Lieutenant Commanders confirmed

I do believe Sub-Commanders have been talked about however not in this context.

I would like to start by bringing up the current level of control required to maximize your production capabilities.

I have a lot of engineers and wish to build and maintain my infrastructure, (econ and fabrication) pace my

Upgrade to T2 econ, fabrication and military

Manage engineer assist etc....

At the moment it isn't to terribly much for one surface but as we begin to move to multi-planet/surface combat it will begin to become a lot to handle for one human being. To many processes to handle now this shouldn't be a problem when playing against other human players as we are all "slow" compared to the death dealing AI that will be developed, Thanks Sorian. However for people who wish to play single player galactic wars vs. an AI the a human will be at a significant disadvantage especially towards the back end of the game lets face it we can't compete.

So what I'd like to see discussion on is the addition of a Supplemental commander (obviously toggle on/off based on match preference) that is controlled to a degree by an AI. I'm not a programer so I don't understand how difficult the implementation of such a feature would work however some features I'dlike to see are as follows

(Behavior is probably a more suitable replacement for the word Personality but as long as my point is well recieved)

1). Sub commander AI personalities

a) much like the traditional personalities you can set for an opponent AI in most other RTS games. (base builder, econ, aggressive)

2). The ability to select a range of operation for that commander

a). After the commander is built i can, via some user interface menu (similar to construction?),
select my personality for the sub-commmander and hold lets say left click and then drag out to adjust a radius that will become the circular area of "operation for that sub-commander AI.

3). I want to be able to change personalities as planetary situations change

a). obviously if I'm on a planet alone i want a base builder/ econ focused sub-commander as opposed to a planet that I'm being attacked on where i will need a more aggressive unit producing commander

4). Balance.... tricky and i may be going about it incorrectly.... The Sub-Commander AI "intelligence" would scale based on a few parameters.

a). The presence of primary AI's in game (I define primary AI as an army only controlled by the neural network... no human control) If a Say a level 10 Opponent AI it present in the game all human sub-commanders would be at level "x"(chose x for the sake of discussion). we don't want sub-commanders to be smarter then our Computer opponents as that would be to easy.

b). my second scaling parameter would be the size of the simulation. larger maps would mean more fronts, units and bases to manage therefor the sub-commanders should be more intelligent to scale. the inverse also applies

c). once a sub-commander intelligence level is determined by the above parameters that intelligence level is applied to all human players no exceptions as to balance it out

i). perhaps sub-commander limit per planet the preventing a spam of little AI's

So now that I'm done..... Lemme hear what y'all think!!!!

neat idea. Sorian will want to gut you though if this ends up being to Neutrino's liking.

Don't worry about Sorian. To a lesser extent, this is already just what he needs to develop for the regular AI.

Although I don't see why you would need a Sub Commander for this task, most of the described scenarios are actually either solvable by an individual unit AI (which you can be damn sure there will be, if not supplied by Sorian, then in the form of a client side mod) and by a template system for base construction with timed macro blocks (again: If not supplied by the game, it would be supplied by mods).

The best Subcommander is another player. Fortunately, the game supports a lot of players.

-Exter
I use Sub-commander as a physical unit because it would (hopefully) be visibly distinct and would provide as a target much like a actual commander. Game play wise it gives human players a chance to focus less on building maintaining and queuing up armies on currently established bases/ planets and more time planning your next strategic expansion or controlling a massive multi-front assault on your enemy...
Yes the best commander is another player... but how often will you play 3 players one army for one team as opposed 3 armies 3 players for one team.

My main belief as to why this would be a good idea...
I believe it would assist greatly for traditional team vs team game play as it allows you to move on from early game (which is eco and initial infrastructural development) to the later game which is the annihilation.

Neat idea, I like most of what I'm reading here. could also serve as a decoy commander in a sense?

Excellent idea, I hope this gets implemented.

There are lots of AI assistance ideas floating around here. Some offer more or less help to the player, some propose an ai mainframe building instead of a sub-commander, etc. This thread is kind of a combination of ideas from a few other AI threads, and it looks like a pretty good idea to me.

Either way I'm not aware that Uber has a stance on this subject. But even beside that, we'll have to see what multi-planet battles look like first before discussions like these can have much meaning.

I agree with you osirus, much is speculation until multi-surface game play is implemented.
that said, its better to start discussion now seeing as orbital is "here" (not finished i acknowledge) and next big dollar item will be inter-planetary combat.

Now what i interpret as an "AI mainframe" as discussed in other threads is a building that acts as an AI and controls units as such. However with no mobility it would be able to construct things in a range of placement. if my interpretation is wrong please let me know.

-Galactic
i don't know about decoy commander, it functions autonomously like one but i think it needs to have a recognizable visible distinction from the commander. That being said I value a moving sub-commander AI system to the aforementioned mainframe (building) AI because it means that high priority command and control unit wont be smack dab in the middle of your base under heavy guard. yes i know the primary commander will be hidden in your base at times but if you want to build something or expand using the commander or sub-commander will provide building speed advantages that engineers don't posses. Consider how far behind in a game you get now if you don't use your commander to build (even once you're past first factory). you will get quickly overrun.

i prefer the idea of support commanders. i would love to see maybe a tactical command setting reducing the command range significantly but allows it to issue multiple orders quickly making it very useful to send with your high value units and it will do individual dodge micro and focus targeting ect.

also command priorities are a must. the support commander cant override commander or each other's orders. there should be some sort of iconic denotation to show when a unit is given an order by a support commander

-Fouquet
I definitely agree with you on the ability to not override player given orders 100%. I believe that only one should be allowed per planet, something along those lines... make them hard to move or whatever lol but i believe
"the player" should only be able to get one on a planet that way there isn't a support com spam fest going on. If anybody is going to get the AI down it will be Sorian.

This may sound like a good idea but I played some games where you could let AI control some of your units and it was just disastrous. The AI doesn't have the same priorities as the player and does seemingly stupid things because it believes it is the most efficient solution to given situation. And it usually is.

Another bad thing about this was that 'bad' players always enabled the AI for everything because the AI could play better than them and you ended up playing just another AI match rather than player vs player. This gives players the illusion that they know how to play the game when that is not the case. Even if the AI is scriptable to allow you to make it play the way you do, it will only end up as AI vs AI and whoever has better AI script wins.

In general AI assisting was rather frustrating for both, veterans and AI users and I don't think AI assisting should be part of the game as it causes more problems than it solves. On the other hand I do want to see AI modders to compete against each other AIs and even have AI tournaments.

No!!!!

I think we should have AI controlled units to a limited degree.

I do not think they should be able to attack, maybe not be able to control combat units at all. What I think is all fabbers should have an "auto-build" mode like defensive (will build defenses around all the "bases" it can see) econ (goes around trying to build a balance of mex and power) production (builds factories as resources allow) and assisting (will search out and assist factories/constructions) intelligence (goes around building radar and sonar) etc.

EDIT: probably should have some nerf or disadvantage so that players that do this manually have some advantage, particularily early game.

No no no no no no no!!!!! Just as I said in the other related thread no!!! To much reward for the first person off planet. Your ability to strategically manage your entire empire is part of a STRATEGY game. If you choose to spend to much time in one area and forget the others that's your fault. Besides with the suggestions for ui having small Windows to what's happening on other planets it will hopefully be much easier to manage multiple planets. I just can't get onboard with an ai controlling other places you're not focused on.

Example: I get to orbital quickly and get my comm safe and free to another planet as well as support comm. Set him to eco on new planet now I can come back to home planet and simply smash your face because the eco aspect has been removed for me. I no longer care about eco on home planet because my ai friend is making more money than Bill gates. All I have to do is build a massive army fudge your eco up, then as your try to recover lost economic buildings I crush what's left of you because as stated I care not for eco

Talk about a way to discourage new players as exp players fly straight off planet with ai comm Set to eco mode then butt rape the starting planet.....

If this thread was created because multiple fronts fries your brain atm don't worry it did mine to at first. You will learn to master your priorities and remember what you were doing where....... until then I will continue to take out comms left floating in orbit around other planets XD

I posted in the OP that this is a controllable option in the menu of the game, and should primarily be added due to the gaming interactions, not between human players, but human players and the Primary AI

and yes beer4blood I agree with you this would be a particular challenge when referring to this addition to player vs. player that is why I believe it should be implemented for games where the human is playing against AI's

Against other Humans this idea is moot as we are all handicapped by not being able to observe or act on all fronts of the game instantaneously, this is not true when playing against the AI which Can not only observe on all fronts at a given moment in time but can act on all fronts at any given point in time.

This Would be for Human vs AI games here the disadvantage exists