Random suggestions for interface and control

[entropius]

These are just some things that'd make gameplay more intuitive and friendlier, but not affect balance:

1. A "Land On Nearest" option for aircraft.
2. A mode toggle to set whether or not launched bombers take a nuke with them.
3. Bombers launched with a nuke begin arming it immediately when launched. Bombers launched without a nuke start in Naval Combat Mode.
4. Planes launched directly at a carrier or airbase fly to that airbase and land.
5. The ability to give a fighter-launch, bomber-launch, or nuke-launch order to an entire fleet at once.

[xyzyxx]

1. A "Land On Nearest" option for aircraft.

You can simply issue them an order to goto some point really close, and from there they'll find a place to land after having completed all issued orders. Not sure if it would work when enemies are around, though.

2. A mode toggle to set whether or not launched bombers take a nuke with them.

Yes, this has been discussed.

3. Bombers launched with a nuke begin arming it immediately when launched. Bombers launched without a nuke start in Naval Combat Mode.

If you target a Bomber toward an enemy City, Silo, Airbase or Radar, the Bomber will automatically arm and launch.

4. Planes launched directly at a carrier or airbase fly to that airbase and land.

Already implemented.

5. The ability to give a fighter-launch, bomber-launch, or nuke-launch order to an entire fleet at once.

Group orders have also been discussed.

[Anax]

3. Bombers launched with a nuke begin arming it immediately when launched. Bombers launched without a nuke start in Naval Combat Mode.

If you target a Bomber toward an enemy City, Silo, Airbase or Radar, the Bomber will automatically arm and launch.

Is that a change?, because that's not true now. They will automatically *begin arming* and launch, but it still takes 240 seconds before the warhead is armed and the SRBM will actually launch. It's also a place where a bit more control would be nice: you can launch a fleet of bombers and get them all armed and ready to go by launching them all, then telling each one to arm, then sending them at their targets. It would be very nice to be able to avoid that middle step of "after you've launched all of the bombers, you need to select each one and tell it to begin arming."

You can do it by selecting an enemy ground target when launching, but that means you're aiming it directly at the enemy. If the bomber is going to need more time to arm than it will take to reach firing range, you *really* don't want that to happen. You also might want to launch your bombers in one direction and then have them double back to come at the enemy from an unexpected location. (That's one of the points of having mobile launch platforms, after all.) The final problem with this method is that after you select a ground target to fire upon, then give the bomber an order to move elsewhere, *it still has orders to fire on that ground target.* That's enough for a simple "go out west, come back in and hit it" path, but on something more complicated, it has the serious problem of "Crap, got a little too close and fired before I meant to."

Basically, there's a set of bomber tactics for nuclear launch that require massive micromanagement to keep from going awry: they can be managed, but generally with a lot of piddling around at slower speeds.

It's good to have an element of skill involved, for example the "bomber sniping" somebody has been talking about a bit for naval combat is the kind of thing that shouldn't be over-automated, and things like patrol routes could get out of hand, too. (Even waypoints could get out of hand.) But this is a case of "Gah, I was off by a second or two from when I had to grab that guy, and he launched, and now I've wasted a nuke, and it's all just stupid because I didn't want to fire on that target, anyway, I just had to choose *something* to avoid having to click twice as many times to launch." And that really seems like the kind of place a few more options would come in handy. (And there's still plenty of micromanagement involved in actually coordinating the aircraft for a mass strike, in any case.)

4. Planes launched directly at a carrier or airbase fly to that airbase and land.

Already implemented.

Already implemented ifor the upcoming patch, you mean? Excellent.

[xyzyxx]

No, I meant that if you click an airborne plane, you can order it to land somewhere.

I didn't realize at the time you were referring to ordering planes to fly directly from one airbase to another. I'd like to see this done as well.

[palehorse864]

I would like it if I cvould tell bombers to hit the skies and automatically go into srbm arm mode. I sometimes fly them north with no target and have to right click each one as it leaves. It doesn't make my game more challenging, just slightly tedious to keep right clicking and hitting the menu, etc.