Should fabbers building something keep building when moved?

If a move command is given to fabbers that are fabricating, assisting, repairing, or reclaiming something, should they keep fabricating that thing ala attacking for combat units unless given a stop command or should they instantly stop fabbing as soon as the move command is issued like we have now?

hmmmmm...

Could be handy in some situations, and unhelpful in other situations.

Would be great if they kept building so you could move them if they come under fire.

But it would also be unhelpful when you're trying to cancel construction of a building because you're stalling eco or something.

So.

I dunno. I see arguments for either way.

If you're trying to cancel construction, you can always use your stop/cancel hotkey or your turn off hotkey. I think that this would be more useful than harmful.

Very true. Good point.

Although... currently they can't construct/repair while moving for balance.

So... maybe automatically start building again after they move?

An ability being useful is not a reason to add it. It would be quite useful if we had a button to instantly kill your opponents commander at any time (in the sense that the ability would be used). Your opponent has access to the same abilities as you do.

The ability to move during construction would let constructors dodge incoming fire. This effectively gives them increased durability against inaccurate things. If this durability is significant enough then the balance would evolve such that players are expected to jink their constructors. So the mechanic is a round-about method of adding survivability with a large micromanagement requirement. I assume we are still trying to minimise micro so health would be a much better source of survivability. If the ability to move and construct is not so important that it forces players to jink their constructors then why add the ability in the first place?

There are other uses for this ability. Constructors could repair armies as they move but this would be finicky as you would have to keep the constructor in range of whatever it is repairing.

I think it would case more headaches then it would be worth. Also it would encourage people to micro with them. I could see someone running up to a base and ultra microing them and building a gun right at someones doorstep even while under fire.

I can just imagine a wall of vanguards marching towards a base with a mass of combat fabbers behind them repairing on the move. Or combat fabbers dancing around tanks while building mines everywhere. Or fabbers building turrets in the middle of combat.

I don't think its a good idea. In fact, I think they should go they other way on this: Make fabbers (non-combat ones) have to unpack their nanolathe before they can use it (like in TA). This would deepen the gap between combat fabbers and non-combat ones and punish anyone trying to build things like defenses in open combat or in enemy players bases (where you shouldn't be building anyways).

Don't combat fabbers already do this to some extent?

Already in the game. Combat fabbers repair on the move.

Hey, it makes combat fabbers more useful.

If fabbers can build turrets fast enough in the middle of combat to not get destroyed before the turret is up, then that's an issue with turret cost. Unless you mean behind the front lines, in which case it doesn't matter either way.

Rather pointless. Would add a second to their fab time for no reason. -1.

Reminds me of Homeworld's 'tactical move', short moves that wouldn't change a ship's orders or target.

But you don't have to micro them.


They could micro themselves with levels of unit AI.

Yes, unit AI is a possibility. The thing about unit AI is that it has a cost in implementation, performance and complexity. If you need to add an AI to make the mechanic work then you have to work a bit harder to justify the inclusion of the mechanic.

If you really wanted busy constructors to have increased survivability against inaccurate units then letting them move during construction and adding an AI to do so is justified. If you just want some survivability then health is probably a better option. If you don't have any desired outcome when implementing this mechanic (it just sounds cool) and it requires AI to manage then it is better to not add it.

Unit AI could potentially eliminate micro, making macro much more important.

But I agree, it has costs. Too much unit AI and it turns into one of those games where you set a fleet makeup and send your spaceships to fight the opponent, then watch the result passively.

Or Lego Rock Raiders, where you spend your whole time being generally frustrated at the inability to give more explicit queued commanders to your rock raider lego man.

Guys, the way to reduce micro isn't to reduce the usefulness of micro, but merely make it so that's it's usually more useful to macro than to micro.

If tanks will be unable to hit micro'd fabbers, then that's more of an issue with the accuracy of tank shells than anything else. In any case, if someone is able to get fabbers in the proximity of your base so that they can build the laser turret, you're doing it wrong.

I think you missed my point. I am not against using unit AI to eliminate micro. I just think that there are better ideas to consider before you decide to add some unit AI. If a mechanic is causing a lot of micromanagement then a general solution is to remove the mechanic. It is time to think about unit AI if it turns out that you cannot remove the mechanic.

Mechanics exist to create some sort of interaction within the game. It is good to keep in mind the purpose of a mechanic and consider the range of mechanics which fulfill the same or similar purpose. This range of mechanics is useful because each will often have different effects on the player and interface. Mechanics which essentially do the same thing in the game world can vary significantly in how tedious or apm intensive they are for players to use.

In short there are two directions to approach micro reduction. One way is to improve the unit AI (as well as UI) and another is to implement mechanics which do not require a lot of micro in the first place.

This thread is already problematic because no purpose has been put forth for the proposed mechanic. I assumed that the purpose would be to make constructors more survivable and suggested they be given more health instead.

Not really.... No.

Giving the unit more health still means that micro is important. But now you've got more time to do so. So it's not really a solution.

Because units are so fragile, the focus tends to be more on the macro. You could spend 15 seconds observing that fabber so you can micro it "just so" at the "perfect moment". Or you could spend 15 seconds ensuring that the fabber never needs to be microed by doing macro stuff.

If the fabber has more health, it lengthens the window that you can micro it in. If it takes 15 seconds to die, you can notice the attack 5 seconds late, and you still have 10 seconds of "wriggle room" to wriggle in.

I think that to eliminate micro you just need to speed up the game to the point where only the CPU could do all the micro that the player deems necessary. So I think that to make micro less important, you would reduce the health of the units.

AT which point, I'm against artificial stupidity. So I'd much rather that units did sensible intelligent stuff without their commander in chief having to explicitly order them to shake after going. If you know what I mean ;P

I think I do agree that such a feature probably isn't necessary... Imagine fabbers creating walls without having to stop moving.

Not really a solution to what?

To make the macro important.

Do fabbers really need to be resilient to damage? They should never be attacked. Ideally.

My thoughts on unit HP related to micro/macro: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/my-thoughts-on-the-game.57809/#post-895694

The gist of it: I think adding HP reduces micro, not the other way around.

I think that this is generally a bad approach to reducing the importance of micro.
If you look at kiting for example it would be pretty bad to increase the game speed just to make it harder to use kiting. It would basically remove kiting which I think is an interesting tactic. I think it would be better to automate kiting so you can still keep the gameplay.
If you look at bullet dodging in PA, it is usually of little importance. Projectiles are pretty fast and many units, especially tanks, simply turn too slowly and accelerate too slowly to dodge most projectiles. Sure if you could micro you all your Doxes at the same time to dodge projectiles it could be pretty useful but you can't really do that so in a way, bullet dodging is obfuscated by the heavy micromanagement requirements like you suggest.