Right. So I'd like to hear what other people think about this idea, because I was thinking about how to properly control a thousand units on a battlefield without going mad. Effectively the idea is that you can give a little context to a battlefield to guide your troops in their orders. What you do, is place giant markers on the battlefield, which cost no resources are not visible to other players. They purely guide the way the unit's AI completes it's given orders (basic orders like move/attack/guard/repair/build/etc). Examples of markers would be: Avoid: this marker comes with an area (which you can paint around it) that your units will avoid at all costs unless specifically ordered to go inside. Useful to guide your bombers around an enemy AA-emplacement or your tanks around a chokepoint, without constantly having to shift-click them around it. Bombard: this marker also comes with an area. Artillery and other long range units will prioritise firing at enemies inside this area if they can reach it. It will not make them move here, nor will it make them move closer to the area, but given the choice between shooting an enemy inside or outside the field, targeting priority goes to the enemy inside the field. Transport: Transport units can be attached to this marker, which makes them move to the surrounding area and wait there. Ordering a unit to move to the marker will make it load into a nearby available transport. Should come with a reverse Unload marker, which makes any transport sent to it unload its cargo in the vicinity. Rally: You can order units to move to this marker, or use it as a rally point for factories. Moving this marker around the field will automatically update the orders for any unit assigned to it. This lets you set rally points for reïnforcements without having to go back and modify the rally for each factory, then each unit in motion somewhere, in the middle of a battle. Repair: You can attach repair units to this marker, making them wait in the vicinity. Sending a regular unit to this marker makes repair units automatically target it for repair once the unit is close enough to the marker. Guard: This marker has an area around it. Units in the vicinity will give targeting priority to enemies opening fire on any non-military targets inside the area (workers, factories, etc). With these markers, you retain full control over your units, but they will allow far more powerful contextual control over your units. There is no reason at all why it should be 10 clicks to make a unit fall back to a point where an friendly repair unit will start patching it up. Or any of a number of different orders which should be simply (especially with large numbers of units on the field) but require a lot of clicking in a traditional interface. Apologies if this has been said (or implemented) before, I couldn't find anything. Let me know if this is an amazing/good/decent/bad/horrible idea and how you could maybe make it better. I can, if needed, work it out more with examples of how the UI would work and such, but I'd like to hear if the base is good first Thanks.
I think this is an interesting idea. Perhaps a simple drag-and-click circular/square template, letting you decide how large a size the marker should be. As for load/unload; It might be useful to be able to adjust quickly how 'full' a transport should be before moving to its Unload point- Any units, Half units, or Full units? Any units or Full units? Something like that.
necroing this because it is genius. I totally agree with this idea and if we want to make the ultimate macro game this is the way we should go
This has my full endorsement, I see nothing wrong with it. Instead of circular areas though, it would be cool if another layer of the cost map was used for these areas, and a paintbrush-like tool.
This is a brilliant idea. I would love to see it in the final game So many possibilities and options to decrease the amount of player's attention to micro so that he can focus more on the grand scheme to destroy his opponents
Fantastic idea. This will also make coordinating in Army matches a lot easier. Imagine a commander comes to help on a planet they haven't fought on and now they have markers on where to avoid. rally to, etc.
Personally love this idea. Fully endorse it. Intuitive tools like this will help so much on the grand scale.
thought of an extra marker. You know how Jon Mavor and Steve were talking about making base markers such as giving you base a name, and then when you zoom out enought the strategic icons would combine to these fewer icons? well I was thinking you sould also be able to set an enemy base marker! you place it over their base once you've scouted it, you let units roll off the production line to their rally point, and once you want to attack you can simply select the forces you want and right click the enemy base marker, and the troops will go over there and engage all targets in that zone. hence with easy macro you could set all of whatever you want including factory rally points to a single point that you could move around at leisure using shift.
