Player Groups

[craggy steeple]

Squads. Squadrons. Groups.

A very rudimentary grouping system for people to keep track of their friends in multiplayer with AI vehicles on.

Members of your squadron are displayed as cyan with names always shown in HUD.

Beyond the Scope:
Additionally to HUD colour, squad icons appear on the map with squadmate's names in an eye catching colour.
A small UI element showing very basic status of squad, vehicle icon, distance and bearing.
Options to name or lock your squad.
Chat specific for squad.

Well Beyond but Cool Ideas:
Electing squad leaders with a purple or gold (both options compliment both team colours) UI icon to indicate that role.
Squads can be recognised throughout the server by slightly different brightness values in base team colour, offering a sense of reputation.
Extend the concept a bit further and integrate a ping or marker system for those within a squad to help streamline teamwork.

See below for a cute little mockup

[craggy steeple]

Player Groups

[unkempt terrace]

That's a great idea. Would help with being able to find friends without mousing over everyone

[primal harbor]

I think just make friends from steam show with another icon or color not good idea. You can have big amount of friend in one battle from both sides.

Much better make squad system when you are create squad in some menu and there is connecting your friends or people who wanna play as squad

[craggy steeple]

Actually a way to add Steam icon integration cleanly is a great idea, maybe run the profile picture under a filter so it fits in-universe. It would assist in friendly acquisition even faster than a name as text

[feral root]

This has been suggested before, and while I agree it would be nice to have it, there should be some incentives to fly in a squad/smaller group/with a wingman.

Shared rewards, for example. Every time you score a hit/do something productive you can donate some of that money/rank to your squad mates and help them out if they are stuck with a low rank aircraft.

Either way, more than creating a group for the sake of being in a group.

[amber grove]

If by any chance simplifying the feature by some degree makes it more easy and likely to be implemented... What about just having each player being able to highlight desired team members with this kind of system? Just a simple button on the player list, or on HUD options box, for example.

This would make things more dynamic and adaptive on the fly, for instance, when you decide to escort a friendly just on the fly, you can choose to highlight that specific player through this option.

"I want to find X and Y person on my team." You just click a couple checkboxes in HUD options next to their names and they become highlighted in that manner.