Navy: possibly improvements for vessel operations

[captBluesky]

Chrstgtr's apparent disdain for naval games notwithstanding, I feel there are some ideas we might look at for improving

vessel operations.

Again, referring to SuddenStrike/II game play, ships/boats did'nt go chasing after land units trying to figure out where to

intercept them.

Instead, boats were *docked*. And while docked they could be loaded/unloaded. Anyone who's tried to use boats on 

naval maps has probably felt a common frustration at vessel's behavior when trying to use them for transport.

 

What I propose:

1. boats must be docked to load or unload

• This does'nt mean the vessel has to have some kind of dock construction or be at a prebuilt dock, it only means it's in a docked state (moored/beached) in proximity to the shore to facilitate load/unload opperations.
• Once docked, the boat/vessel *does not move* until un-docked.

2. If units are to be picked up by a vessel, the land units must be *at the shore* for them to be designated as target for pickup

• No trying to guess the best place to do a pickup. Put the units at the pickup point, then command the boat to pick them up

3. And of course a docked vessel can be made a garrison target for land units to board (assuming the dock is located on the same landmass as the units in question).

 

For further concept development, we might look at virtual docks or dock rally points (pick your nameOlogy) where a virtual

dock location is designated (like a rally point) and stays until cleared. A vessel might be granted automated behavior to shuttle

units between two such virtual docks (possibly a tech upgrade, command automation for a fee). Units could be made to rally

at a virtual dock on one shore, and a boat/vessel could automatically transport to a destination dock on another shore. This could

be repeated as long as units rally at the docks. To keep units from being sent back to where they just came from, units would

be given an automatic move command to move off the destination dock.

 

Some of these ideas resemble OpenTTD. Too much automation might take gameplay in a direction we don't want to go, but I think we do

want to reduce micro-management workload so the player can focus more on strategy.

 

 

[alre]

I like it. It would be even better, to me, if people could build ships on the shore like buildings, instead of having a dock building that creates them all at once.