fabricator behaviors

i explained already that i consider them inpresice in their current state ..
i explained ALREADY that fabberbehaviors would work well ESPECIALY with patrols ..

frankly if all you can do is go on a ragepost over too much automation, were i explained ALREADY that it WON`T take away from the core management necessary, then there is no point in discussing this with you ...

i already said ... MULTIPLE times now ..

it´s not what i want and neither what this thread is about ..

they are different in the way eco, production and techprogession works, it doesn´t exlude that any of them can and do benefit from QoL functions ..
in fact OpenRA (red alert, tiberian dawn and dune 2) has a greater productionque for buildings and units, it has a zoomfunction like the megamap in TA: escalation ... it HAS actual attackmove that targets both units and buildings as well as spawning units from all factories while you assign what to generaly produce out of them considering in the original factories were only buildspeed multiplyers ..

the late Totalbiscuit created with "axiom" a mod for starcraft 2 that not only made macroplay easier but added a bunch of QoL that helped managing your armies better .. none of this however does take away of the coreorders or corework of minimal necessary managament from you

it´s however the lack of or inapropriate implentation of a quality of life function that makes managing a RTS game clunky ..
this has nothing to do with the game playing itself ...
patrol in it´s current state for some units IS clunky, the way areacommands for a couple units work IS inprecise ...

don´t see why that should be neccesary though ..
if i want a fabber to be part of an army to act as a medic it should be possible to select it as that accordingly ...

if i want a fabber to act as a combat engineer to built a mine field, a couple turrets or a teleporter then it should be possible to select it accordingly .. no extra hotkey necessary but optional ..

if i want a fabber to act as a harvester ... ... ... you get the point ..

Well I didn´t read all of it.. been playing primairily OpenRA for the last 2 years.. and boy.. I feel spoiled when I get back to PA with all it´s automazation.

Now to the point.. the problem I have with fabbers going straight for reclaim is that it indeed takes away a portion of skill. Not so much in the sense of skillfull attacks/micro or the sorts, but in time management/awareness/memory. It is an additional action to perform.

Instead of being on the fence about fabbers being auto reclaimers (which also in FAF issn't the case) You should focus more on Free Energy Mod being implemented as default in the game.

i don´t care about either of these .. FAF has more than enough flaws for me to no longer enjoy it .. (all TA likes having this constructor problem is one of them)
and a mod managing your power is not what i am looking for at all ..

since you played OpenRA .. i realy don´t get your position

in openRA, all C&Cgames, KKnD , the AoE games and the craftseries to name a few ... managing resourcesharvest with gathering units in these is barely a thing .. so why do have the TAlikes be so "special" in that? ... what fun is such a skill in a game that is about throwing large armies and/or units at each other?


and seriously if i can´t tell my constructors what i want out of a patrol f.e. ... then what is the patrolfunction worth for constructors if i constantly have to give a assist or reclaim order always manualy to more precisly tell them what to do?

Barely a thing? In order to be any competitive in both team games and 1v1's you have to babysit your harversters. Yes they automatically go harverst. however, they do so incredibily ineffecient. Mining a straight line all the way to the other side of the ore field with ore left right next to your ref. Or once a ore patch is mined out you have to transfer your harversters to the next ore patch to keep efficiency up (1 harverster per Ore mine). Or they just straight up bug out with 2 harversters wanting to go to each others tile and not finding a way to do it so they stand still.

Now true most of the things I mentioned are minimalist AI coding based. But you still need to watch it regularly. More so than in PA tbh, you queue a bunch of metal orders and fabbers go build mex, want them to reclaim select a reclaim area. And i've also noticed that when building air fabbers they automatically assist building without being instructed.

But yeah I see where you come from though.. I just don't find it any of an issue. want a fabber to assist than use patrol, see a lot of Junk lying arround, select a few to reclaim than queue a patrol again for the assist. This is so much less actions and attention than the constant monitoring of harversters in CnC/RA/craft series. Also because reclaim is a secondary income, not always necessary.

as you said micromanaging harvesters is a matter of competitive play or high tier games ..
but i am not such a player and micromanage them to the bare minimum only .. indeed if the automation is less optimal then it´s to the interest of the player to micromanage them .. that is if he can do so reliably as any action you do in that regard may be a action you may have better spend on a offensive or defensive action instead .. because these as well can decide the next minutes of your game ..

as for patrol assist .. as i mentioned before it´s clunky ... you set a patrol and the fabber may assist a structure that is set to repeat que .. maybe i just want to repair stuff after an attack f.e. , maybe i just want to assist contruction of buildings in a area only .. all actions that i could reduce theoretically to 2 clicks intead of having to come back to the fabber repeatedly and tell him what to assist/repair next individualy ..

combatfabbers also aren´t optimal .. because either you want them with your tanks to repair them, construct mines and teleporters or reclaim ..

so i can only see behaviors benefiting those units ..


sorry if i am repeating myself ..

I see your point and understand it better now. It actually has some merit. Have to say.. when I came back a few days ago when I got attacked my finger immediatly went to (z or x) hotkey for repairing my buildings. Only to remember that's not possible haha. So yeah I actually quite like the idea of a area repair/patrol command. But that's the only one I personally find quite interesting as assisting construction works quite reliable with normal patrol imo.

I mean, you can area repair as you guys describe.
press "R" and click/drag to make a circle.

separate assist commands for construction and unit production is an interesting idea

area commands that aren´t patrols to my knowledge (correct me if wrong) are finite, and patrolpaths can be given a more precise way of were the units should go however since you can´t set a speccific patrol to just reclaim, repair or finish buildconstruction instead of assist unitproduction is what makes patrol clunky for fabricators .. in the same way a areapatrol is clunky as well ..

In what way do you mean finite? As in they go through & stop? Because they don't but they do stay single purpose.

I would like to see an adjustment to the priority of a Fabber in Area Patrol though for sure.
As you say, they almost always bog down assisting factories with unit production.

For me the priority should be something like:

1. repair buildings
2. assist structure builds
3. repair units
   
4. reclaim wreckage
5. assist factories

So they'd go fix, build & reclaim first and only return to assist the factories when everything is sorted around the base.

Probably reclaim should adjust priority automatically depending on the state of the economy: max if you've got a shortage, bottom if you're at 100%

f.e. example you have a reclaim field or an area with units to repair .. you set an areacommand for any of these and the fabber goes trough it until there is nothing to reclaim or repair in that area ..
i definetively had moments were fabbers stopped following the areacommand

that would also be another way ..

however behaviors would be more specific/focused ..