Mods in ranked games.

What's that sonny? I SAID WHAT'S THAT? SPEAK INTO MY GOOD EAR!

I never said that. Rectify it.

I don't have an issue with the Starcraft 2 way (and it can be great to watch), it's just that if it's what you're looking for this is entirely the wrong game. I want to up the scale, not bring it back to babysitting my factory. I don't think we should build this game (or limit it rather) around what something at the opposite end of the genre does, or allow ourselves to be tricked into some false idea of what an RTS is or how it should play.

I wouldn't mind hearing that sound for PA, but it should be for camera anchors because you're on multiple fronts on multiple worlds, not spamming the BUILD IT button.

actually while autobuild and autoaim are similar, they come from two different games which breaks the metaphor.

massive scale simulated projectile RTS has another aim than FPS.

as you did well pointing out, FPSes are games of a rather simplistic nature, that the simplest lines of code (not even AI, could play better than us) whereas MSSP RTS, cares not whoever much you surround yourself with machines and trinklets, it is the surperior brainpower that will prevail.

Hence even if you did code an AI to do things for you (and you probably should) you still wouldn't win against normal players.

hence the whole problem sorian is tackling and the explanation to why instead of scripts (as are used in FPS), in these games we try to approach true AI for computer adversaries, and why RTSes have the best AI out of all the game genres and why PA has the best AI of all.

the mentality behind MSSP RTS, in the end, is that you can do whatever you please client side. it's that kind of gameplay you're after anyways. One that promotes thought.

Exactly. High APM should help you multitask in PA more than micromanage.

just sounds like masturbation to me.

also way to have an epileptic seizure.

Thinking about this I've come up with the "on the edge" things I can think of for mods, centered around autofactory:
This is all based around pings, because pings are the only way to get world coordinates from the players mouse cursor, so only in 1vs1 this can apply, in teamgames your pings will annoy everyone:

ping a position on the map and have all units of some type from some or from all factories go to that location once they are build. Could also do "select a group of factories and then make a way point only for i.e. engineers from them, while all other units still move somewhere else" or similar.

ping a position on the map where a factory was queued up before, get a menu to give commands that will be given to the factory at that position once it is build. Commands means: waypoints as well as build queue. You could first set a waypoint and a queue and then ping a row of factories one by one, giving all of them that command.

Thinking actually I think I just realized I can do this:

players tells mod "I will make a row of factories now", prepare this waypoint and this queue for them
players drags row between 2 screen location
mods simulates a ton of pings in a line between the screen location, stores the position of each of them.
Now if a "factory completed at location x/y/z with id a" alert is triggered the mod checks the distance to the stored positions, if it finds a close match it selects the factory by id and applies the queue and the waypoint.

Voila: You can now place factories awith "preset" queue and waypoint. You can even make an extra waypoint for i.e. engineers, as they are special. The implementation for that would remember the position of the factory affected and check all build engineers for "is it spawned very close to that factory". If yes select by id and give move command to the "waypoint".

I think I will try to implement this tomorrow, it sounds cool :>

I think this argument boils down to the fact that Planetary Annihilation is underdeveloped. People feel they need to use mods to get the most out of the game. I am happy for people to use "mods" as long as they are built into the standard version of the game that any user can turn on or off with ease. As it stands, anyone can develop a mod, which may or may not give them an advantage (whether or not it actually gives an advantage can be debated until the cows come home, i.e. automation of idle factories, etc) and not publish it for all to use. Therefore one person if left to micro manage while the other person is free from these laborious tasks. The problem is not which mods are okay and which aren't, but the fact that mods are allowed, don't have to be published or easily viewable for everyone to enable, so this opens the door wide for abuse by those in the know. We might as well call this game Planetary Modding.

I've given this scenario before (or a similar one at least)...
Let's imagine playing poker or blackjack even, and one person has a computer in front of them that spits out probabilities of getting certain hands, each time a new card is drawn. Would you think that is fair? One person has to live with the limitations of being human (i.e. calculating probabilities / micro management of units) while the other automates these things using a computer/programming. This is why mods should not be allowed in competitive games. It would never be allowed in any other competitive situation.

There is so much questionable stuff in this thread...

1. The amount of mechanical actions (like starting up Factories and setting rally points) that is "good", or "fun", is subjective, as Elodea nicely put it. This means it is for Uber too make a design decision. (Of course we should try to convince them of our opinions, but realize that your opinion is just that: an opinion.)
   
2. "If a UI mod alone makes you win the game (...)": Of course, the UI mod alone doesn't make you win the game! -_- But in a situation where two players are closely matched, it can make a difference! Any time you spend doing "chores" is time not spend controlling your armies!
   
3. "But I don't want to micro!" Well, how are you going to attack a base from 3 directions at once, while sending two raiding parties out? That is also strategy, right? Or should we have another rule that says "you can have only 2 army groups walking around the map", to prevent excessive multitasking? (Or why not make it turn-based lol...)
   
4. Any brain-time / APM that is freed up from chores is available for army movement!
   
5. "Do you have a problem with playing vs 2 player with shared army?" Of course I do! How is that even under consideration?! :/

I really don't understand how people do not see that having more APM will matter in almost every circumstance. Being faster allows you too look around the map to check all your fronts, scout for and intercept raiding parties, fine-tune army positioning... (The amount of Metal I have won by welcoming a stream of units in a cone-of-death...)

Sorry if I come of angry or negative. I love you all, but I honestly don't understand some of you guys, and I'm tired.

xx

(P.S. And yes, playing PA pumps me up like there is no tomorrow. Playing a game, pushing myself to do more stuff per second than I actually can is... It almost gets my high haha. The adrenaline... I seem to be a junkie that needs help. )

P.P.S. If is wasn't already clear: in principe I am against mods like this! It would feel unfair to me if my opponents has an extra help. ("But an AI is much worse at the game than a human!": -_- It's all about the time you have to control your army and asses the situations, and less chores = more time.)
On the other hand, I am all for reducing senseless chores, but it has to come from Uber in my opinion. If they see some UI mods that they think improve the experience, they should incorporate them in the game.

In a perfect world, everyone would have UI tools to reduce their need to click anything a computer could click instead, so they could more casually play and do more things without being asian-rts-champ.

I should be able to control 3 armies of bots from multiple sides on 2 planets at once and still micro-dodge all 3 of them. If I can't without somehow doing it with 1 monitor and screen using incredibly-fast swapping camera anchors, then the game failed. If a UI allows me to, then it just allows me to do what I should have been able to do already.

Your assuming that any automation tools do things well though. Automated scripts are stupid... Automating your entire base takes your attention *away from it*. That is fine, assuming you can trust the scripts. Trust me you cant. There is *nothing* that UI mods can do that make that much of a difference imo. The APM your saving is *bugger all*.

Of course it helps. The question is, does the amount it helps even matter - is it significant compared to the gain you get from simply being better at the game from a strategic perspective?

Consider strategy as a full-time, well-paying job. It gets you the bulk of your income. Consider the Micro benefits of mods as pocket change you get for picking up cans off the street for recycling. Does that pocket change increase your income? Sure. Does it matter in any significant way? No, and if you are even slightly better at your job (strategy) than someone else, their entire effort in can collection (micro) is overshadowed.

If this is not the case, it means the game is skewed towards being a micro-oriented game, which is a separate problem.

I duno about you, but I really don't spend that much time micro managing my base. Set everything on auto and let it run. I only mess about with it if I need to do something specific, in which case I don't want auto tools interfering....

Well spotted, and...

A just question. To which I honestly don't know the answer. Also, they answer might change over time, as the mods become better. (Cola_Colin seems to be inspired!)

Should Uber act on it right now? Probably not. But I do think it is a slippery slope we should be very careful about.

Every now and then I suddenly see that I forgot to turn my 3 new Factories on... So most of the time, micro-managing the base doesn't matter _that_ much, but every now and then, things go wrong. And these things have cost me a game here and there.

(And I do consider not-making-mistakes, like forgetting to turn on Factories, or forgetting to give a Metal Extractor build order to the fresh Fabber, to be a part of skill. But that is not the point: The point is that this aspect is currently a part of the game, as per Uber's design.)

If you are going to argue this way, then the same could be argued for symmetrical vs asymmetrical maps - is it significant compared to the gain you get from simply being better at the game from a strategic perspective? But I know how staunch all you guys are for symmetrical maps, so why are mods any different.

I agree, and while I don't believe the effect of mods is game-winning or significant, the same cannot be said for random maps - the possibility of losing a game due to a bad spawn location is very real.

The possibility of losing a game due to an unknown mod which gives some unknown advantage is also very real. It just happens that the disadvantage from one (asymmetrical maps) is entirely random and the other comes from a players deliberate choice (unpublished mod).

Well, there is a difference between:
(A) One player having 4 Metal spots in his spawn location, and the other player having only 2
and
(B) One player not having too click "Loop build order" himself.

(A) will always affect the game dramatically, (B) will only occasionally trip someone (like me) up and cause a random loss.

But it's all a matter of nuance and weighing, it's not black-and-white.

I really think you all overestimating the benefits of uimods ! Now of to find some crazy gaming keyboard.... Or 4k screen.