What if micro pigs... are just shaved guinea pigs?

Unless there's a way to enforce client-side mod rules, then having rules for client-side modes is pointless.

You don't need to "go back to base" ever, there's a hotkey for selecting all idle factories.

I don't think any of the top players use auto factory, at least, not AFAIK. I think that's pretty indicative of the fact that it's far from essential.

It's useful for lower level players who simply can't keep up with the game. As for saving your eco, I find that's it's biggest downside. You're going to stall, and generally you want to stop doing things that AREN'T building an army, not the army production. I'm actually moving away from it because ******* up your eco while having a dependency on auto factory is crippling.

One time I used it, found tweaking it's eco reaction is best set to when your eco is at 80% build efficiency. That turns it off very rarely unless you just tanked an eco hit and as long as you fix your eco (turn off factories while rebuilding eco) it comes back on anyway.

Well, select all idle factories doesn't work half the time for the same reason select all idle fabbers doesn't work. You also cannot shift add idle factories to a factory control group using that hotkey. So you do literally have to go 'back to base' currently, unless uber changes/fixes/improves the ui.

I choose not to use auto factory because personally it doesn't feel right using it in a competitive setting, but I can't speak for other players. Though Mot said here he didn't even know about the mod, and custard said he infact had been using it. I understand that in the context of PA, many people don't see this mod as morally questionable and that's something I respect and let live.

It's useful for lower level players absolutely. Increasing accessibility is a good thing, but does it give an unfair advantage to low level players who use it against other unaware low level players not also using it? Maybe, maybe not. I also think there are other things uber can do to streamline the macromanagement 'micro', so that we don't need to resort to auto factory mods.

Does it effect the gameplay at higher levels when the second or two you spent managing your macro meant you missed a crucial micro battle somewhere else, or can't dox dance as long as the auto factory player? I think so.

As for the stalling, you could get the mod to keep building despite stalled economy if you wanted. It also comes down to comparable build orders. If both players overbuild the same amount of fabbers and use exactly the same build so that we are isolating the effect of the auto factory mod, one player will end up with more resources than the other. We already see players manually powering on and off factories to make sure fabbers are expanding as fast as possible.

If you are building excessive amounts of fabbers instead of just a few too many, that choice alone and not autofactory is more of a deciding factor imo.

And what if uber just took autofactory and put it in the game and make a new button for it so anyone can use it?

Then that would be vanilla.

Having such features as a part of the vanilla client is surely a nice long time goal - but that's not the point.

Shortcomings of the original client are a thing, we all know that. However, I don't agree on the opinion that extended control schemes should always become a part of the vanilla client - because most of them are very specific to individual usage patterns. Just like the auto factory mod, where some users actually prefer to prioritize factories over fabbers on certain occasions.

Client augmentation mods are a thing too

As a result, custom clients with different automation capabilities are inevitable with PA. The vanilla client only sets a baseline for the feature set, but it's not the reference (unless of course a tournament explicitly requires pure vanilla client!).

This again results in a rather simple conclusion: Exploitable features which promise over-proportional gains must either never be part of the game, or they must be used by the game by default. An intermediate state where the feature exists, but it can only be triggered by the client, is troublesome since that makes it exploitable.
Some players might consider dox dancing or kiting a measurement of skill, but it isn't in such a game. It's exploiting trivial mechanics which haven't been implemented properly yet. And whenever there is an exploitable mechanic, it will be exploited.

You can't just claim "it's skill" when exploiting it manually and denouncing it as "cheating" when it is exploited automatically.

We had this discussion before, last time it was called "assistance AI" or general "unit AI". (Not to be confused with these weird Galatic War Subcommaders we got instead.) The conclusion was, that all units should always aim for performing all trivial tasks on their own if the player states that intention. This includes kiting, dancing, intelligent target selection and possibly even rudimentary eco managment.

Unless the teacher told everyone that they left the exam solutions there, and recommended that everybody go look at them.

Because in this case, that is sorta what Uber is doing.

Have had teachers do this. Nobody complained. Not any one of the students nor the teacher. Just saying.

Yea, same here actually. Though my professors where usually clever enough about it that when it was time to take the exam, you had to write your own questions or something equally unexpected.

You guys must not be engineers......I've never had a teacher of mine do this....ever.

Especially not on the final. LOL.

First time to know we have mods can do cheating. Really surprised me.

Because it's not cheating. It's just automation of trivial tasks, and that was promised to be a feature.

hmm I don't agree with you here.. Imo, microing dox or units in general and managing eco or not just trivial tasks.

I'm all up for better macro tools. But I am firmly against mods that will do work without you telling it to do something.

Yeah even though i lost not because of that micro

Poor metal spawns! i demand rematch xD

I don't even understand how to micro like that
do you just click randomly?

You click to the left,
Then you click to the right.
You keep on clicking,
With all of your might.

Or you just record a mouse macro which does that specific clicking for you. I bet some people already did.

Too many variables, not really possible.

Yeah this kind of micro has a little more to it than you'd first think. The *placement of the clicks* is highly important, as you need to be strafing left to right in relation to the vector between the micro'd unit and it's target. In burntcustard's example video, he was actually carefully balancing the position of the dox between the groups to avoid a crossfire, whilst keeping it facing 1 target at a time

Yeah, he kited in addition to dancing orthogonal to distance vector. But neither of these actions is difficult or complex. It's only slightly more demanding for a human player since that dancing can't be properly expressed with queued commands or a patrol command.

It's really just micro for the sake of micro, and it's something the computer is indefinitely better at than any human. Because the computer can even actually evade individual projectiles.