[http://sourceforge.net/p/ufoai/feature-requests/465 Item 465] imported from sourceforge.net tracker on 2013-01-28 20:20:07

I would LOVE to be able to specify which soldier gets of the dropship in which direction and facing which direction. It would save me (and I presume a lot of other players) a lot of agony and hair pulling of why soldiers gets deployed in the most awkward of positions and with 0 consideration of basic military principles of perimeter defense when embarking from a vehicle.

I think it would be most comfortable to implement this as a "deployment tactics" tab in the Aircraft section.

On this screen one could see a schematic of the dropship map piece, with eg 50 different positions available for deployment.
On this tactical map there could be markers with the numbers 1-8 that could be drag&dropped between 50ish different positions.
It should also be possible to turn the markers in the 8 primary directions to decide the facing.

This will also require standard dropship piece of all maps (and thus have all identical actor positions and in general be identical) but that shouldn't be much of a problem to implement.
===== Comments Ported from Sourceforge =====

====== btaxis (2010-03-05 12:54:34) ======

The main problem would be for maps that do not have a dropship tile at all. These maps would have to be edited to have a dropship tile on them.
====== stedevil (2010-03-05 16:23:18) ======

You mean eg for the base attacks? Yeah, there should probably be specific "base attack" tactical setups as well.

IMO it should also be possible to assign and equip soldiers for purely base defense purposes. At least last time I was playtesting UFO:AI it was not possible to assign soldiers equipment etc unless you first built a large hangar and bought a dropship... 2 prereqs that definitely don't belong for "base defense" soldiers.

So I suggest the following UI change:
* Rename Aircraft -> Combat units
* Add an entry for "Base"
* Add the following tabs to "Base"
- Description
- Equipment
* - Missile (defences)
* - Laser (defences)
- Soldiers
- "Deployment Tactics"

Other, non base maps, without a dropship currently I guess should get one (are there many such maps?)
====== *anonymous (2010-03-18 09:06:35) ======

IMO I really prefered the old UFO:EU style : All soldiers start inside the aicraft.

It makes the deployment dangerous and interesting. I remember in UFO:EU i used to throw smokes grenades out of the ship before getting soldiers out, in position to cover while the other are getting out.

What if theres an alien just in front of you at the very begining ? Well, yours to manage that problem. That's war after all ...

And about base defense : Its indeed annoying to have soldiers randomly sitting arround the base when the enemy attack has been detected a few hours ago on radar. Doesnt make sense.