only fire forwards, aft or sideways etc) is that you have to not be able to shoot through others.

Possibly to formation useful you also have to limit the firing arcs which could turn out to be a royal pain at shorter ranges. Not to mention probably a nightmare to program and not kill the database with.

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Originally by: Grumples McGee

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Edited by: Grumples McGee on 03/08/2009 20:26:04
If formations did any good, we'd already be doing them. Like in Pirates of the Burning Sea, basic formations serve a real purpose. Namely, the "line" formation (ships going in a line nose-to-tail) serves the purpose of whichever ship starts to take too much damage can fall out of line and get blocked by the ship behind it.

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Originally by: Broque Sahmsin

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Edited by: Broque Sahmsin on 04/08/2009 12:46:51

Originally by: Cors

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This would make ship movement in PVP actually mean something instead of just distance/radial velocity.

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Actually, movement means alot in PvP already. Especially the 2 things you mentioned. Flying in formations would be nothing more than eye candy. It would provide little/no benefit to being successful in combat.

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Originally by: ddred

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Originally by: Grumples McGee

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Edited by: Grumples McGee on 03/08/2009 20:26:04
If formations did any good, we'd already be doing them. Like in Pirates of the Burning Sea, basic formations serve a real purpose. Namely, the "line" formation (ships going in a line nose-to-tail) serves the purpose of whichever ship starts to take too much damage can fall out of line and get blocked by the ship behind it.

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We allready do formations, just not as clearly. Logististics>Snipers>tacklers/bubble/gate

If the fleet commander was able to basicly say "Logistic wing warps 60km behind the sniper wing and the sniper wing 150km from the gate whie the interdictor wing and taccklers warp to the gate..." ect, those kind of formations would be cool.

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Originally by: Be'rel

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Originally by: Broque Sahmsin

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Edited by: Broque Sahmsin on 04/08/2009 12:46:51

Originally by: Cors

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This would make ship movement in PVP actually mean something instead of just distance/radial velocity.

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Actually, movement means alot in PvP already. Especially the 2 things you mentioned. Flying in formations would be nothing more than eye candy. It would provide little/no benefit to being successful in combat.

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Nothing is more imposing then a well organized fleet warping in and moving in unison if you don't believe me ask the Romans who used formations heavily in battle and something can be said as to their success. To say THAT in itself has no successful meaning is just plain ignorant. One key function in fleet or engagements of massive proportions is the ability to bluff a person into backing down and if they don't at least shake them up a little to where they make mistakes.

In my opinion the thought of an imposing force bearing down on you makes you second guess yourself and can be an important weapon in battle.

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Originally by: Hrodgar Ortal

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Apart from that ships in the real world have a lot of physics to deal with. No 360degree firing arcs, no shooting through each other and so on.
Without changing those things in eve any change to maneuvers would only have a cosmetic effect and cosmetic effects are not especially frightening.

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Originally by: Lucias Trask

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Edited by: Lucias Trask on 21/08/2009 21:06:53
I would love line forming, that way you could stack carriers a certain points in from of logisitcs ships, battleships surrounding them and actually have to have line of site on a target.. . the problem i see is, in big fleet fights, half the time you dont even load everyone, so it would super annoying to be trying to target a ship and never even see the carrier siting in front of it.

I would prefer things that a fleet could use to deploy, so your warp operation and whatnot would actually be useful.

With warp nav 5 you would always land on your spot, 10% away for every level you dont have.

Squads could be preprogrammed, (Squad one warps to this warp point, kind of like a bookmark and so on) FC assigns each squad a warp in point and a formation (Circle, 20km radius around the point, above the gate, squad 1) and so on.

That way people who dont have it trained do silly things like land on the gate 10km from their assigned point because the pilot isnt that good at warping and so on. Would make the navigation skills actually mean something instead of just 'I need this for Jump Drive Ops.'

edit: some spelling and of course i forgot to mention we do have one formation that is put to good use.... the Conga Line

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