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Azradok
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Posted - 2006.09.29 04:57:00 -
[1]
I'm really disappointed that when I'm in a group, the group leader can't set a formation for the members and have us all fly together at some averaged speed. I think that would be a cool addition. It has tactical and asthetic usefulness.
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Caedicus
Minmatar
InterSec
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Posted - 2006.09.29 22:51:00 -
[2]
Yeah, one of the dev blogs mentioned the possiblity of adding formations. There's a decent chance that they will come in Kali, but you can never be sure. I really want formations though.
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Reggie Stoneloader
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Posted - 2006.09.30 02:27:00 -
[3]
Aesthetic, yes, but what's so tactical about it?
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Caedicus
Minmatar
InterSec
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Posted - 2006.09.30 20:17:00 -
[4]
Formations aren't of tactial use...yet. But CCP definately plans to slice up the blob warfare, with AoE, reducing range, or some sort of mechanism. Which in that case, formations will become of great use.
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Azradok
Gallente
Recon Above and Beyond
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Posted - 2006.09.30 21:43:00 -
[5]
Well, they could be tactical in the sense that you could have formations set to where it's harder to make hits on certain members in the formation. (Formation positions could have modifiers.) You could also get small bonuses for weapon combinations between people in the formation. The possibilities are endless. It's just a matter of what would be fair and easy to impliment.
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Hesed
Hamartia.
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Posted - 2006.10.01 17:13:00 -
[6]
Formations are pretty damn important for tacklers, and certain kinds of turret ships that want to seek the best range. The same is true for lots of platforms that can only seek safety at particular "altitudes" and can only contribute to the gang from a certain range.
A gang leader might also want to do something as simple as spread out BS when they come out of warp so that they are not all stacked on top of one another.
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spc fish
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Posted - 2006.10.01 17:25:00 -
[7]
the navy, air force, army, and all other forms of armed services ( snicker snicker, left out marines ) don't rely on automatic systems to dictate their formations. instead we use training and discipline to execute our formations in precise tactical manner
i reference you to the game "Homeworld" which utilized automatic formations to help manage space combat within a fleet on a 3-dimensional battlespace. testing of the system showed that the formations actually reduced the performance capabilities of the fleet. why you ask?
its not because formations in general are inferior, quite the contrary. carrier battle groups, fighter squadrons, and fire teams are incredibaly effective in real life so the weakness isn't in the concept of formations. but rather the weakness is in the managment of formations by a computer system. formations aren't designed to be perfect and inpregnable. i'm not sure how carrier battle groups and fighter squadrons are designed to operate as i'm only in the army, but i know that our wedge formation and room clearing is designed around flexibility. we distribute our firepower and are able to react to a casualty or loss of any team member or surprise attack on the drop of a dime. a sniper can take a shot at any member of our team and not live to tell about it, he'll be dead before he catches us in a panic. when clearing rooms everybody has their task but there's also a safety so that the integrity of the formation doesn't rely on any single individual. yet when the computer takes control it tends to lack this adaptability princible and instead relies on protocol. when doing a sphere formation it must be an even sphere, so if one ship blows up the other immediately have to stop whatever it is their doing to shift their position to complete the sphere. formations are not designed with reaction drills either when done by a computer. when we're in our wedge formation we have scenarios and situations where if something happens we immediately get out of wedge formation and assume a different stance. the computer will have you trapped in that single formation for a while
you could implement a smart system that's able to account for all these intricacies. but in the long run, a well led and well trained human formation will always defeat your computer led formation. besides, if the computer WAS better then why would it even need you to play it? might as well quit now.
the trick is communication within your team. you have to set up in position prior to movement, once the formation is assigned where everybody is in the spot they need to be the formation leader says "ready, set thrust 150m/s" and the formation executes. you can even do it like we do our convoys. designate a travel speed, a catchup speed if you fall behind, designate roles to vehicles and waypoints / checkpoints to move to in the event of a situation. and of course, always have a react to contact drill. do your fives and twenty fives, your 9 lines, your five S's, and all that basic military protocol stuff.
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Vonchar
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Posted - 2006.10.01 21:04:00 -
[8]
While I agree with spc fish, that formations should be more about flying skill, the problem is that the EVE engine is not designed for presicion flying. The engine uses the "goto target" theory when it comes to navigation. Even free flight is done with a double click of the mouse in the desired direction.
As for tactics, I can think of many situations where a formation would be extremely useful. For instance, arranging your gang with the tacklers 100 klicks forward of your artillery would be a huge help. Another situation would be a frigate group with a BC and support ships. It would be very nice to be able to move into position with the BC and support ships behind the frigate line.
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spc fish
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Posted - 2006.10.01 21:32:00 -
[9]
 Originally by: Vonchar
While I agree with spc fish, that formations should be more about flying skill, the problem is that the EVE engine is not designed for presicion flying. The engine uses the "goto target" theory when it comes to navigation. Even free flight is done with a double click of the mouse in the desired direction.
As for tactics, I can think of many situations where a formation would be extremely useful. For instance, arranging your gang with the tacklers 100 klicks forward of your artillery would be a huge help. Another situation would be a frigate group with a BC and support ships. It would be very nice to be able to move into position with the BC and support ships behind the frigate line.
i dont see the engine so limiting as to the point where players cant form a formation. the tactical view even seems to give some sort of spacial relevance in relation to the players current craft.
the only time i can see it being a huge problem is when it comes time for a formation to enter warp, at which point the problem is solved by using a convoy instead of a carrier battle group style perimeter
if you wanted to surround a ship with other ships, then you have a problem when it comes to warping as everyone would then collapse into a small area
meanwhile if you were to travel in convoy with a preset distance ( you can use the maintain distance to target tool for this ) the lead ship would essentially pilot the entire convoy. say you had ten ships and you wanted them to be spaced 10km apart. the lead ship would be on point, behind that maintain 10km, behind him they're maintaing 10km from the guy in front so on and so forth. as soon as the first ship begins moving the others would immediately start moving as well.
when it comes time to enter warp if you know that you're ten kilometers away have the first ship warp to point, the second 10km away, the third 20km away, the fourth 30km away, etc
the key is you don't use the same formation throughout the entire occasion. your best method would be to analyze the armies convoy strategies and use those sense they seem to be the easiest to employ. just follow one another in a straight line with strategic positioning ( you're going to want your forward to have the best sensors to detect threaths, the second person will need to provide some sort of EW support to shield the convoy from detection, the third will need turrets or missiles capable of engaging targets on the left while the fourth will need to defend the right side, etc )
then, when you enter combat, you modify your formations accordingly. ( if your first vehicle is your artillery as soon as it comes into firing range it stops and opens fire. the rest of the ships will fly past it and close the gap. i would personally prefer to put a ship with combat drones in the front of the convoy, when you reache an engagement they can deploy their drones and clutter of enemies targeting computers with multiple contacts which might help mask the artillery ships from being targeted )
all it needs is training
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Reggie Stoneloader
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Posted - 2006.10.01 23:52:00 -
[10]
And a way to manually punch in a max speed. Having to move the mouse one pixel at a time to find the "150m/s" mark on an interceptor's speed setting is a real chore.
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Marcus Druallis
Quantum Industries
Prime Orbital Systems
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Posted - 2006.10.01 23:57:00 -
[11]
The real issue at the moment, is the lack of necessity for formations. I SOOO want line of fire to be implemented. Then, we might see a break up of this blob warfare, and turn it into inter-connecting smaller squadrons.
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Originally by: Ghosthowl
At what level can i PVP?
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