Can I do this? If not, let's make it happen!

Hey, everybody!

I picked up the game a month or two ago and since then I have run into a lot of situations where I want to have particular control mechanics available that I don't know are in the game. So, this purpose of this thread is two fold. People will post things they would like to be able to do in the game. If anyone knows that it is possible to do that thing, please tell them how! If it is not currently possible in the game, let's let our benevolent overlords know that it would improve the game to add them! I've added my thoughts up to this point, in no specific order below, to get us started.

1. I'd like to be able to set different rally points/commands for different types of units out of a factory so that they can be given different orders specific to their functionality. For instance, being able to set all the fabbers to assist a factory while setting the tanks on attack commands, and the anti-air to patrol the base would be fantastic!

2. A hotkey to toggle selection between different unit types while dragging a selection box would be hugely helpful in managing groups of units. I know that there is some sort of toggle option currently to prefer fabbers or military units or whichever is most prevalent but I would like to be able to toggle this in real time in the game and, possibly, for more specific unit types than just military or builder, such as the current hotkeys for selecting all air/sea/land/orbital, etc. Mapping these onto a toggle hotkey that effects what is highlighted by the cursor would be super helpful to me.

3. One incredibly helpful macro-management feature that seems not to have made it over from SupCom is the ability to store build queues (such as a turret surrounded by walls) so that they can be laid out ahead of time and remember by the game, allowing the player in a match to simply select that preset queue and slap it down in one click. Would remove MUCH of the tedium in the same manner that area building MEXs did!

4. The ability to make a change in queued up orders without redoing the whole queue, such as inserting a build order between two already queued buildings (gets very helpful with long queues!). Another SupCom feature, I know And a very useful one that saves a lot of frustrated repetition!

5. Being able to set orders for factories that are queued to be built but not yet finished! Being able to queue up a bunch of factories to be built removes the need to go back and tell the fabbers to build the next one after each gets finished but this convenience is thwarted by the fact that you still have to go back after each one to tell the factory what to make! Allowing the factory orders to also be queued ahead of time would save a lot of trouble.

6. The option to deselect specific units in a group rather than just all units of a type. Little thing, perhaps, but useful when splitting a group with precision. *This has been answered! (cntrl-click deselects) Thanks to cdrkf!*

7. Air unit scouting pattern formation. I know formations haven't been added yet but this would be a good one and could be as simple as a line formation for scouts.

8. Change rally point for the unit that is building! I'm not entirely sure whether this has been addressed in the new patch but it still seems like I usually can't get the currently building units to obey new rally point commands. It doesn't seem to kick in until the next one after.

9. The ability to command fabbers to assist production in an area like ComFabs did with patrol. It's slight issue but it really bugs me that I can't get my fabbers to swap between assisting two factories to make use of them during the downtime between one unit finishing and the next starting up! The combat fabbers did this beautifully when they could assist production and I'd love to see the regular fabbers do it as well.

10. Order a group of units (fighters, for instance) to patrol around another group of units (bombers, let's say)! We've all noticed how hard it is to get units to protect other units without a ton of micro. If you currently tell fighter to assist a bomber they will not only guard that bomber alone but also sit right on top of it so that it's practically not protected at all. I would love to be able to select a group of fighters and tell them to patrol around a group of bombers and have each fighter auto-select a bomber (similar to how area attack command works) to patrol around.

11. Suborders for area attack commands to target specific unit types (like ordering your bombers to attack just the anti-air in an enemy group) or at least a toggle to prioritize things that are a threat (whatever can shoot at me) vs everything (like normal). Being able to tell my bombers to go in and kill everything that can shoot at them first and then everything else would be sweet. Or maybe I'd rather have them target fabbers first. Even better would be the ability to queue up orders to kill all targets of a certain type (like fabbers) and then do something else (like move away).

No doubt some of these features that are not currently in the game are ones the devs already have plans to add. And, no doubt, some of them are incorporated and I just haven't figured out how to use them. Please tell me if you know any of these to be doable! And let us know if you have anything you'd like to know how to do/like to see added. The thrust I have in mind for this thread is to focus on game mechanics like those listed above that remove the tedious elements of RTS and allow players to focus more on tactics and strategy. That said, I'm not going to police this thread but please try to limit your issues to functionality rather than big game elements you'd like added (such as multiple systems, new units, interplanetary space battles, random Kaiju monster or earthquake events ). Cheers!

10/10 do want.

6. The option to deselect specific units in a group rather than just all units of a type. Little thing, perhaps, but useful when splitting a group with precision.

you can already do this.

1. That can be done already. Just set your rally point on a unit to assist/attack. You can do area attack/patrol/assist/.... rally points as well!

5. You can queue up units and orders for factories while they are under construction, they just need to be placed first. You can use line commands to build lines of factories. If you double-click on a factory it will select them all of the same type, so you can give them queues in one go. But It would be nice if you could order factories while they are queued (white outline), but that would be hard to do for Uber, I think.

7. Formations are already in. But every type of unit will pretty much form a box formation. Some units, like infernos, have the priority to become the front of the formation, while artillery stays in the back. There are line formations, but I haven't figured out how they work yet.

8. That used to be a thing, but that was fixed I believe. Units under construction will immediately follow the rally point that's currently set when the unit is finished.

9. Area assist/repair/reclaim. And area patrol for fabricators will do everything.

Cheers

That's great but HOW? When I shift click an already selected unit nothing happens. The only way I have found to deselect units is to do a completely new selection or click the boxs in the bottom left that represent unit types selected (selecting or deselecting ALL of that type).

bottom right boxes is all I got :L

1. I believe you've misunderstood my meaning. I know how to set commands for factory units. What I want is to be able to queue one set of commands for one type of unit (like fabbers), a different set of commands for another unit type (like tanks), etc.

5. Yeah, I know I can queue orders for them once they are placed and that is nice but not so helpful when you're making a lot of factories in a row. Would be very helpful to be able to tell them all what to do at the same time that you tell the fabbers to build them all.

7. I haven't seen any evidence so far of the formations you describe aside from the fact that attack commands will naturally tend to have infernos move farther forward than longer range units because they have to in order to fire. Furthermore, I was referring to formations that can be activated by the player, specifically to an option for scout planes to fan out.

9. I'm aware that area patrol will sort of do this but it is highly ineffective. When told to patrol between two adjacent factories they basically just choose one and assist it to the exclusion of the other. They do not attempt to swap to the other factory when the first is on downtime like ComFabs used to. And area assist does not currently exist.

1. Ok, I get it now. So would two different rally points for a factory solve this? Like one for fabricators and one for the rest?

5. Maybe there should be a way of telling them to build all factories at once instead of one at the time when you queue up multiple.

7. Really? Don't your units form a box? That's a formation, actually. If that wasn't implemented, then all units would form a messy chaotic blob. I know that line formations IS one that must be activated by the player, but I don't know how it works, all I know it's one of those buttons in bottom right corner.

9. Yeah it is. That's something they need to improve. And I could have sworn area assist existed, but indeed it doesn't.

It's cntrl click to remove a unit, shift click to add

Edit: I think anyway (I usually manage to adjust selections somehow in game, if not I'll have to check again haha!)

1. Yeah, a different one for fabbers and military would probably be sufficient but if they do that they may as well apply it for each type of unit since you might want to do something like build a scout first, then a couple fabbers, then an AA and tank, etc. and have the scout go on planet-wide patrol when it comes out, the fabbers start building MEXs, the AA and tanks patrol the base. That sort of thing. Might be a lot of work for Uber, I don't know but I think it would be a big improvement.

5. You mean like have them split up and start each queued factory, one per fabber? Not sure I understand your meaning. Having them build one at a time is definitely best so that you can have the earlier ones start producing while the rest are building.

7. Units group up when they are given orders (not sure I'd call it a box) which is a sort of formation but they certainly don't separate based on unit type for me as you described and I have no control over how they form up. I assume that by, "those buttons in the bottom right corner", you're referring to the roam/maneuver toggles but those do not currently do anything that I can tell. If you do find any controllable formations, let us know

9. I did discover today that orbital fabbers patrolling around orbital factories works perfectly They waste no time at all if the factories are near each other (and they can actually be overlapping in orbital). So, that's cool

Yes! Awesome, thank you!