I'm curious to what level of control of ship movement do people want

currently most large ships face the target and stay at long range

most small ships try to get in close to spread out the weapons fire and use their own weapons

unfortunately there is no way to switch this during game play (it would be best to have a stand off, approach and orbit movement orders)

do certain ships need different movement orders? I've already played around with the idea that clone wars era ships like the providence will make broadside passes , do we want star destroyers getting this close in? or do we we want them providing fire support from long range like they should?

to let you know there can be different move orders vs different targets, a star destroyer vs a fighter obviously shouldn't move, but it should follow a corellian corvette if it goes out of range (but should it turn to bear on the corvette or only turn when the corvette gets out of range?) should some ships stay stationary vs one type of target but then orbit or make passes on another?

a few ships like the dreadnought, aggressor, broadside require specific scripts to work, but most other ships are open

do you want no AI control of the ships at all (meaning the AI won't do anything unless ships come in range?) or do you want  the ships to move into range, but then not turn to face frontal or broadside? or do you want fully automated movement with little or no control?

what level of control is best?

don't worry about fighters and bombers for now

well persoanally i do get annoyed somewhat when i order my capitals to attak a target (like fighterss) directly and they dont move it would be good if you order a ship to attack one specific target it will pursue it and try and bring all its wepons to bear on that target.

for capitals attacking other capitals keep it long ranged unless we order them to move in and disable a specific componet then they would move in and do a broundside to kill the componet. however the SSD and ships over a certain size shouldn't do this.

oh and it would also be good if anyship we select and order to attak one target would try and concentrait all its wepons on that target. otherwise it would use its guns on what there orriganaly ment for

I like the way most ships move now. I like the fact that the SD's and Mon Cals don't twist and turn to try and bring their guns onto the fighters. That's why you build Lancer-Class frigates.

As far as heavy ship to ship combat, having them stay at range is fine. Personally, I manually move my Star Destroyers closer so that they use all of their weapons. In fact, my only real qualm is that the larger capitals should be able to more effectively engage multiple targets.

For example, My ISD has a Mon Cal off to starboard, and a dreadnaught and two frigates to port. The starboard weapons are doing the business on the Mon Cal, but the portside batteries are only giving a light smattering to the Dread and Frigates. Sometimes, the main port batteries wouldn't fire at all and would remain locked facing forward, as if trying to turn to starboard....

I'm not sure if this a limitation of the engine or whether more coding is required. At the end of it though, I like the way this version is shaping up. Perhaps when more capital ships are added, there might be cause for some different movement scripts.

EDIT: perhaps if the Mon Cals were more manueverable than the ISD's, so that they close in and try get out of the Imp's main gunsights.........but then, it's more fun to do that manually sometimes........unless of course it's a huge battle........damn I hate seeing both sides of an argument!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't think any changes are necessary. The ship controls we have now are good. If we want a close range battle we simply have to order our ships forward into the fight. Making the ships "smarter" by letting them move forward by themselves and broadside other ships would be a big negative for the mod.

well at least i think capital ships should pursue fighters when orderd to