Area patrols now worse than before

I am not sure when this behavior began, but (whether I am using mods or not) area patrols seem to be broken. In the past, area patrols have been non-random (for difficult to resolve mathematical reasons having to do with random number generation and polar coordinates). While this is completely understandable the recent behavior of area patrols appear to be different than that of the past.

Currently, units commanded to conduct an area patrol will tend move back and forth along a diameter of the circle. I have noticed that (for the most part) this diameter tends to be perpendicular to the polar axis. The units rarely (or never) venture elsewhere on their own. A nearby enemy will cause the units to pursue, but this occurs after the enemy has already destroyed units/structures meant to be protected by the area patrol.

I have uninstall all mods and tested this observation and reinstalled mods and tested again. In both cases the tendency for units to traverse a diameter of the area patrol remained.

Have others observed this?

Thanks

I did. Didn't think too much of it until you said something though.

I still think it serves its purpose just fine. If you don't like it then micro a patrol that covers the perimiter of an area.

I understand you point of view. But it is not about that, it is about identifying bugs/problems in the game so that PA is well excepted by people when it is officially released.

Why not? It is a behavior that your average user would look at and say, "What is this, this is not what I would expect" and then not play PA. The goal is to get more people to play, right?

Well, you are welcome to your opinion. The fact is that area patrols are not doing what they are meant to do. You suggest an alternate approach (which I do personally use because area patrols do not work as expected), and while it is a temporary solution, the issue at hand still needs to be addressed.

Except that it's current behavior is exactly what I expect, and exactly what I want. If I area patrol somewhere I want the units space out throughout that area so I can quickly select them and send them all nearby if I need to.

Hmm, maybe you and I are experiencing different behaviors with respect to the area patrol. Do you have something more specific to provide to this discussion? I talk about diameters of the patrol area, what do you have to say about that, specifically?

So, you are saying that when you order a patrol area, all of the units will explore the entire area that you have defined? Because this is not the case for me.

Oh, that's weird. You're talking about the patrol command where you hit P and then left-click drag a circle, right?

I don't really pay attention much when doing that; typically, I do area patrols when I want some units (often air) to just guard a bunch of mexes so I can do other things without worrying about harass. I haven't had any issues where every unit just patrols in a diameter when I do that.

I've found planet wide area patrol (for scouting and if you control whole planet) work as expected.

However when placing a small area patrol over my base with air what your describing occured.

This needs more investigation as we need to establish:
- Is it dependent on area?
- Does unit type patrolling effect it?

Once we can nail it down it should be added to the bug tracker.

Hello RushSecond,

I also use area patrols to guard metal extractors, as well as my main base. In fact, I rarely give an order to my military units that does not use the area patrol command. I never really desire my military units to go to a specific place, but rather desire that they control an area. Maybe that is why I have noticed this issue. It is not very noticeably initially because the patrol area is so small; however, when the patrol area becomes half of a planet the problem will become apparent.

Sincerely,
Mark

Hello cdrkf,

I have discovered that the behavior under discussion includes both land and air units for area patrols smaller than the entire planet. I usually form large unit groups according to air/land/navy.

I have observed that land/air units given an area patrol order will typically traverse a diameter of the patrol area that is parallel to the polar axis. However, this is not always the case; sometimes, the diameter that is traversed is not parallel to the polar axis. In the past, units would explore a much larger portion of the area described by the patrol area.

Best regards,
Mark

Ah nice work. My recommending is post this on the bug tracker and share link. I'll add a +1 to it.

What? you're suggesting that people would suddenly not play PA because of a bug? When the game isn't done? Also, echoing what someone else said about planetary area patrols still working, which is actually why I didn't think much of it. Not to mention the line of patrol appeared to be perpendicular to the enemy's facing, though that might actually have more to do with the way I dragged the circle of area patrol than the direction the enemy faced. Finally, this didn't happen in EVERY case- area patrols set over an ally's base (in this case a subcommander) worked like I expected. Overall I'm not sure they're working worse, but they ARE working differently and that should be reported.

I was not suggesting not to play PA. What I was suggesting is that this behavior in the area patrol be taken seriously.

It's probably just bugged.

Uber pathing is notoriously infamous

All I'm going to say about having it taken seriously is that as long as it's reported, Uber can decide whether something broke or whether it was one of those undocumented changes.

I'm running into this still/again on the PTE build. I'll give an area patrol for fabbers to work on a nuke field. The fabbers will finish one nuke and then move back in forth on a line. over and over and over. not moving onto a new area.

I have observed, in pte and possibly stable, that a commander send on very small area patrol just in the center of 2 factories, will not be interrupted often to assist the factories, while before they would assist nonstop and rarely take a single step away.