Scatter button (X)?

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by noaveragejoe, June 20, 2013.

  1. noaveragejoe

    noaveragejoe Member

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    Hey all,

    Now this could already be there but i just don't know the key.

    Simple request for a scatter button. If you you have a bunch of units which are under heavy arty or regular fire, it would be nice to be able to select them and keep mashing (x) so they scatter in random directions the more you press the further they scatter.

    Like command and conquer x to scatter units. We can call the the panic button :) .

    Regards
    Joe
  2. kvalheim

    kvalheim Post Master General

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    Only if it's a big red physical button you plug in with the word PANIC written on it
  3. qwerty3w

    qwerty3w Active Member

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    I'd rather have custom formations like those spring RTS games and draw big circles for scattering.
  4. noaveragejoe

    noaveragejoe Member

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    This ok?

    Attached Files:

  5. noaveragejoe

    noaveragejoe Member

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    That would be allot of clicks in a panic situation were you are in the middle of an arty barrage. I think anyway. But to have formations anyway would be cool and useful.
  6. qwerty3w

    qwerty3w Active Member

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    But hold the the right mouse button and draw a circle isn't allot of clicks at all.
  7. veta

    veta Active Member

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    love this about spring

    noaveragejoe:
  8. noaveragejoe

    noaveragejoe Member

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    My apologies i actually misunderstood mate :lol: i get you now.

    I see the merit of this and thank you its a thing i just did not know about. But my OP request still stands and i think would still be very useful.

    Hit x and your units scatter in random directions and keep moving further from the their original points the more you hit x. I get you could use this to send them to a predetermined location but in the middle of a bombardment i would want to scatter my units to maximize survival without drawing a formation.

    [​IMG]

    It works well in toher games, but maybe its not for this one.

    Regards
    Joe
  9. YourLocalMadSci

    YourLocalMadSci Well-Known Member

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    I think it would be far more useful, and even less micro-y to have units that are smart enough to understand they need to scatter themselves if under long range fire.
  10. noaveragejoe

    noaveragejoe Member

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    That.......makes sense. agreed.
  11. KNight

    KNight Post Master General

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    Until the time you don't want them to scatter.

    Mike
  12. veta

    veta Active Member

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    That's why I like the light bulb toggle for unit AI in Zero-K, a necessity for any kind of "smart" feature.
  13. YourLocalMadSci

    YourLocalMadSci Well-Known Member

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    Indeed, but even if they scatter one time in ten when it is undesired, that's still 9 times they did something sensible, as opposed to 9 times they got blasted apart for sitting there like a bunch of lemons. I don't expect smart unit assistance to be perfect. Only to be better than no smart assistance at all.


    A perfectly sensible suggestion. If there's interface room for a manual scatter, then it could be just as well spent by having a auto-scatter toggle.
  14. noaveragejoe

    noaveragejoe Member

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    Agreed, last night during a game, i was navigating forces on the other side of the planet away from my base and did not realize my units were just sitting there at home getting blasted to tiny bits from lobber arty in another base because they were in a pile after being constructed.

    If auto scatter was enabled i could have gotten some out of range in time. Ah well :roll:
  15. kvalheim

    kvalheim Post Master General

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    Frankly a lot of the suggestions in this sound like people who aren't able to pay attention to their own army
  16. YourLocalMadSci

    YourLocalMadSci Well-Known Member

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    If you can pay attention to every bot at once, then your army isn't big enough.
  17. noaveragejoe

    noaveragejoe Member

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    That's a bad take on this. If i had a mini map i could have eyes on everything, but if i'm invested in a battle on the far side of the planet i would like to think that my units that are not in my line of sight have some sense of self preservation.

    This does not mean i or anyone else is a bad player for wanting a feature like this.

    And to further that this could also be a noob friendly system for
    when experience grows they may not even touch this feature.

    Allot of people have asked for a lot of features, this does not make them bad players because they want to improve a aspect of a system/unit/building provided by uber.

    Too true :lol:
  18. veta

    veta Active Member

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    I think there's a few things at play there. One is the fact that nothing is helping players filter the large amount of information they are presented with. Stuff like attack alerts and notifications are great because they provide a quick summation of important information. In the same way Uber plans to diminish the burden of APM for units, I hope they plan to diminish the burden of attention to units. I don't want to constantly watch every side of all my planets in case my units are dying, I want to focus on managing battles and strategy. Here's a suggestion I made in that vein that may have helped in the situation you described.

    Combined with a notification/alert system you'd have a lot of tools to quickly make informed decisions.
  19. ghostflux

    ghostflux Active Member

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    I wish the line formation thing would work in TA too. It really is an awsome tool to automate some form of micro. With the line formation in place, scatting is not really needed as you could just draw a circle around your own units to cause them to scatter.
  20. pauloaugusto

    pauloaugusto New Member

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    I could hardly believe when in one of the videos one of the developers said he refused to .. basically understand the need/importance of the minimap. In one other video where they were showing the gameplay, the guy playing suddenly goes «ho, wait, just found out I'm getting attacked somewhere else - scroll scroll scroll, drag drag, scroll scroll scroll».

    Inability to oversee the whole battlefield (in whatever way) without having to play the whole game from start to finish completely zoomed out may be fine for some casual gamers but I hardly believe that will ever be easily acceptable to most.

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