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In all the games I've played everyone uses the command wing to listen to what orders the commander gives to the drones and for the critical messages (big red text) to appear.

Never have I seen anyone use any other wings (except if they are newbies. Don't know if squad members use those other wings)

So I have several options to suggest:

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1. Remove the wing feature and permanently make commander's orders appear in chat and critical messages appear.

2. Don't remove other wings, but make the command wing the default wing.

3. Don't remove other wings, but make commander's orders and critical messages appear even while using other wings.
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What do you think?

According to the Wiki, there's three other wings that get drone orders, but they don't get all the "discovery" noise and what-not. Either way, everyone in PUGs does use command.

I personally think the ideal thing to do, if it were possible, would be to let the commander assign people to wings, so that they could easily group players together, and send orders to separate wings, thus getting the team to do several things at once. It'd be nice to give all the wings the ability to see drone orders along with this, of course. Except maybe keep one wing for newbies without visible orders, or something, to avoid unnecessary confusion. Additional nice things would be to find some way to make it extra-clear to people what wing they've been assigned to, and make it even easier for commanders (or anyone) to send communication to a specific wing. Like... a hotkey or something, I dunno. Does that make sense?

I like your ideas about allowing a commander to set what wing you're on.
But, perhaps, instead of the generic names some of the wings have now, give them more meaningful task-oriented names? Like as you said, to make it extra-clear what their assignment is.
To give a few ideas: Nan, Probe, Deprobe, Miner O, Miner D (Attack and Defend are already there but a little too vague)

So if a commander wants you defending miners, he can just change your current objective, you'll get a big red text, and it'll show in the top corner what your current underlying task is, apart from any other orders like "Attack my target" "I need repairs" as anyone can send those and make you lose a lock on orders that originated directly from command. It's a pain having to constantly read who actually gave an order since there isn't a clear difference between a commanders order, and a pilot order.

Id rather suggest it the opposite way to the one you stated Weylin.

Allow players to change their wings, and make the wings sensible, i.e., as said above, Miner D, Miner O, deprobing, probing, con D, scouting, etc. About 10-15 to choose from should cover most of the generic tasks the user can do. Adding an easy way to switch the wing for the player (not through F6, maybe hotkeys?) will allow the player to clearlly state what he is doing now. This will allow the commander by just looking at the F6 tell what most of his team intends to do. How many he has attempting to miner O, how many are probing, etc. Very clear feedback, real-time.

Default wing in that case should be "nothing"

I'd leave it just the way it is. Command wing means for the newbies so much noise (it's info, but noise for them) and when you start playing there's already a lot going on while just flying to pay attention to drones orders, discovery messages and such.

+1 to Koln

If anything, the wing names should be tweaked so you pick the one that fits what you are doing and the commander can tell with a quick glance at F6.

I.e.
Warm up - default wing without drone orders or rock found messages. All other wings hear orders.
Command
Attack
Defend
Scout
Pick up

Code change: accepting 'Defend', 'Attack', 'Pick up' orders would automatically set the wing.

SpaceJunk wrote:QUOTE (SpaceJunk @ Apr 17 2010, 02:01 PM) Code change: accepting 'Defend', 'Attack', 'Pick up' orders would automatically set the wing.

That's not a code change. The feature exists already: the VC 'Form on my wing' sends an order that makes you switch to the sender's wing when you accept it. So what you'd have to do is modify the existing VCs then put it on AU so everyone has the same default chatpack.

I don't think the current wings are totally useless. Charlie, Delta and Echo I find quite useful in big games, since it stops your screen from getting cluttered with contact reports. The only change I'd vote for is setting Command to default wing for players (not just commanders). I disagree with Koln: yes the contact info might be overwhelming for new players, but the drone orders are important. They can start escorting cons and miners earlier in their training. Plus switching your wng every single time is a pain.

Sgt.Pepper wrote:QUOTE (Sgt.Pepper @ Apr 17 2010, 07:40 AM) That's not a code change. The feature exists already: the VC 'Form on my wing' sends an order that makes you switch to the sender's wing when you accept it. So what you'd have to do is modify the existing VCs then put it on AU so everyone has the same default chatpack.

hahah, I'm such a noob I didn't realize it swapped people's wings and I spam that vc just about every game. Whenever I hit f6 I'm always surprised by how many folks are on delta, now I know why!

Zero_Falcon wrote:QUOTE (Zero_Falcon @ Apr 16 2010, 09:19 PM) So I have several options to suggest:

-----------------------------------
1. Remove the wing feature and permanently make commander's orders appear in chat and critical messages appear.

2. Don't remove other wings, but make the command wing the default wing.

3. Don't remove other wings, but make commander's orders and critical messages appear even while using other wings.
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What do you think?

1. No freaking way. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

2. Meh. Is that really necessary?

3. Absolutely not. There are times when it's highly useful to be on a wing WITHOUT drone spam.