Smart Combat, Smart Engineers? (on unit behaviour priorities

Two things I'd like to see, not necessarily related:

1. Smart Combat

First, have a look at the Defenders Quest blog. Scroll down until you see 'targeting logic'. With a few simple choices, effective micromanagement is put into the hands of the AI manning the guns on your units. You don't need to micro each shot, something I grow quite tired of (although I do know Starcraft players love it). For a game of this scale, I would like to see units smart enough to know which of the things in range is the best to shoot. A few simple toggles might be easy, with three or so set behaviours in each, such as: Target Least Hit Points, Target Most Firepower, Target Healers. Maybe the behaviour mode could be predefined for a given unit, with some units preferring different target priority. Artillery will attempt to place shots in the middle of clusters, for example, before picking off strays.

2. Smart Engineers

I would like to see patrolling engineers be able to prioritise between repair, resource gathering and replacing destroyed structures (I very much want to see automated structure replacement), perhaps with a simple toggle to tell them which is more important. So, that scavenger you have roaming around has resources as a low priority and repair as high, and if left to itself will gather until damaged friendlies are nearby and repair them before going after any wreckage that might have accumulated near them from the combat.

Do these sound like good ideas that could be implemented?

Edit:

I just remembered Dark Reign. I very much enjoyed the ability to change unit behaviour there, including the ability to automate skirmishers (explore, attack, retreat for repairs if minorly damaged) and roaming kill squads (explore, attack, attack until dead). As well, the automated retreat after a certain point removed the need to micro damaged units out of a big battle. Those under a certain percentage of hit points (defined by the player) would automatically flee to the nearest repair base.

Re: Smart Combat, Smart Engineers? (on unit behaviour priori

These would certainly be nice things that could remove a lot of the micro from larger fights.

Re: Smart Combat, Smart Engineers? (on unit behaviour priori

Given that Total Annihilation allowed for setting the modes of units, which generally meant whether they should attack and priority for resources for construction, I would be surprised if a system like this wasn't in PA.

Re: Smart Combat, Smart Engineers? (on unit behaviour priori

Even if we can't set different behaviour modes, I would like clumps of tanks to know by default that they should shoot at the enemy in the manner that drops the enemy clump's DPS the fastest.

It shouldn't be hard to calculate that. In most cases, it would just be a matter of focus-firing.

Let's say there are two types of tanks: Bricks have 40 hit points and do 4 damage per second. Snipers have 10 hit points and do 8 damage per second.

Your tanks run into a mixed force and will automatically focus fire on Snipers in range before moving on to Bricks. Look, that Sniper has 2 hit points left, after being shot by your Bricks twice. Instead of the mob pouring fire into it again, one tank fires at it while the rest pick new targets. Maybe some allowance for 'overkill' should be granted, to account for potential misses.

I want to manage the vastness of armies across multiple worlds and space. I don't want to tell each tank commander how to do his job.

Re: Smart Combat, Smart Engineers? (on unit behaviour priori

I'd love having to not need to micromanage everything, it would make the game more fun.

Re: Smart Combat, Smart Engineers? (on unit behaviour priori

I think there's a limit to how much should be automated. If every units always makes the most efficient shot possible, then nine tanks will always beat eight tanks.

There is a lot of satisfaction in defeating a superior force through directly instructing your units. As a real in-game example, in Forged Alliance it often happens that your opponent has more units and is pushing from several directions in an attempt to steamroll you. With a bit of basic micro (hold shift and right-click the enemies in ascending order of remaining hitpoints) you have a chance to defeat the attack. If every unit always made its best possible shot, you would always lose, which would be frustrating and would increase the number of people quitting before the end of a match.

Re: Smart Combat, Smart Engineers? (on unit behaviour priori

Barring terrain modifiers and such, nine tanks should beat eight. That seems like a fair result to me. Besides, I've got a couple planets and their moons and some asteroids to manage and I don't want to have to deal with those eight tanks' firing patterns on top of that.

Also, it doesn't need to just be making the most efficient shot possible, just avoiding making blatantly stupid shots. I like the idea of giving standing orders for what to target, and I don't see how setting your units to target whatever has the lowest health is substantially different from directly ordering them to attack units in ascending order of health. Streamline the micromanagement instead of removing it.

Re: Smart Combat, Smart Engineers? (on unit behaviour priori

One "smart" behabior I want to see.

If a unit is idle, no move orders, no attack/patrol orders, and that unit comes under fire from a unit it can't see or can see but doesn't have the range, start moving to the nearest friendly unit. Even groups of units would be "shy" this way. Automatically retreating and grouping until they had range or firepower to take out the advancing unit.

Re: Smart Combat, Smart Engineers? (on unit behaviour priori

That is abuseable.

I'll start herding your units about the place, into clumps; then bomb the **** out of them.

Re: Smart Combat, Smart Engineers? (on unit behaviour priori

No, now that's a thing about strategic placement, you can't make that automated.

Re: Smart Combat, Smart Engineers? (on unit behaviour priori

Yeah I agree; I think with some additional options (e.g., prioritizing low HP/high HP, high damage, and/or support units) it would work well.

Re: Smart Combat, Smart Engineers? (on unit behaviour priori

Good ideas. Anything that lets us focus more on strategy and less on micro is something I am in favor of.

Re: Smart Combat, Smart Engineers? (on unit behaviour priori

That's pretty much what I'm aiming for. :mrgreen: