So you don't imagine you would be able see the health of a component as it goes down? What would even be the point of the app if the app user was blind to everything going on and the captain had to scream everything; in that case AI would be better.
Just use logic, please. The only orders a captain might be shouting would be "Man the guns, Fire at [insert ship name], Repair!, and Spot ships". All of these actions could be performed by an AI at the touch of an icon, though you wouldn't even require a captain's orders to do it if you automatically did these things in a timely manner, just like in PC Guns of Icarus.
Of course you would be able to see the health of components. But normally ai aren't going to fail you when parts are at low health, ai fail you when you are in serious trouble, and more than one critical component is dead, and your ai goes for the wrong one (or worse, runs between the 2 trying to decide).
Looking at the commands you mention,
Man the guns: there is currently a voice command that would tell crew audibly and through chat which side of the ship needs a gunner. I'm okay with this. A human controlling this would do better because they could specify a gun.
Fire at insert ship name: Which ship? Possibly this could respond to the "captain's spot" mechanic, keybound to B. This lets the captain specify a target that the ai might not shoot at. Again, this would help.
Repair: In most circumstances, yes this would work out alright. You could keep the ai confined to areas where it needs to be repairing, as opposed to the current chaotic ai mind.
But the ai already does decently in those situations. The times where ai kills you is when everything is going down and you are trying to hold on. You can specify hull, balloon, engines, etc. But engines specifically, you can't specify which engine.
Say all 3 engines are down at once. If you are trying to turn your guns on an enemy to get some suppressive fire on, you want turning engines. If you are about to slip behind a rock, you need your main engine. Someone on a phone won't have the situational awareness to make that call unless the devs put a lot of work into making a cheap app work well in every aspect. The only way you can communicate to your crew currently on which engines need attention first is through voice or typing. Personally, I'm going to be either trying to retake control of the ship (using wasd) or I will be running back to help on repairs (using wasd to move). I'll type, but generally typing isn't my first priority.
A human using an app might be better than an ai by actually going for the engines, but there still isn't that level of interaction that really makes me think this would be worth pursuing to the level that it would need.
I will repeat what I have tried to make clear in all of my posts though.
I like this idea. It would be fun to be able to have friends join in and protect me from ai. It would make it less dangerous to start with ai. It shows creative thinking, and I like it.
I just am also personally seeing that it doesn't make the ai significantly better, it doesn't come close to being as good as another human, and the amount of time and effort it would require to make would not really be worth the relatively small gain in gameplay. With the current lag in the system, even trying to give a real-time chat feed to mobile devices seems like a risky proposition to me.
What I'm trying to say is that I like your idea, I just don't see it working out in the current state of the game.
Regarding your making sarcastic responses to my initial concerns, then insulting my intelligence and ability to type...
We obviously haven't connected on everything that has been said here, but please next time don't resort to sarcasm and personal attacks. I try to be reasonable and I'm happy to explain what I mean in depth. I like seeing new ideas and I want to contribute.
