[Lucika]

To put simple, I'd like to do something like this:

when
-this and that happens-
-player can give orders to Zeta wing-

Is that possible? Or I have to work around it?

[General Battuta]

It is possible. Definitely possible.

It's just gonna...be a little complex.

[TopAce]

I'm thinking of a clever use of the # sign in ship names and ship-vanish.

Can you give some more details? Most importantly, is Zeta stationary, or moving?

[General Battuta]

Unfortunately the #sign will (to my knowledge) be pretty problematic if the fighters are in a wing because it'll cause the wing number to not appear. Besides that, what I assume is your tack (surreptitiously swapping Zeta for another wing that does allow player orders) will probably work, but I think I've got another way to do it that'll work if the ships are moving too...

[General Battuta]

Though with the caveat that TopAce's solution will probably be a lot easier to implement, and with mine I'm not sure how I'll get 'form on my wing' commands to work...his may be a lot less effort.

[TopAce]

I mean: Use Zeta 1#Invisible, Zeta2#Invisible (and so on)  for default, then have Zeta wing (the "real" Zeta wing) arrive (with player-issuable orders, no arrival msg, music) when you get close enough to any of Zeta.

I'm assuming a) this is a nebula recon mission in which you must find a wing that got lost in the fog, b) all members of Zeta are in close formation.

Battuta: What exactly is your proposed solution?

[General Battuta]

Turn on no warp effect and yeah, that'd work in that particular scenario. I was thinking more of the middle of a big battle mission, where the wing would be fighting before they were unlocked for player orders.

[Lucika]

Can you give some more details? Most importantly, is Zeta stationary, or moving?

The situation is this: An installation is attacked and Zeta wing is one of the original defenders. Alpha 1 is overwhelmed by the issues and to relieve her pressure he assigns command of a few wings to her fellow pilots (imho understandable, being this is her fourth mission without a second of a break. The player gets Zeta wing.

If it is too hard to implement, I can stick with Zeta being a reinforcement wing though, it is nothing major

[General Battuta]

Battuta: What exactly is your proposed solution?

If it's not appropriate here I want to keep it a seekrit until I can bust out a really awesome mission using it. 

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Make the ships an IFF that is friendly to the player then switch them to the player IFF when they are allowed player orders. 

Note I've never tested this but it should work. 

[General Battuta]

Actually yeah, that's an infinitely better way to do it. You can even keep the IFF color green. Player will never know.

[Droid803]

That's...brilliant.

[Scourge of Ages]

I agree.

[General Battuta]

Fortunately my technique still has another awesome use to build a mission around.