Combat Formations

[Jorlem]

I would like to request the ability to easily control how groups of drafted units group up.  Currently, they all group together in one big block, but I'd like to be able to easily order them to form a firing line, or a crossfire V shape.

As I envision it, when you group select and draft a number of pawns, it would bring up a menu on the bottom of the screen (similar to the build menus), where each icon would be a different formation: a horizontal line, a vertical line, four Vs, each opening in a different direction, and maybe a few custom formations.

For custom formations, the interface could bring up a grid, and you'd select where you want each pawn to stand relative to the click point, as well as having eight-directional arrows to put in some of the grid boxes, to let the game know how extra pawns should stand, if you've selected more than are specifically designated in the formation. 

[Playbahnosh]

Not to diss, but I don't really know what this would accomplish. I'm sure what you described could be done with some effort, but what would be the point exactly? Rimworld's combat is mostly based on utilizing terrain and cover, and having groups of pawns standing out in the open in any sort of formation is practically suicide. Also, unless you play on some completely flat map with no vegetation (desert, ice sheet, etc), there are so many obstacles on any given map it would make forming regular formations pretty much impossible.
Formations are good thing in like RTS games with hundreds of units, where you need to position them instantly, but it's the same reason games like XCOM don't have formation settings. You can pause the game at any time and set up where your pawns would stand in seconds, and usually there aren't too many of them. Unless you regularly run games with dozens upon dozens of colonists, functionality like this is pretty much unnecessary.

[Jorlem]

I tend to build defensive positions with sandbags, often in those shapes, so being able to easily get my colonists into position behind said sandbags without needing to micro them would be nice.

[Pactrick Willis]

Not to diss, but I don't really know what this would accomplish. I'm sure what you described could be done with some effort, but what would be the point exactly? Rimworld's combat is mostly based on utilizing terrain and cover, and having groups of pawns standing out in the open in any sort of formation is practically suicide. Also, unless you play on some completely flat map with no vegetation (desert, ice sheet, etc), there are so many obstacles on any given map it would make forming regular formations pretty much impossible.
Formations are good thing in like RTS games with hundreds of units, where you need to position them instantly, but it's the same reason games like XCOM don't have formation settings. You can pause the game at any time and set up where your pawns would stand in seconds, and usually there aren't too many of them. Unless you regularly run games with dozens upon dozens of colonists, functionality like this is pretty much unnecessary.

I would like to see it. Call me stuck in the past, But I use firing lines like these. Although I would not prioritize something like this, it would be nice to see.

[Playbahnosh]

I tend to build defensive positions with sandbags, often in those shapes, so being able to easily get my colonists into position behind said sandbags without needing to micro them would be nice.

I was thinking about something similar, but not with formations but with battlestations. Maps are random generated, so they are unpredictable, and maybe I can't or don't build my defenses in a perfect line or V-shape, then preset formations won't work.

My idea is to have the ability to set "battlestations" for different pawns where they go when I press a button, like "ALERT" or something. You build your defenses and just set a position for each of your colonists where they'd go when you raise the alarm. Maybe you could have more settings so you can switch positions of all your colonists with a single button when the attack comes from the other side or you need to retreat further into your base, etc. I remember seeing a mod that does something like this, I think....