[Liberator]

I was just reading a thread in General FS when it came to me.

Right now to make a convoy you have to give each ship their own waypoint system and set their speeds individually.

My idea is a "formation" command that basically tells all the ships in a list to maintain formation with each other and travel only as fast as the slowest ship.

Well, what do you think?

[Singh]

hell yeah this would make FREDding large convoys a hell of a lot easier.

[Knight Templar]

Aye.

[redmenace]

i suggested this a LONG TIME AGO. But I was told that is what form wing is for.

[Goober5000]

To control speeds, use the cap-waypoint-speed sexp.  But for individual ships you'll still have to use separate waypoints.  If you need a formation, make a wing of ships like redmenace says.

EDIT: See also this thread
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,19370.0.html

[Liberator]

If you do assign them to a wing, don't they form up like fighters though?

[SadisticSid]

You can't do that with destroyers and corvettes Goober. Could you (collectively) make a capship wing function to group big vessels together but preserve their individual names and exclude orders from the wings menu?

[Drew]

*cough convoy AI cough*  

[Goober5000]

Sid: Yes you can.  FRED will complain but it works if you modify it in a text editor.

[SadisticSid]

Can you preserve the original names though? I don't want to have to call a GTD Lambda 1 or some such.

[adwight]

I don't think so, that's why you need to use the indiv. waypoints...

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by SadisticSid
Can you preserve the original names though? I don't want to have to call a GTD Lambda 1 or some such.

I'm not sure, but I *think* you might be able to.  However, you'd have to do all the requisite modifications in a text editor.

[Nico]

Originally posted by Goober5000
Sid: Yes you can.  FRED will complain but it works if you modify it in a text editor.

who needs fred then, when we have wordpad™?
Sheesh...

[Singh]

/me points to the AI-Chase command....
not exactly working, but if the SCP guys could fix it into something like this, at least you won't have to start with all new coding...

[Krom]

Theres code in there to get the AI to form on your wing, use it.

[karajorma]

Posted this on the Campaign Forum topic

Originally posted by karajorma
I haven't tried this but there is another method using less waypoints that I can think of. Set one waypoint where ever you want the fleet to go. Set a second one 30,000m away in a straight line between the fleet and the first waypoint.
 Tell the fleet to go to the second waypoint and use distance from the first waypoint to check when they get where you want them to go.

Because the second waypoint is so far away the convergence of the ships should be minimal.

[CP5670]

That is exactly how I usually do it.