"Fly and wait" how about just "fly"

[Scoob]

Hey all,

Fly and wait. Why the wait, why not just fly? This command causes problems as it's TWO commands.

Firstly, it appears to be a "sticky" command, in that it sticks around even AFTER the order has been satisfied. I.e. a ship flies somewhere, the player later takes over and the ship will STILL have that order in its queue, meaning it will dash off when that's NOT intended.

Secondly, it BLOCKS other behaviours. For example, I have a ship doing a task for me - let's say it's working for a station. It sells a ware, then just hangs around. I've had ships of mine doing this, they sell somewhere then just stay there, waiting for another sell or buy order. This leaves them pretty vulnerable. I have three Transporters near an under attack Station of mine, just hanging out after delivering supplies to it. This is where "fly" rather than "fly and wait" would be handy...

I want to order those ships to fly back to near their station. Then I want them to start trading again as required. With "Fly and Wait" those ships will NEVER resume their prior duties until the command is CLEARED. If I could just say "fly" they'd do just that, then their order queue would be EMPTY so they'd resume their default behaviour. I have to manually keep track of any such orders, where a ship has a task already, but I've ordered it to fly (and wait) somewhere.

What do people think? Is "Fly and Wait" more annoying than useful to you? A separate "Wait" command would be useful at times, very useful (top of queue job). Fly and Wait however, is TWO commands when only one is required.

[flywlyx]

Yeah, a separate "move" command and a "wait here" command to replace the current "fly and wait" should be a quick fix and is going to be very helpful.
I'm uncertain if a single "wait" command will be very useful, but if Egosoft could implement a triggerable "wait" command, it would be helpful in many scenarios.
For example, once the "wait" command is triggered in unit A, then unit B will stop waiting, or once A's "wait" is removed, B's wait command will be removed at the same time.

[GCU Grey Area]

Is "Fly and Wait" more annoying than useful to you?

No, find it useful most of the time. There are circumstances where I would like a simple 'fly to' order as well, but would not want it to replace 'fly & wait'. That could become exasperating when, for example, moving my destroyers into position to demolish a station. Without the wait part of the order they'd automatically fly back to the fleet (due to bombardment role) as soon as the 'fly to' expired, rather than waiting until all of the destroyers are in position & I give the attack order. Not keen on the idea of breaking 'fly' & 'wait' into two separate orders. Often all that would do is double the amount of orders I have to give to my ships.

[Scoob]

Is "Fly and Wait" more annoying than useful to you?

No, find it useful most of the time. There are circumstances where I would like a simple 'fly to' order as well, but would not want it to replace 'fly & wait'. That could become exasperating when, for example, moving my destroyers into position to demolish a station. Without the wait part of the order they'd automatically fly back to the fleet (due to bombardment role) as soon as the 'fly to' expired, rather than waiting until all of the destroyers are in position & I give the attack order. Not keen on the idea of breaking 'fly' & 'wait' into two separate orders. Often all that would do is double the amount of orders I have to give to my ships.

For clarity, it wasn't my intent to replace "Fly and Wait" with "Fly", rather that I would find a separate "Fly" command very useful in many instances. Basically, where we now have "Fly and Wait" there would also be a "Fly" command. With what I'm doing currently in-game, plain old "fly" would be so useful. Sometimes we can do an implied "fly", it's what we do when we create a new waypoint on an order for example. Like when one of my ships is on a trade run for its parent station, I get an alert of a Xenon Capital ship in the area so I can drag the route to navigate around it. Ship doesn't stop when it reaches that waypoint - as it would with a "flay and wait" - rather it resumes its prior tasks.

[rusky]

Yes, I agree, I would love that!

The amount of times I had a ship "fly and wait" somewhere, then took over, flew it somewhere else, then left only to see it decide it's time to go back to where I started flying it without me realising, is too damn high!

[user1679]

The problem with "fly and wait" is it doesn't always wait. Here are how I think the commands should work:

1. Fly and wait - should *always* issue a "waiting for orders" at completion and wait for the player to issue a "continue" order to move to the next queued order. Also, there should be a "sticky" notice in the console titled "Ships waiting (number)", similar to how it shows you unread messages. This way you at least know to open the map because you have waiting ships. Finally, ship names on the map should be colored yellow if they are waiting so they stand out in the list.

2. Fly (or FlyTo) - ship moves to location and executes next order in queue. Used with "repeat orders", this would be useful to set up patrol route without actually using "patrol" and allows "Fly and wait" to function properly.

3. Use - ship flies to a gate and uses it but waits on the other side. I hate having to use "Explore" to hop into a new sector because if you forget to cancel it, you might end up surrounded by Xenon

[Virtualaughing]

Good old Idle command circling around. I can imagine using a nav beacon for it. The worst is when they stay at the build storage and stuck together. I literally afraid to be in the same system with my ships. Watching minutes when they stay afraid to go back then in and out and again because they stuck.
Also.
All suggestions where you have to do some manual input and what not are outta window.
An old request of mine is that we have mark as hostile to prevent your ships to trade. What if a command forbidden to trade with a station under attack. When you have hundreds of ships and you re path, remove orders remove orders , pull the path because dozen ship overlapping and remove orders is annoying.