Band-Box selection of targets

I was perusing through this thread: http://forums.uberent.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=35340, and trying to examine the initial issue that could theoretically be a problem, namely "The existing tools for repairing bases may be too clunky for very large games with multiple battlefields". If we assume this is an issue (it may not be, we just don't know yet), one of the proposed solutions is to have buildings auto-repair. I was thinking of other solutions when I realised one simple idea could be applied across the whole suite of command tools, and may help layers manage their army, without trying to take too much control away from the player.

In SC, the main unit commands available to a player are move, attack, repair, reclaim, assist and patrol. units are generally selected by left clicking on them, or by dragging a band-box around a group of units. The two most common commands, move and attack, are assumed as default, issuing at the targeted location or unit when the player right clicks (left click again for TA). I'm working on the assumption that there will be a similar command set available in PA.

What if each of these commands could also be issued with a band-box as a target, as well as clicking on a single unit? For example, if I have units selected, then right-click drag a band-box around some enemy units, all of the enemy units in the band-box are now targeted by the selected units. They will hunt them down, one enemy after the other, presumably starting with the nearest. So far, this isn't too impressive, but it could be very useful when coupled with the other commands:

Move Band box: your units will distribute themselves evenly throughout the selected box. Not massively useful, but it might be a quick way to spread out your units for formations to avoid AoE weapons. Mainly just to provide consistency across other commands.

Attack Band box: your units automatically attack all enemies in the drawn box. Fairly straight-forwards.

Patrol Band box: Units will patrol throughout the selected box. Here's where it starts to get more useful. Assuming I'm happy with patrolling a rectangular area (which is often perfectly fine), this allows me to effectively set up large areas to be scouted or defended with a fraction of the mouse actions normally needed.

Repair Band box: Where the initial idea came from. Fabbers will automatically repair all units and structures in the target area. Quicker to get a fabber or two to repair a base without having to set up a fabber patrol route. What's more, it means fabbers won't get distracted by assisting a factory when we want them to repair a damaged base. Of course, if we wanted that, we could just issue a...

Assist Band box: Fabbers will automatically assist all units and structures in the selected area. If it's a factory, they will help or if it's damaged, they will repair. If a non-fabber unit is given this order, they will guard all units and structures in a given area.

Reclaim Band box: All units, structures, wrecks, and inanimate rocks will be reclaimed for their resources. Great for cleaning up after a battle, and much quicker to order than the presently available tools.

I personally believe this would be a simple, straight-forwards and consistent way, without the need for additional UI buttons. I know Zero-K tried to do something like this, but I personally felt they were a little inconsistent when I tried to use them. By having exactly the same player input, and a consistent methodology behind them, I feel this would be much more intuitive to use, and help players perform more tasks, with less button pushes, and without relying on some sort of AI assistance (which we all know is a controversial topic). The only games I know that implemented this the way I'm thinking of are the Homeworld series of games, mainly because they had a fully 3D battle-space where lots of camera changes were necessary. Considering PA may have some aspects of this, with camera-wrapping around spheres, and the fact that Homeworld was bloody amazing, I don't think that this is too bad an example to draw inspiration from.

If you made it to the end of this much waffle, then I salute you, and look forwards to your comments.

I rather like the basic idea. But placing engineers on patrol already creates the repair, assist, and reclaim band-boxes you are talking about, and lets you make the boxes into funny non box shapes.

The attack and patrol band boxes seem to be what the patrol command already does for combat units, but without the limitation of only being able to make rectangular shapes.

The move band box could be useful for large armies but I think this really deals with formations more than anything else.

Thats the thing though. What if you want your fabbers to repair without getting distracted by reclimation or assisting. There have been a lot of times that I have wanted to repair my base in SC2 where my options are:

Issue a painfully long queue of orders to repair each building.

Issue a much quicker patrol order, then come back five minutes later to find that not much has been repaired as my engineer has just got stuck helping my air-factories with their production queues.

With this technique, I still have those options as well as a lot more options (containing a very quick to issue "repair everything in this area") without adding any more complexity or cluttering to the basic UI.

I think that repair, reclaim, and assist were already toggable options on each engineer, much like fire at will vs hold fire on combat units. I would have to fire up TA to check though. As to which method would be the most intuitive, I am not sure.

It was not. It was a command issued at a target or queue of targets, just like move or attack.

Ah. I stand corrected then.

Well, I'm sure the dev have already seen this thread .
They are even considering it: viewtopic.php?p=510936#p510936

Ihmo, it's the right direction for repairing units. It's using the core mechanism of the game instead of adding a redundant one.

If it will make playing PA more like using MS Paint then I am all for it.

Seriously, its a good idea.

As i said earlier, Zero-K is a setp in the right direction, and certainly has a lot of lessons one can learn that are relevant to PA.

However, the key weakness i found of Zero-K's area command mechanic was it's inconsistency. Let's take a look at the relevant parts Zero-K manual:

We note that the action upon issuing a move says that dragging with the right mouse button results in a "line" of move commands. Doing the same with reclaim results in an "area". The area s defined by a centre-circumference specialised circle. The standard way of interacting with units in an area for selection is a corner-opposite-corner specialised box. To me, the fact that we have a second way of defining an area seems counter-intuitive when there is already a perfectly good one. It's also counter-intuitive that some commands (such as attack) are duplicated between the two mechanisms, while some (such as patrol) are not, when a single general control scheme can be used for both.

Ultimately, this suggestion boils down to two parts. The first is an implementation of area-commands, which most people seem to agree is worth testing at the very least. I believe the devs have expressed interest in area commands as well. The second is how to implement the way a player interacts with the specification of an area. My proposal is that this can be done via the existing band-box mechanic, and using a consistent approach across all types of commands. Only playtesting will tell, of course, but I would wager that this method would feel much more natural to players (at least those who haven't played and adapted to Zero K), than the other.

OP is good and should be listened to.

This adds loads of flexibility without removing anything, and without being needlessly complicated.

Great idea! Implement it!

Starts 28:00 mins in. Area Commands are already planned.

+1, but really repair/regen should be automated just very slow/weak so you can still tickle a player to death or take out a structure you damaged earlier in the game that hasn't been entirely repaired.

I'm aware that the devs have said that they want to look at testing area commands. I'm proposing a way that they could be implemented, whilst remaining consistent with existing mechanics.

I don't see why your solution is that much more consistent than Zero-Ks' implementation.

Zero-K does this as well. The closest enemy is targeted first and then enemies further away will be targeted in succession. But there is one thing that complicates this. Closest to what? When you have a selection of units in Zero-K the "middle" of the group will be calculated from the individual units and then this position will be used to determine which enemy is the closest.

Custom formations in Zero-K are much more useful than this. It is likely that I would want that to be the default behavior for me in PA.

This is not straight-forwards. You have to specify this further. Do you mean like the first behavior you explained where the units target the closest unit and then all other targets in turn?
Do you mean that each selected unit you have targets the closest enemy and then all other enemies in succession?
Do you mean that the selected units take turn picking their target so that the targeting is spread out in the box?
All of these behavior might be desired in different situations. Which one should be the default?

What do you mean with "Units will patrol throughout the selected box."? How will they patrol? From which point will they start patrolling and where will they patrol to?
If you look at the equivalent of Move commands it doesn't make sense that patrol which is much like Move commands get treated differently.
Personally I think that Custom formations like in Zero-K is much better for the task. You can drag a line of patrol commands and units will use either their current position or the last position in their command queue and patrol between those points. If you give several line draw commands they will cycle between those waypoints forever.

Again we get the problem of which structure should be repaired first. Should all fabbers target the same structure to repair at first?
Should each individual fabber target the closest damaged building first? Personally I think that each fabber should target their closest damaged unit like in Zero-K.

I don't really see how this would work. There is no equivalent in Zero-K or SupCom. When you guard or assist you do it on an individual unit.
How may units would assist the closest factory? If there is a factory at the edge of the box far away, will all fabbers go there to assist that factory once the other projects are done?
Will fabbers switch to another factory to assist them when the factory stops producing units because of the roll off time? Will fabbers assist other factories and projects once the factory queue is empty?
How will military units guard in the assist area? Where will they stay? How will they spread out?

Again we get the problem of which wreck should be reclaimed first. Should all fabbers go for the same wreck to reclaim at first?
Should each individual fabber target the closest wreck first? Personally I think that each fabber should target their closest wreck like in Zero-K.

I doubt that you can solve this in a consistent way. The different types of commands simply vary to much.
For Move, Patrol and Attack-Move I think I prefer Custom formations where you can drag lines of commands with the mouse.
For Attack, Reclaim and Repair I think I would prefer that each selected unit target the closest target to it and then the rest of the targets inside the box in Succession.
Although this a bit more complex with moving units as I might want to keep targeting them even as they move out of the box while I in other occasions want units that moves out of the box not to be targeted.
In TA and Zero-K repair commands both repair units and helps finishing construction. If you split them into Repair and say... Assist(Construction) then you can use them similarly but for different purposes.
As for Assist as seen in SupCom and Guard seen in TA and Zero-K I don't know what to do.

I don't think I care so much if area commands are circles or boxes. Drawing shapes which targets what's inside could also be an interesting approach even though it takes a little longer to draw a shape compared to drawing a line, making a box or a circle.

TL DR:How to apply area commands and make them consistent between varying commands is hard. In the end I think it could be left to modders and players to customize their own UI to let it function as they wish.