Limited Base Automation

One thing I've always struggled with in RTS games is multitasking between directing my armies and major offensives on one side of the map while managing construction in my base on the other side. This is somewhat mitigated by the phenomenal queuing systems in TA and SupCom (particularly SupCom's repeating build button), but there's still a degree of micromanagement that gets tricky when my focus necessarily shifts completely to somewhere outside my base.

Are there any really good ideas for dealing with this that I've missed in other RTS games? My current idea is that I'd like to have a "hand over to an AI" button I can click that lets the AI take over any idling construction units (engineers and factories both). Maybe one button on each individual unit lets me flag that unit, and then one universal UI button lets me activate or deactivate AI control for all flagged units. Then I can (hopefully) trust the AI to wisely manage my resources while I focus on a massive incursion into the enemy base.

What do you guys think?

If i understood you right I would say everything would be like in SupCom.You let your base be itself and command your units in the battlefield.If you like to send engineers around your base to support/repair buildings/units you can command them to patrol the base and drive a specific way you like.
Anyway if you have more than one monitor you can use the multiple windows feature which Uber explained.
And the idea about "click a button and the AI takes control over your base" is pretty bad in one way.The AI would maybe change some economie stuff or build buildings you dont want.

Well bases are already quite automated with logistics and function, but a way of easily setting engineers to auto-maintain a base might be nice.

Otherwise bases are just where you build troops, and thus already automated enough.

If there is a priority system like in Zero-K (and it really should), an engineer AI assigning engineers to assist the highest-priority tasks could be nice.
There is also repairing/rebuilding destroyed structures (and units?).
Maybe a "build a factory somewhere" with the AI choosing a nearby placement that won't hinder the rest of the base. Or building anti-missiles in a way they cover all the base.
Some way to tell an air factory to build just enough transports for the production of others (taking into account the surviving transport who are back), in addition to its own "padding" build queue...

There's no such thing as a balanced base automation feature that takes over construction orders. It will inevitably suck and become a crutch that prevents new players from getting better.

I personally refer to the idea of a area based 'assist' order where an engineer will repair, reclaim and rebuild destroyed buildings.

But I suppose a patrol order already cover 2 of these points.

I think this would be the end of the RTS genre. What is RTS all about? Managing war and managing resources.
Why not asking for a button like "AI, play for me! I go to sleep"?

I'm surprised at how many people want to simply Base Building even more, it was already leagues easier than anything in like SCII.

If you don't want to manage a base, you've come to the wrong game if you ask me. Any much more what FA gave us is treading into "The game playing itself" Territory.

Mike

We are back to the "trivial" point in the defining micro thread. Some things in base managing are trivial.

I want my buildings to be repaired and rebuilt. I want my engineers to assist. Unless there is too much bp/not enough resources, then I want them to reclaim if available around. OTOH, I don't want them to reclaim if storages are full (unless I just want to deny wrecks to the enemy, but a "force reclaim" setting would be simple). I want my air factories to build just the good number of transports for my units. I want my missile defences to be placed to just cover my base without holes and with as little overlap as possible.
Those are pretty trivial, asking for no tactical thinking once the decision is made. As such, there should probably be an option to automate them.

On the other hand, building a fourth air factory is not trivial and should be a player decision, not an AI one.

Though I'd be curious to see a mod where the AI can make tactical decisions and auto-manage bases and armies, with the player only taking the highest decisions ; kind of like in Distant Worlds, where the AI will pretty much play (badly, I heard) by itself if you let it, and the player only manages what he wants to.
I just hope modding tools will allow you to use parts of the general/skirmish AI with a player-controlled army.

I am not arguing to automate building the base, just the maintenance of it so I can focus on the battle rather then having to manually replace lost buildings, repair damaged ones and reclaim resources (Possibly even auto build on deposits when the available resources are there).

But no to automate how I build the base.

Here's a thought. In some of the TA mods, there were turrets that were used to auto repair buildings and units in range. Some of them even had build capabilities for a limited set of buildings/defenses. Using something like this to manage a base has been suggested before, and works quite nicely in TA.

But let's take this one step further. We've discussed the concept of commands being implemented as actual entities, so what if we extended those commands to the command of constructing a building? Once a building is constructed, that command lies dormant. But if the building is destroyed, it becomes active once more, and any units, such as engies or repair turrets, that are capable of rebuilding that structure (and have an appropriate patrol or guard command) would be able to take on the task of rebuilding the structure.

Of course, you wouldn't want to just send your engineers out to patrol, because after a large attack that results in the destruction of several expensive structures, you'll essentially cripple your economy. But at least your building positions will be remembered, and you can quickly implement the construction once more.

Interesting idea. I'll have to ponder this more.

I think SACU's from SupCom could do it, but I have never done it personally.

They could, but they were an expensive, lategame unit, which limited their usefulness. Also, they weren't so great at it. (In my experience.)

Well, I definitely don't want full on automation akin to handing my entire army over to an AI. Nor do I want the AI to do annoying building placements or generally steal away the more "creative" parts of building a base. Intuitively speaking, what I'd like is to be able to basically switch between a "high-maintenance" and "low-maintenance" mode for my base. Most of the time, I'd rather have full control of just about everything. But when I'm in the middle of a pitched battle nowhere near my base, I don't want to have to worry about nano stalls or idling engineers back home.

As a general game design rule, I think it's best to make it easy for the player to focus on the most "interesting" part of the game at a given point. Early on, base construction. Later on, initial rushes, base expansion, large scale invasions, secondary and tertiary base construction, etc. Super heavy multitasking is just not fun for most people who can't do a zillion clicks per minute. I think creativity should be rewarded first, the ability to switch your attention between several places at once second.

Great ideas in here, by the way!

Incidentally, from my experience playing against people in TA, one of the big complaints is how hard it is to properly focus on rebuilding a base after an attack. I don't really know how best to mitigate that, but it is an interesting problem to consider, particularly for easing new players in and avoiding frustration that just makes them give up.

I have a thread that addresses this: viewtopic.php?f=61&t=36937

Basic idea is 'low-maintenance' commands can be issued to entire bases or planets while at a planetary zoom level, and 'high-maintenance' commands can be issued to individual units and structures at the usual SupCom zoom levels. I foresee a lot of compromise needed with 'low-maintenance' commands—like allowing base structures to get disorganized (from AI auto-placed structures) for the added benefit of time to focus on strategy and combat decisions— obviously this would be more useful during a complex late game than early game skirmishes.

I don't think those actions are non-trivial. More precisely I hope that actions such as what to build won't be trivial decisions. I'm not going to argue against the inclusion of this automation because some people might find it useful. I just doubt I would use it because setting up a smart configuration would be more effort than manually giving the orders. I'll be more thorough below.

Repairing - Would only idle cons repair? I certainly wouldn't want working cons to decide to stop their current job to repair something. Repair could also be balanced with cost and speed such that it is not a trivial decision.

There is a spectrum of ways to balance repair which change whether deciding to repair is trivial. If repair took 0 time and 0 resources then clearly any nearby constructor can afford to halt it's current order for 0 time and repair nearby units. On the other hand if it costs full time and resources then you might not want to repair often.

Rebuilding - Similar to repairing. Say your base is raided and you lose 2 level 1 reactors. There are a lot of situations in which you would not want to rebuild them; you might already have level 2 reactors, maybe you have less metal than you used to, there could be a whole forest you are planning to reclaim.

Sure there could be a UI for this. You could tag buildings which you want rebuilt if destroyed. This still has issues (such as what if a whole base is destroyed and which cons are told to build) and you would spend a lot of time tagging and untagging buildings. It is easier to manually rebuild when needed.

Reclaim - Area commands, that also applies to repair to some extent. Smart reclaim such that you don't excess is nice.

Auto-build Transports - The mobility of your army should be an important decision. Sure it is possible to make a game in which constructing transports is a no-brainer so the automation would be justified. I would prefer if this was a choice.

Auto-defence Placement - There can be a lot of nuance and decisions in defence placement and it isn't even a time critical micro choice. I don't know if FA managed this but in ZK where and when to build defence is important and tied in to the rest of you strategy.

Actually I really liked those engineering towers out of FA. They'd just sit in a specific spot and repair or aid everything in their radius. It was pretty nice and really all the automation I want.

A nice widget I saw in BA (but not used much due to strange UI) called Central Build AI.

Basically, you give the AI some cons, you give it a bunch of building tasks, and it carries it out with the cons, dividing the cons among projects according to some arcane weighting system and intelligently using suitable cons to start projects and leave for others to finish.

A TA example:
You have an adv. construction plane, a combat engineer and two T1 kbot cons under widget control. You Q-queue (the key for central build AI) a Moho Metal Maker, a line of wind generators and an energy storage.

The central build AI uses the combat engineer to aid a T1 con to build wind generators while the second T1 con assists the Moho MM. When either are done, they go build the energy storage or the other group's project automatically.