character distances and formations

[entoptic]

I was wondering if there is a formation that you can have your characters move in. I hate the follow command however I see some people moving all of their characters like a squad of marines in formation.

Anyone know how to do this?

[yarr]

not that I know of

get used to follow, i'd say 99% of people on these boards primarily use /follow to get from point a to point b.

Short distances, you can move in formations by

a) setting up the formation using one of the methods described in other threads on the topic, then
b) Using the keyboard to move your characters.

However, over longer distances they will come un-synced because their facing will be a couple degrees off of each other. THen you will have to /follow, resync and re-do the formation.

[Xzin]

You CAN move them in formation but they drift over medium distances.

[Chorizotarian]

I wonder if it would be possiblt to keep them in sync if you briefly tapped a /follow macro to get them all on the same heading then canceled it by resuming whatever movement you were doing. I keep meaning to try it...

[Quix]

short answer "NO, over anything more than a few feet, or with many turns".

to answer chorizotarian:

Wont work, if you have 1 guy spread to the left & behind you while moving forward , great,,, you tap follow, he will turn slightly right, & come twards you. You press forward, he will walk straight, relitive to where he was pointing, not where you want your main to go.

[Chorizotarian]

Good point. What if you hit the follow macro twice though:

• t=0: Main is running forward, clone is behind and to the left but veering further left.
• t=1: Hit /follow macro and immediately cance w/ forward movement. Clone turns toward main, but since main is heading forward clone's bearing is actually slightly to the right of the main's.
• t=2: Clone is now behing the main and bearing to the right. Hit the follow macro again and immediately cancel with forward movement. Clone is now on the same bearing as main.

[thinus]

The only time the clones will move in the same direction as the main after a /follow is if the clones are right behind the main. You can have a formation like this:
<---- M <- C1 <- C2 <- C3 <- C4
or this
<---- M <- Call

These formations are also known as the /follow formations. Very popular and reliable for travelling over any distance, problematic around tight corners.

[Kfunk]

One thing you can do to look different is have your follow macro form a congo line instead of the 'everyone follows the leader' thing.

This just strings your guys out, but at least it's slightly different!

[Dinkydau]

Is there a macro or something that will actually move your toons into some type of formation? I've seen this in videos, but can't figure out how it's done.

Johnny

[Dorffo]

not a macro, it's accomplished by binding movement in different directions to the same key across your toons.

there's a few posts about the various permutations folks use, but the gist of it is (for a cross pattern):
toonA - forward
toonb - strafe left
toonc - strafe right
toond - backward

all bound to your "spread out" key of choice. I use 'f' as my "follow main" key and ctrl-f as my spread out key. If you combine a couple different "formation" keys you can get some fairly nice results (example: one that spreads your toons out in a standard diamond, then another that shifts only a couple one way or another as needed).