Well they already have the Sentry function, they could just call that (with optional "pathing" object) which would just move the ship between the queue/list of points and if it senses a ship (like sentry) it stops and becomes IDLE, which would notify the user.

Pathing {

List<Hex> positions;

Boolean loop; // default true

Hex currentDestination; // mark path of current movement 

Boolean alert; //default false (go idle if you see a ship to alert user)

}

Hex {

     // assume they have something already which marks  desitination

    Int x,y;

}

Code would simply move a ship from one Hex to another Hex. The current destination Hex would need to be tracked (or index into List which marks current Hex). Then if it it sights a ship, the ship becomes IDLE.

obviously the code above is fairly simple, and depending on how (and in what) they coded it may not be nearly as simple to implement.

You could even attach this "pathing" object to the ship, since a ship already knows how to move to a destination, once it reaches the destination it would simply check 1 if there are any more destinations in the pathing object, if so set it's new destination (movement) to the next Hex. By making it part of that you could then "path" ships rather than depend on the computer for calculating the path. An option parameter could be set to "Alert" (or make the ship go idle to alert user).  That way if you just want to set a complicated path (and not partrol) you could. A special key would be needed like <Cntrl-Key>-Mouse to set destination. 

Quoting erischild,

reply 3

As I have heard it, the issue is with the vision range interactions of each ship as it is moving.  The interaction between two ships that are moving past each other should look simultaneous or else it will seem silly, but the ship movements are processed player by player.  The visibility range for a stationary sentry ship is much less computing load than for all the ships that will be moving on patrol.  Turn times could be badly impacted.  (You just know we will use the heck out of such a feature, with lots of ships and on the biggest of maps.)  If the turns were simultaneous, you would have all ships looking out for all other ships all at once.  That sounds vulnerable to exponential loads as ship count increases.    It may sound like something that should be obvious to implement, since we do it as humans all the time, but may be more expensive in terms of coding or processing than we realize.

I still want it to happen.  It just may not be cheap and easy.  But hey, I paid my Founders fee, I can can go ahead and ask for it!

Yea, I would rather not see the game made slower!

One simple thing that could be done which would go a long way to assist player boarder monitoring is to add an option on sentry mode... 'IGNORE NEUTRAL UNITS'

Oh please, i would love this soooooo much, please please please??

In the game now, i have to constantly disable my sentry ships because of neutral morons flying around and they hang around for ages, and it almost seems like they deliberately look for my ships on sentry, then that sentry ship is disabled and i am utterly sick of it, i never bother using sentry anymore, its useless.

They spamming you with scouts?

That's why its good to put any kind of tiny cheap weapon on your sensor ships, but even if your destroying them, i guess if they keep spamming scouts and other garbage it could get tiresome.... wake me when there is something with weapons to attend!