"SOP" Preset Question.

[Zahar00]

Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)

When I modify it using the SOP MANAGER option, everything is fine until I issue a movement command. After issuing a movement command, SOP immediately returns to its default settings.

Is this how SOP is supposed to work?

[Zahar00]

Oh, alright, I need to tick that option. I didn't notice it before.
Sorry for the confusion.

"Wow, I’m really asking myself questions and answering them so efficiently."

[BadOptics]

Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)

When I modify it using the SOP MANAGER option, everything is fine until I issue a movement command. After issuing a movement command, SOP immediately returns to its default settings.

Is this how SOP is supposed to work?

To explain the way the SOPs are applied to orders (as I see it as a player), is that there are three classes of movement SOPs are applied to -> movement, non-movement, and default. The screen in your screenshot counts as a non-movement and the default is...the default. So when you create an order, the game will use the *default* SOP to apply to the new *movement* orders. However! You can then select a possibly better SOP (maybe like screen and fight or IFV March); when you do that you can change the option to have that SOP only applied to movement orders. This will then give you the movement SOP -> non-movement SOP (screen and fight in your screenshot) -> default (probably screen and fight). Like you found out, if you select "future" orders it'll change everything after that *plus the default order*, so make sure that's something you need to take into account. Personally if I only want to mess with how my units behave during a movement order, I just use the right-click, SOP options, select the SOP plus select ONLY movement orders. After that you can use the SOP manager if you need to specify something on a specific movement. I forget what the option is called, but you can also have more focused SOP changes made; if you want to make things easy for adjusting a whole group of units, I recommend using this option instead of changing each one via the SOP manager (again, unless you need specific waypoints/paths to be different).

[SgtZdog]

I'll mention a few rules around how SOPs are adjusted.
1) For start, when you issue an order, the Default SOP is cloned and that is used for the issued order.
2) The apply to Future orders will apply to the selected order and anything lower in the stack on the SOP Manager (the Default SOP was moved to the bottom of the stack in part to help make this clearer).
3) The right click menu speed change buttons gives the option to modify all movement, non-movement, or the Default SOP, there is no exact match to this behavior in the SOP Manager.
4) When applying an SOP change to multiple units with the SOP Manager, the change will only be applied to the same type of order. So if you want to change the SOP for the final movement order of a unit that is an Assault Move after a series of Move Deliberates, you can do that. (Or similarly change the Hold order without messing up your Screening units who need to be able to move.)