Just a odd thought, PA has a TON of micoing involved. Tonight for a change of pace I played a bit of Majesty. It's a fantasy RTS type game, but instead of microing everything the "hero's" wander around and do their own thing. That got me thinking... Now I don't want PA turned into a completely no microing. However It might be worthwhile if we could have a setting on a fab for "aggressive" mode. Basically the factory would build aggressor style squad. For example bot factory would build 9 Dox and 1 Spinner (think I have the names correctly), then it would send them off to find and destroy enemy targets. Could even have it were you could tell it what you want in the squad and how many. It would give you some breathing room on microing, as controlling small squads to harass your opponent is very micro intensive. Just a thought.
while it may seem like a ton of micro-ing to you, it pales in comparison of some high level Starcraft 2 matches. this game is shying away from micro-ing in the "traditional" sense. factory production and general scouting can be reduced to a few initial commands - production can be automated, and the area command for patrol is useful for scouting an area, or indeed an entire planet. Area commands in general simplify a lot of things. instead of telling your units "ok, attack this, then this, then this, etc" , you can now simply tell them "everything in this particular area must die." it's great for invading planets, where you can task them with assaulting the entire planet surface - i call this giving them a "purge" order - especially if you don't quite know where they are beforehand. though for that, you would use a patrol command, as area attack simply makes them target everything within the circle - that can be seen. Also, you can kind of already do what you are talking about. you can, for example, give an air factory an area patrol command. then, all aircraft produced by it will be given that factory's task. not sure how it works with other area commands, but it's safe to assume that they work well together. you can also set a build qeue and set it to repeat. then units will be built in the number and order you specify, on loop, forever, or until it gets blown up, or the server crashes.
Oh my god. I was thinking about how cool it would be to have an RTS likr Game of Thrones, where you control the heroes, but you are never really sure whether the smallfolk are on your side or not, whether a hero will rise from within their ranks, etc. Majesty is that game.
The idea about a button that continuously builds attack squads sounds nice. It would be better if you could customize these
I feel like factories that produce squads to send out to attack targets is taking it a bit too far. There are already some good options: * Make a bunch of factories. Set them to attack-move into the enemy base. Let that happen while you work on other things. Be sure to include Shellers and this actually works great. * Set a factory or two to patrol the entire planet (or perhaps the wider area around a particular target). The units will randomly wander around and whittle down anything that isn't nailed down by turrets and walls. I *always* do this with 1 T2 air factory but a T1 bot factory does a reasonable job for cheap. It really messes with people who run out and build a bunch of mex and don't put up any defense for them. Your patrols will eventually take them all down with no oversight from you. If you look around and notice that your patrols have been running into a bit of defense somewhere then it's up to you to organize a strike force for that area. I don't think the game should do that for you.
Yea but on the other hand making certain stuff like presetting build order would be nice. There is so much macro in this game that you are usually left microing your macro.
You can build "squads" with the infinite build. I don't want these groups of units to go off attacking without following my grand master plan.
Your welcome to your view, but it's not like I am alone in this view. If you don't like it don't use it, It's really that simple. More command options is a good thing, particularly in a game like this were their is a high number of casual players vs the more hardcore players. Casual players will love it, some hardcore players would even use it. Simple Area commands sorta can do this, but at a much greater cost. With Area Command I have to build 10 fabs to do the effect I was talking about with 1 fab. That's a HUGE difference in resources involved. Another issue with area command, unless I select the entire planet I wouldn't get the same effect of this little attack group seeking out the enemy to destroy. They would only go to the area I told them to and destroy in that area.
So it would be like building templates from supcom but instaed for units. The biggest difference to now is that units would leave in packs. Currently if you waypoint a factory a trickle is the only option. It isn't that far from current functionality as move orders automatically synch the movement rate. You could implement this as a "send pack" order in the build queue. If such a order exists in the queue units would not start following the factory waypoints immidietly. Only when the order is in "production" would unitsn produced until that point do so.
i usually am able to make attack squads with auto build. i just have to decide when my apropriately-ratio'd-blob is big enough.
It's not a matter of loving it, hating it or using it. I just think it would be bad for the game. You could also make an argument that the whole game should run on automatic, completely under AI control, while we watch and make tweaks to what the AI is doing. "If you don't like it, don't use it. More command options is a good thing and some players would use it", right? (Did anyone else ever play the super-old game, Omega? The whole point was you wrote an AI script and then pitted your tank against others, their AI versus yours with no further player input. That was cool and I would like to see another game like that some day but not this game.)
You could make that argument, but at that point haven't you taken it to far? That's really not different then what we have right now. One side we have no automation, the other end which you bring up is the other side of the spectrum, Full automation. All I am asking for is a nudge away from no automation. If currently we are sitting at 1, and the other side is a 5. I am looking for a 2 on that scale. I might also point out that full automation wouldn't be PA. That would be nothing like TA, and PA is suppose to be a spiritual successor.
