Unit skirmish button!

The ai uses this and it can be real hard to snipe their moving bots with air. So bombing larger blobs not protected by air will have no negative impact on the bot guy. I know this is just one example but it is pretty anti stategy and unit composition.

Auto-dodge doesn't really seem reasonable, or feasible without rather complicated unit AI. What would decide when they dodge versus when they don't? Or which way they dodge?
Things like dodging, splitting units, strafing, etc. should be left to micro in my opinion.

I agree.

Not a fan, actually.
I for one would have one key requirement for any kind of automation: It has to introduce minimal computational overhead. So basically everything requiring a second thought when microing manually should not be subject to automation.
Think reflexes vs. deliberate actions.

I'd play Madness: Project Nexus if I was looking for a game with auto-dodge. In fact I think the game's autododge mechanism works incredibly well as a shield replacement. Instead of one target soaking up all the bullets, you can make an entire line of enemies have to dodge a bullet. in that game, a character's ability to dodge incoming fire is measured as a tactical bar and when that runs out..... they get hit. It's actually well balanced, and too bad the flash environment couldn't keep up with the game they wanted to build.

But I've spent enough time talking about an autododge mechanism I don't want to see in PA.

The assanine thing is, the AI can already do this, but the thing that seperates pros from newbies isn't tactic, but having enough attention and click-speed to make 6 platoons fight with accurate kiting while the newbie can only make 1 platoon kite.

Being the guy who can only get 1 platoon to kite, I WANT THEM TO KITE THEMSELVES, cmthefuckon, you pros can beat me even if they kited themselves, you don't need micro to beat me, the little bit of micro we leave in PA should be enough and kiting really doesn't win for anyone that deserves it.

Or, turn it off for the AI so they can't kite everything at once, then at least I can feel good against the AI

Or make it an option. Any tournaments of true-skill pro competitive 360 quickscopers sponsored by mountain dew or doritos, can just remove it anyway. If kiting required around a maximum range and a unit parameter in the .json, it can be modded out for a tournament edition of PA that tournament people can use while I let my units kite themselves and feel good about it.

I think a bunch of people made this same point in this thread already (including me), but after 15 pages of posts, that point gets lost to people who don't have the time to go back and read it. This is why you see the same arguments being made over and over incessantly. The people who are focused on only arguing the extreme for or against don't seem to want to acknowledge that the majority is arguing the middle ground option that you have re-iterated here. Even neutrino's response was in reference to the original post, the extreme automation option which is unfortunate.

In any case, when enough pain is felt with larger games as the average game size/length increases, I'm pretty confident it will become fairly self-evident to everyone at that point that some level of automated unit response will be a requirement. Of course I'm speaking about a simple response to a few common situations. Maybe just incorporating some sort of Area Defense command (an area that is player defined), so that the units that I have defending a base don't have to continually patrol an area in singular fashion, but move as a group to respond to an attack, or split themselves into equal separate groups to respond to a 2 pronged attack, instead of just sitting there, out of position while the base gets destroyed. I don't think that's too much to ask. I'd settle for that option alone. In general, I'd love to see a shared area of vision between units with a common purpose (or a group response), so that with a guard/assist command for example, a unit guarding a fabber will react to an enemy that comes into the visual range of the fabber as well as its own, not just its own. I don't think this is asking for the elimination of micro, just some simple intuitive assistance from your units.

Skirmish at 95% vision range, if that don't work 90%, suddenly auto-skirmish isn't as optimal as manual kiting. Why? Attacking units of same range don't skirmish in this scenario, and artillery won't skirmish until something's almost right up next to em.

Well then......what would be the point?

They don't automatically die from Vanguards/Infernos?

I like the thrust of this idea! I would turn the range down a notch or two, though. More like 66% or 50%. That way the difference to manual micro is readily available, yet survivability will still increase.
Plus, give skirmishers bigger vision radii that they would need to fulfill their role anyways. Would also benefit manual micro.
Everybody wins. Up until their commander dies, that is.

I thought the idea was to protect unit's that shouldn't be standing still, not to make skirmishers stronger.

That should be the players role.

Having fabbers run away, and like, having tanks move away makes sense, kinda, but having dedicated skirmishing units do so isn't what I will ever support.

That's full on stupid to suggest, because that really is unit automation, that is unacceptable.

And if unit's only move away at like 60% of their sight range, a range that is very, very small for any non scout, it won't do anything, your stuff will always die.

I liked your post up until this point. Buuuut.....

Technically, we already have micro automation, maneuver. I'll keep repeating myself on that one.
But it only works for going forward, and so those that benefit from moving backward can't benefit from it.
Which is why I suggested having the option of advance/retreat engagement modes, so that all units can have fairly comparable levels of useful (but exploitable) automation.
I don't think it's "stupid" to suggest full skirmish, I just think it's too much for this game.

yeah I know....