Detrimental automation

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by void2258, March 14, 2013.

  1. void2258

    void2258 Member

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    Please keep detrimental automation out of the game. What I mean is, all automation should be useful to the game and the player, such as formations, patrols, default behaviors, etc. Please do not put in automation that is actually detrimental to use.

    For those who are confused as to what I am referring, an example of this is SC2's worker auto-harvesting. This was a much requested feature, as it was dumb to have your harvester units pile up in front of your base and not do anything till you manually assigned each on to a patch of minerals or gas. However, the way this was implemented was to have all harvesters head for a single mineral and then move over if it was occupied. The result is that players STILL have to override the automation, because the time lost as the harvesters arrange themselves is significant enough to have a detrimental effect on a game. This could easily have been avoided if assignment was by patch, instead of node, so the harvesters would go straight to an under-occupied area. Also, there is still no automation with regards to gas.

    A good automation case from SC2 is single unit abilities. In SC1, if you had multiple units selected they would all cast an ability if you didn't select only one of them first. Now you can cast in a group and only once will perform the action, lowering the unnecessary selecting and deselecting. Another is auto heal, since you can now have units in a group and have them act logically, instead of standing there.

    Please keep automation in PA to the second type.
  2. Pawz

    Pawz Active Member

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    Don't make automation or the UI stupid - check!
  3. godde

    godde Well-Known Member

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    It would be more interesting if you could come up with an example from TA or SupCom. Those games don't have harvesting.
    Is the problem that the automation is suboptimal? Would it be okey if the automation was better?

    Define the difference between the 2 types. What is the difference between the second and first type?
    Is it that the first type is clearly suboptimal automation?
  4. igncom1

    igncom1 Post Master General

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    He means reclaiming, which they do have.
  5. godde

    godde Well-Known Member

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    No he means harvesting in Starcraft 2.

    TA and SupCom really lacked automation when you wanted to reclaim stuff. Manual reclaim were about twice as effective on low income features like trees and rocks compared to patrol or attack-move with engineers.
    Although a simple area command like in Zero-K would probably suffice.
  6. igncom1

    igncom1 Post Master General

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    The SC2 threw me off.

    But the engineers in SupCom2 do indeed auto reclaim, but they would be better with reclaim-move.
  7. Culverin

    Culverin Post Master General

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    The only example I can think about in SupCom is engie patrol.

    Engie patrol right now does 2 things.
    - Assists with building
    - Reclaims

    In some ways, this is detrimental as it makes your income AND spending less predictable.
    You could overflow on mass, or drain your bank when you desperately need your engineers to reclaim 50 T2 wrecks.


    A simple solution would be to separate out the two into:
    - Repair and assist
    - Reclaim


    However, the problem is that you then lose an engineer who will automatically do both.


    What could be done however, is to expand the reclaim function so that it can patrol as well.
    A direct click to a wreckage will set a reclaim command, subsequent clicks will also do the same, however, once the reclaim command is set to just empty land, then it would be a reclaim patrol.


    Doable? Yes.


    As silly as it may be, It's the GUI in this game that I'm hoping for the most.
  8. RCIX

    RCIX Member

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    I never used patrol because my engineers would be caught up reclaiming stuff at a slow pace and ignoring all of the assisting I actually wanted them to do. =/

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