Defining micro

What if you didn't want them to kite?

Mike

In what situation you would want them to not kite?

This is my biggest concern with automation, making sure the players intent is carried through in the least clicks is a good goal (I want the auto kiting and such), but if you are not making the same assumptions as the UI, it gets harder.

This also why you should always have 'force' commands that drop the intelligence and only do exactly what you tell them. Maybe if there was a way to make these behaviors selectable and maybe add custom ones in. But that I could get nasty to implement/not over or under power

Are you saying that there aren't any such situations?

Mike

All the rts games have some basic automations such like the auto-chasing. sometimes the player don't want the units to chase the enemies, but that doesn't means rts games shouldn't have auto-chasing at all, it just means there should be a special unit state called hold position.
It is same for the other automations, unit ai should react like what a player would react in the most situations, in some rare situations, the player should be able to override the default unit ai in some ways.

Ok, we need a bit of a lesson here by someone of an expert as I can't do it justice. And the terminology is getting abused a bit too much for me.

Something like auto kiting isn't AI, it isn't really making decisions, it's 'If find target, move to max range and shoot'. That's automation of a task, but not really giving it AI. Deciding how a squad of arbitrary units should behave based on a single click, that is closer to AI, but I'm not 100% certain it is, probably depends on what the definition of AI is.

In short, automation and AI are not the same thing

I can accept this as relevant. We possibly need to really do what the topic suggests and define, not just micro, but all of these things so people can be sure they are talking about the same thing.

Thing is, it doesn't really change what people are trying to communicate. Just how they communicate it. Most people here seem to be in favour of the same things.

For those situations, you just turn it off. Zero K allows you to select a group and disable the attack AI, or the retreat feature. (Or set them to different levels of response.)

I agree that Zero K's interface does need quite a bit of work, but it is a good source of inspiration, and it does show that something so controversial as unit "automation" can work without reducing gameplay.

Don't forget, TA and Supcom both had the "patrol" command, which is technically a LOT more automation than what is being suggested for unit AI. In fact, in TA if you set your unit to the most mobile and aggressive attack stance in AI, they pretty much went off and did things on their own if you told them to patrol. (And often they did it poorly.) So it's not an entirely new concept, just an improvement over an old one.

Also, I agree with googlefrog on Starcraft's interpretation of things. Their definition of "micro" and "macro" is really taken to an extreme that's specific to those types of games. In fact, I rather object to the concept of RTS games as esports, but that's a topic for an entirely different rant.

Arguments where everyone is on the same side are always exciting, maybe on one of the wiki's we could have a glossary of terms? And maybe links to PSA's also... That way we can point everyone to the generally agreed upon language so we can shout at each other meaningfully

To me anytime a unit can do something without being ordered to by me it's automation and/or AI and I don't want it.

Mike

This is exactly my opinion on the subject.

3rd.

While I agree with the OP on some points, I massively disagree concerning movement.

In a game of this scale you should not be required to tell a tank how and when to dodge bullets. If a unit is capable of doing so they should do so. In real life soldiers are not remote controlled mannequins and yet generals are still needed to co-ordinate battle strategies.

In Zero K units have a certain degree of automation. Play ZK for a couple of weeks and I can almost guarantee you'll come round to support unit AI. For those of us accustomed to Zero K's UI and other innovations, certain comments from the SupCom crowd look the same to us as antiquated arguments against strategic zoom do to you. Don't knock new things just because you haven't tried them out properly!

Incidentally ZK is still a micro-heavy game despite automation (and automation will never be as good as direct player input).

Also regarding the OP comments on reclaim: As documented in previous threads ZK has an area reclaim command that is very intuitive and more precise, effective, and efficient than setting patrol routes. If that area reclaim command could be adjusted to give a choice of reclaiming either energy-rich or metal-rich features preferentially, it would solve all of the problems that you alluded to.

Finally, for those concerned with automation leading to undesirable unit actions in certain situations, all that is needed is for unit AI to be toggleable on or off for selected units.

In summary, I am 100% behind automation, in fact I regard it as fundamentally necessary for a game of PA's scale.

So you don't want auto attack enemies in los/range too?

Have fun ordering every individual unit to attack stuff.

EDIT: Ninja'd.

But yes, what thefirstfish said. I also think it's a necessity.

You'll have to define the exact behavior you're talking about.

Mike

I think what he is alluding to (and forgive me if I have misunderstood) is that all the things discussed here (kiting, auto chasing, range of engagement etc.) are acceptable - as long as the player has the ability to dictate if the actions are performed or not.

If the game plays itself then where is the fun in that?

A bit deeper than that, for example I don't want any kiting unless I'm the one doing it. If a unit can shoot farther than it can see/detect, I expect to be responsible to including a scout unit into the composition so that it can see far enough. I want to play the game, not watch it. I want to command my units, not babysit them.

Mike

OrangeKnight, a scout would still be advantageous, as you would get first strike capability. With a radar scout, you can start firing early, but you can't rely on those shots getting hits initially. Still, you've started shooting before the enemy has, so you have the advantage. With LOS scout, you can start off with accurate shots right off the bat.

But now suppose the enemy starts advancing on your position. In this case it's a good time to pull back while still firing. What if your attention is on a different front, or even a different planet? You'll end up losing your force because they just sat there stupidly. As a general, your responsibility is not to tell your units to get the heck away from the giant gun.

As for a unit doing stuff automatically without you telling it to, we'll need to remove patrolling, because when a unit is patrolling it will attack enemy units without your explicit permission. Same thing with shooting at enemies it sees. Remember how air units retreated back to airpads when they were low on health in TA? Toss that too.

The point is, features like smart attacking and retreat points are very basic features that do not change the strategic level of the game. They make that level the focus, in fact.

I suspect many people criticizing this idea haven't actually tried it themselves, from an objective standpoint. It's much like those complaining that strategic zoom is terrible and fixed zoom is the way to go.

The whole idea being things like Factory Repeat, Strat Zoom, order queuing and flow eco is so that you don't have to focus so much in your base, Strat Zoom in particular actually allows you to split your focus by allowing you to keep larger areas under supervision. If you shift your focus in the middle of a battle you are making a choice that the outcome isn't important or that whatever happens until you come back to it isn't important. Not to mention that it's up to the commander to issue the retreat, not the units.

Patrolling is a bad example as that's a command given by the player. otherwise you're kinda jumping at extremes here, I suppose I shouldn't have used such arbitrary language but whatever.

As I already said, there are already plenty of elements that contribute to that effect. and I I need to issue orders, I want to do some to my units instead of my Eco. Its not like I want Stutter Stepping for all my units, I just want them to listen to me and not make their own decisions.

Mike