This crazy idea just popped into my head that it would be nice to be able to set rally points for the different types of units that come out of a factory. Basically this would let you set a different rally point on the map each unit type that a factory makes. This sounded like a really complex thing to add when I first though about it but I think i have a simple solution. Why would you want this? EXP 1: Lets say you have a factory making tanks, and sending them out of your base, but then need engineers. If you want the engineers to go where there going to work. You could change the factory rally point but then all units would go to this point, like it is now. If you could set a different rally point for just engineers they would go where you need them and your attack units would go where they are needed. EXP 2: If you have a factory making tanks plus Artillery or Anti Air you would like the tanks to be in front of the weaker units. If you could set the rally point for the Artillery or Anti Air behind the tanks they would be protected if your base is attacked. Also it would set them in the back of the formation when the group is sent to attack. EXP 3: You have an air factory making fighters and the factory rally is a patrol route around your base. If you make air scouts or bombers you don't want those on patrol. If you set a different rally point for the scouts and bombers they would be a lot easier to select if their in a group by themselves. How could this be made simple to control? You want this to be simple and quick so it adds to the game and doesn't interfere. The simplest idea I came up with is to click and drag the unit icon, from the factory build list, onto the map to set the unit rally point. So it would go something like the fallowing. So it would be a simple drag and drop to set the unit rally point. Select factory Add units to build queue click on unit icon and hold mouse button down move mouse pointer to location on map for that unit rally point and release mouse button. I think it would be best if the factory rally point was changed it would clear all the unit rally points for that factory. This way you can simply change where all the units are going without having to reset unit rally points. Is this crazy good or crazy bad?
I was thinking about this this morning, I think it would be really good. For me the main advantage would be if you could get fabbers to rally at different points than combat units. Often I set a rally point for combat units so that they go to a strategic point or a choke point for instance, but I might suddenly queue up five fabbers and put them at the start of the queue in order to assist a factory for instance, in which case I would like to be able to tell the factory to 'put the fabbers here please, but everything else still rally to where you were before'. If you could do it per unit, it'd be great.
I would say no to this since you could just build multiple factories for dedicated purposes. However! Your suggested implementation is so ridiculously intuitive to use that I would actually consider having this become reality. I mean, even with a dedicated factory, you don't want to be building fabbers constantly but loosing them in the army is always really annoying. Great suggestion!
I like this idea too but believe it or not. I do have a factory building Engineers constantly in an infinite loop! hell, why not. we do not have unit cap and they are cheap!
@ extraammo & zGeneral What if the enemy comes into your base and destroys the factory making your engineers? They are all kinds of situations where a unit rally point wouldn't be useful but then there are some that are. This would just add to the control options of the game. Here is something that just happened in a game; Having a game on small moon where fighting started early as bases were close together. Was fighting a back and forth battle between our basses when I sent a small raiding party to one of the enemy's mass fields outside there base, and behind mine, and destroyed it. Wanted to capture those mass points but had engineers working on making a Tek2 factory to match the enemy. Queued up some engineers at the beginning of a factory but but didn't want to change the rally point in front of my base so the attacks would be there to defend. Got attacked from the side and forget didn't grab the engineers as they came off the ramp so they went to the front of the base. If those engineers went where i needed them when they came out of the factory it would of eliminated that need to micro them. I could of set the factory rally to the back of my base but then i would have had to remember to change it back.
So much agreement, it would be really helpful. I think Starcraft 2 had that, it always saved me time and was one less thing to worry about.
This brings up a question, lets say that we got a nice idea popular with an agreement with most of the community members. what are the chances for the devs to look into it and actually implement it at some stage. (especially if it can not be modded). I am sure they are too busy now and can not deviate from the core plan. but are they actually keeping a log of this for the future? I hope so
As to your question zGeneral, almost definitely. I believe members of the Uber team do read through the majority of the forum (not going to say all, that would be a MASSIVELY impressive feat). If they think its a good idea, they'll consider implementing it and the cost/benefit of doing so to see if its worth doing it.
You can look at what happened with the scale megthread. it took more than 200 people voting and comenting to draw attention, it still isn't confirmed entirely. so to answer : you have a long way t go. However your idea being simple enough and working in the direction of macro, I think it is something the devs would have thought of anyways. https://forums.uberent.com/threads/scale-megathread.48650/ (do read before posting)
That's a very different scenario (also, see this post, as the devs were aware of it much earlier). It comes down to how much work/re-work it will take Uber, vs how good/essential the idea is, and how much it fits into the existing vision of the game. As to the idea, I like it in principle, but I can see some issues around queuing up multiple orders out of a factory, and confusion around being able to easily tell what units would go where, after you set up different orders.
I wasn't trying to quote you out of context; you were making a point that threads take a lot of activity before they are noticed by the devs, I was just clarifying that this was not necessarily true. The second part I didn't quote doesn't actually say the devs would look at this, only that they probably thought of it themselves, so I didn't see the harm in removing it. I will edit it back in though.
This is a good idea and the control system you propose is excellent; however, we don't actually have a rally point concept. The engine just saves the orders given to a factory and copies them to each unit it produces. So there is no difference between setting a rally point (a move command) and a complex patrol order. So the idea is good but the difficulty of implementation makes it unlikely that it will be added soon.
A couple of questions that immediately spring to mind - you mentioned dragging and dropping the unit icon to set orders: 1) What about accidental drag-drops? 2) Related to the above - how do you cancel a queued order for a specific unit type? 3) How do you set orders for multiple unit types at once? (Once we get more unit types in than we do currently, having to do this for multiple unit types will be a pain) 4) How would drag-drop work for patrols? This would be particularly unintuitive. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea and if it were implemented well it would be extremely useful. But it seems like it could be a little complex, and not particularly easy to display in any intuitive fashion. As has been mentioned already, and particularly given the heavy emphasis this game places on building more factories rather than having engineers assisting fewer factories, it may well be simpler to stick with the current system and have a dedicated factory running for each unit type, with orders issued accordingly (eagerly awaiting the 'repeat' button). However, this gets a massive +1 for 'outside-the-box thinking'
@cwarner7264 Accidents happen in real war and in war games. You can't prevent them, or minimize. Don't have a good idea for canceling a single unit rally point. Here is another crazy idea that I'm not so sure about; If you drag and drop the unit on itself, in the UI, it would cancel the unit rally point. If you want to do multiple unit types all going to the same spot just set the factory rally point. If you want to have two types going to one place and two types going somewhere else, set the factory for one and then you would need to set the two others individually. Can't really see a huge need to get more complex than that. Drag-drop for patrols just wont work, that simple. If you want a patrol use the factory rally point, like it is currently. The unit rally point would be an option and you should still be able to use the current rally system (what i call factory rally point). I see it as there only being so much complexity you can add to the interface without getting in the way of game play.
More control of the units as as they leave the factory would be great. If the game allowed you to set the group the units build to and then have the new units participate the the current group's orders would be amazing. Also allowing multiple factories to put units into the same group would be welcome. The other thing I would like to see is a continuous construction option for factories. If I want that factory to spawn fighters the whole game it would be better to click one button rather than shift+clicking to add hundreds of units. Then if those fighters automatically join group 5 and participate in group 5's patrol I would be a happy camper. I also really like the unit specific rally point ideas above. It may be tricky to implement a factory that builds 6 engies and sends them to one rally point then starts continuously producing tanks and adding them to a specified group. I think adding some controls to the factories up front will reduce the need for micro and move us into those continent sweeping advances we all want.
