Defining micro

I think he meant manually microing without any automation.

Nobody complain about auto strafing for gunships in ta and supcom, it's not even togglable, sometimes gunships can strafe into enemy aa ranges because of it.

In today's age? Yes. A 1v1 voip call will probably use more.
The difference is how well it can handle latency, jitter and packet loss. A lot of net code in games will crash and burn if it comes across packet loss.

Yeah, but when you're on a planet you don't need to receive the ballistics and other details from battle on other planets. Only important stuff like building finnished or unit killed are needed.
So having multiple planet can nicely scale up.

Again, all depends on the netcode. Some games have it where a hose controls the entire game and every other player just send messages about what they are ordering their team to do. Other setups have each player control their own team and send what they are doing to everyone else or the host for distribution. Each approach has it's strengths and suits certain situations better.

They have already said that they are using a client/server model where the server is doing the calculation.

Ah ok. That's probably for the best as latency will result in delayed actions instead of crazy bullet physics madness.

I forgot about this. Sometimes you fight your gunship AI when as they strafe in to AA range so there should be a strafe option.

So I'm gonna try to briefly summarize, just to try and check my understanding of what's being said.

Some people think there is going to be a problem with the game being manageable.

Of those people some think the solution is providing more intelligence to units (that may possibly be superseded by the player). The extent suggested is varied. Others are concerned about up too 3 things, players loosing control, Automation/AI being worse than players, and the performance hit by AI/automation

Some other group think the solution is in making sure the UI well designed, so the player can exert proper control on all units.

One potential metric suggested is clicks per decision. Some have suggested comparing small groups of units, others claim this is a poor indicator.

Have I missed anything important, or get anything wrong? Not trying to state an opinion or comment, just trying to clarify.

Sounds good.

For the record:

- I would like both UI and AI to be good.

- I think even the best UI in the world won't allow detailed micro in 10 places at once.

- I'd like the AI to be relatively simple, nothing that looks like a cheatbot such as the zerglings video someone posted.

- I'm not a fan of carpal tunnel, so favour low APM play.

What I Read:

I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft I hate Starcraft

Srsly bro, did Starcraft, a game that a fair population loves, do anything right by you? Or did it just screw your stepsister and not call the next morning?

Just tired of hearing Starcraft hate, when I am a c&c fan anyway, and you layed it on the thickest I believe.

Is that really what you read? I think StarCraft has been mentioned fairly neutrally throughout this thread, except obviously it's the best example of what nobody wants for this game.

The problem I have with SCII being brought up is when it's used as a meter stick for comparison like it was here, I mean, it's not considering anything but SCII's game design/mechanics it ignoring how in SupCom you can already control larger armies with much less APM and with more Focus on the actual battle thanks to thinks like flow eco, queue commands, strat zoom and factory repeat....

I will say that the additional planets might make things a bit more awkward but nothing a good UI/alert system can't ix if you ask me.

Mike

The micro in supcom is still too much for many people's taste, if you ignore your destroyer for 10s, it might die to enemy units horribly because no one was kiting it.

I doubt that.
The UI in homeworld, while really good, is still a bit ineffective compare to some "flat" rts games.
The maximum UI efficiency for a multi planetary rts might be even more limited than a 3d space one, the designer will meet the problems like the controlling of the units on the both sides of the planets and the unavoidable changing of the vision angle when the camera is roaming, the UI designing might be so difficult that the developers don't even want the planets to be spherical in the first place.

I think the better question is why did you stop focusing on your attack for a whole 10 seconds?

Mike

Because a large group of enemy units is heading towards my base so I need to change some rally points and arrange the constructors to build more defense structures before they arrive?

I say then that's just good planning on your opponent's part, either that or he was just better than you for being able to work both attack angles no?

Also couldn't you have just given the destroyers a far off move command until you could return your attention to them?

Mike

I think some people here are over thinking the whole problem.
Yes, if we were to had a Starcraft 1 (or even 2) GUI on PA it would not work.
But the Starcraft-like controls would not work on Supreme Commander, either.
SupCom already has all the features that a game of a bigger scale needs. I.e. zoom with a symbolic and therefore quick to read view, the ability to loop production in factories and a resource-system that is not based on constantly building probes and sending them to mineral-patches while counting how many are on each. If you look at what Starcraft player do while they play most of it is actually building their base, "macroing" up. Doing this is made extremely difficult on purpose, it is just a big part of the game. SupCom's ui and resource-system makes it so easy to build up a base and an army -sure a well made plan is needed to make it as effective as possible, but thats another story- that you have far more time to actually control your units. You dont need to select your nexus to make a probe while you are managing a battle somewhere. You just loop the production of the engie and totally focus on the battle at hand.
Now this thread is talking about "micro", meaning the control and its possible automation of the units infight.
Using some kind of an AI to totally automate this is very unnecessary imho.
The amount of actions the player needs to spent on building his base is already so small that he can focus on moving his units. Also the argument "You cant control so many units at once" is just ignoring the fact that you dont NEED to control all the units as single entities at once. You just select a big group of units and tell them to do move somewhere. There is another BIG difference to Starcraft here: In SupCom units shoot while they move. You just dont need to do stutter-stepping to do as much damage as possible. You just give a single move command and your units will shoot on their own account.

So this means people want to ignore a battle for 10s and demand that the game will not punish it? Such requests are ignoring a very basic fact. PA is an RTS. RT standing for Real Time. Now what does real time mean? It means you dont have turns or something like that. It means that the speed you are giving commands at is the speed they can be executed. It automatically means that somebody who constantly focuses on a ship has a huge advantage about somebody who makes a break for 10s. the RT in RTS implies that the speed at which you can control things is an important factor in the game.

Do you think you can effectively manage three or more battle fronts at the same time without unit AI? Even with a perfect UI?

Remember that land, sea and air have different commands and attention levels.

Sea units are unwieldy and need proper positioning and formation. Shielding friendly units from offensive torpedoes and fire is a standard damage-distribution micro tactic. You have to pay attention to individual units since each ship is expensive and the loss of one means you lose a good chunk of your firepower as well as drop a juicy expensive wreck.

Many land units have shots that are slow compared to move speed and accelerations, allowing fast units to dodge shots. Many units also require clear lines of fire and terrain is more varied compared to sea (which is flat on surface and usually flat on seabed). Positioning and formations are incredibly important and can make or break an attack.

Air units require quick response, good intel (usually means radar) and overall battlefield awareness. Unlike in BA, ZK aircraft are incredibly fast and fighters are comparatively expensive. This makes fighter screens inadequate (you cannot chuck fighters on patrol, you can't get the requisite density), necessitating spotting enemy aircraft positioning and responding preemptively to scouting data.

Even in team games, players usually divide themselves into roles along each domain. An Air player with some land units usually doesn't use them as effectively as a land player as you simply can't be focused on kiting and terrain tactics that are crucial to land warfare... while also paying attention to the global situation.
Trying to do that on multiple fronts and sea at the same time is a recipe for total disaster.

Paying attention to sea battles is a different set of thinking and cues from land battles and again different from air. A human simply doesn't have enough attention to watch and micro everything at the same time.

You see though, some of us consider the depth of your decision making and how well you read your enemy as more important than small scale control. Even though advantages are to be gained at the small scale by direct control, large movements and decisions are ranked as more important by these people.

Therefore, they want to reduce the relative importance of small scale control by using unit AI. The AI may not be as good as a human, but it reduces the gap between 'un-micro-ed' units and 'micro-ed' units. Reduction of this gap is seen as a good thing because it makes the macro scale decisions more important (relatively).

EDIT: you still get punished for not microing your units. But you are not punished as harshly as when they don't have unit AI.

What if I got much build power and storage in my base so it is possible to reclaim my half built novax center then build enough defense in time?

If I stop kiting, I might lose the chance to destory a group of hover tanks then destory some resource structures.

If I want to manage things on the both fronts well, I must rely on my apm.