I can't see anywhere this has been discussed before, but my search-fu is weak... I'm also relatively new to the game, so if this is already possible, please tell me how to do it!
How would you like to be able to target more than one target at a time? There are several possible implementations of this, but my favourite would be the creation of a 'target bar' similar to your team-mate bar. You'd still only have a single 'primary target' (which is currently your only target) and it would be the subject of your weapons and power uses. However, you'd have the ability to 'lock' that target to your target bar (e.g. Ctrl-F1 to lock it into the slot, and Alt-F1 to reselect it).
Many of the results of this can be achieved by frantically spinning the camera around, and clicking desperately on the map trying to select the same targets over and over again. But that seems (at least, to me) rather un-Trek-like. Things should be much calmer and more cerebral if you're sitting on your bridge giving orders. It would also allow you to spend more time scanning the surrounding space.
With this technique, you would be able to:
- Have a cruiser targetting and firing his fore weapons at one target, his aft weapons at another, while still being able to toss heals at his teammates without losing his weapon targets.
- A science vessel could target an enemy for weapons (the primary kill target), a second enemy for shut-down abilities (e.g. the cruiser that's supposed to be healing the target) and still have easy access to his team list for heals and buffs without losing those two targets.
- Go back to a target that you'd dropped to throw a heal/buff to a buddy, without having to sort through the thousand mines that the enemy just dropped.
There's probably plenty of ideas I haven't thought of.
TL;DR - The basic idea is to allow us to lock on to a limited number of targets, so we can switch targets and swap between them without having to do a click-fest hunt through space.
Comments
Targetting friendly + enemy would be very helpful on ground as a medic though. Yes you can use assist, but then you can only heal that person, and its slower to heal yourself. Retargetting on ground can cause you to lose track of where the mob you were firing at is as well.
Also; please stop turning the camera when I target someone to heal them. I can live with having to turn around to heal them but not having my camera spin around all the time.
You can create quick targeting keybinds using the target's name. It is a bit awkward but should work on ground missions and in fleet action.
But you'd have to create them for each individual, and if the team ever changed, you'd have to recreate 'em, right? Obviously the code is all there already (since there are target keybinds and the team list works fine), so it shouldn't be too hard to code up.
this would be so easy if the game had any sort of api.
however since there is no api, i can think only 1 way to extract target info from the game, the combat logs. but that is a, well pretty ****, way of doing it and i am not fuss enough to write it.
essentially these are the stp if you wan to do it.
1. bind a key press to save the combat log.
2. on receiving the key press, use a 3rd party program to analysis the log and extract the target name.
3. format the correct string to bind the $target as a in game macro.
4. load the in game macro to another key press.
5. press that key to select the $target.
ofc come think of it, it will not work because $target is not unique, there is probably more than one "drones" on the screen.
lol
A chained bind can be viable if you use the same BOFFs or play with the same 5 buddies all the time. Otherwise it doesn't worth the effort.