[TopAce]

I read some opinions that the FREDder shouldn't bother that much with wingmen initial orders because players just love to control their squads by themselves. This basically means that Alpha wing has some default initial orders (Protect Alpha 1) and it's up to the player to manage them through the mission.

I prefer it the other way around - I think the FREDder must set up a string of initial orders that any wing would logically follow. I believe - and I base this on my personal playstyle - a FREDder cannot expect every player to bother with controlling his wingmen. Most of the times, all your squadmates die ten seconds after you give them orders to attack something, because they just don't care about defending themselves in that case! Wingmen with a lower order priority are more likely to survive because the higher the priority value, the bolder they become. Giving orders through the communication function will assign a very high priority value to the order you've given, making commands like "Attack my ship" and "Destroy subsystem" very dangerous.

What do you guys think?

[karajorma]

Wingmen should always have orders. Anything the player gives them to do will be higher priority anyway as long as you stay below 89 for the priority.

[Sushi]

I agree with TopAce... I usually prefer not to bother with wingmen orders, at least when I can get away with it, and it always bugs me when the mission forces you to micromanage them because the FREDder didn't set sane orders for the duration of the mission. IMHO most missions should be beatable without ever giving the wingmen your own orders.

On that note: it would be nice if there was a command-menu option for "clear orders" or something that would cause the wingmen to drop all player orders and revert to whatever their FREDded behavior is. But that's a different topic, not for this thread.

[Rodo]

I agree as well, leaving the wingmen without orders is a bad idea, true.. it takes you 5 minutes more to script the entire list of orders for a specific wing during the entire mission, but it's worth it.

[Mongoose]

Nothing breaks in-mission immersion for me like seeing a new wing of fighters jump in and sit there doing a whole lot of nothing until I issue them an order.  Like Sushi, I prefer to do as little wingmen ordering as is necessary.  In my mind, if your wingmen are supposed to represent actual fellow pilots, they should each have their own orders at the outset of a mission, and they should also be able to change said orders to any remaining tasks after said initial orders have been completed.  The only points at which any wingmen should be wandering around aimlessly are either in natural mission lulls or right at the end.