That is definitely a valid concern, and even I don’t want the list to be a mile long. Truth be told, to my awareness, there aren’t many more tactics remaining to be designated in a combat order. At least, unless the rumors I’ve been seeing about a new form of ordinance being developed by central command are true… Aside from that digression, even though it increases the number of orders that need to be memorized, it is still in line with why we have the combat orders in the first place; to make communication more efficient, execution of orders quicker and more concise, and reduce the need for the captains to micromanage. So instead of the Captain having to say “Load an EMP and a mine, fire the EMP on the fleet and then follow up immediately with an Echo 1,” it becomes “Epsilon 1 on this fleet”.
//Poking around the Artemis Wiki I saw a new type of ordinance called the “P-shock” that is planned to be introduced in an upcoming update to the core game. If we are ever able to make our mod work with newer versions of the base game, we may need additional combat orders to accommodate the new additions, so the list may need to grow regardless. But that’s another matter altogether.