Noncom, that's what "Time has shaped us ruthlessly" means. Well, not the time, per se, but the events occurring in that time. I can't think of any meaning that would make "Time has shaped us ruthless" gramatically correct.
Michael - good point about the pan. That is a pan mechanic more seen in mobile strategy, less so in PC strategy. But with a mobile-dominated gaming market growing up day by day, I can see how a click-drag pan may be a better use of click-drag, with gamers used to swipe-pans growing into more sophisticated games (hence, taking mroe interest in strategy) by the day.
Remember, though, you usually have two mouse buttons available,and often three. Most players will want to use those buttons as much as possible - they're literally at their fingertips. Without confusing a player, we should be granting the player as much control as possible.
My ideal control schemes always involve total control without moving my hands - this means that left click, right click, left click-drag, right click-drag, and mousewheel, all have to have function during battle, regardless of circumstances like not having ships selected. (Middle mouse is handy, maybe, but being on the wheel many gamers ignore those functions because it messes with their bearings when they mis-zoom, and mose mice use the mousewheel to middle-click.)
Shift- and Control- commands should be avoided if possible - or at least, be secondary to unmodified keyboard and mouse commands. From my time working on a couple alphas with Knuckle Cracker, I learned that most gamers don't use them, and unless the game demands it, a large percentage of players won't realize they exist.
Since you have a small fleet, there are a small number of possible groupings. If you made a different grouping for every single possible combination of three ships, you only have seven combinations. (1, 1/2, 1/2/3, 1/3, 2, 2/3, 3.) Putting four or five numbered buttons on the ship readout on the left, and clicking those to assign ships to different possible teams that are selected with numbers 1-5 should provide control over grouping that's comprehensive and visible to all gamers, and CTRL-# or SHIFT-# to assign a group can be a method secondary to that.
The unfortunate truth is, though, I don't care a lot about groupings. That's quite important in a game that rewards skilled play, but Battlestation is a game that rewards planning more than skill, in my opinion. Movement is so slow and damage so swift (once you're well-equipped) that quick reactions are not terribly beneficial.
