#A counterpart to the Fight command: the Melee command

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

tranquil jacinth
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Fight command is great, huh? :3c You move to max range and then you start shooting. But some things don't want to stay at max range. Sometimes you just want them to get close and keep chasing as the enemy runs away, and for that, you need a command that doesn't stop your units from moving once they get in range.

So that's the Melee command. :3c It does what Fight does, but then once those units are in range, it acts like a Guard command but for enemies, following that unit around until it gets right up in its face, doing its best to never let it get away, keeping that unit inside its attack range at all times and allowing laser damage to ramp up to maximum.

The Attack circle is fine for gunships and scouts vs early game scout harass, but what the attack circle sucks at is following units that are being microed away from you, because Attack commands cause units to close to its max range and then stop moving and attack. Melee would make units keep going until they get right up in its face.

It would be no substitute for proper surround micro or runby micro, but it would certainly free your apm up for other things if what you need to do is have one set of units chase after something that wants to kite you while you also micro a different set of units that needs to be babysat. It could help reduce the number of things that need to be babysat at any given moment.

cursive shard
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it acts like a Guard command but for enemies
guard command can be issued on enemies

tranquil jacinth
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Not as a circle. 3:

cursive shard
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there's...a lot of jank with guard command on enemies regardless. Whether it's area guard or some new command, main obstacle is just the requirement of need someone who both understands the engine well enough to make a good implementation, and has the time+energy+desire to devote to its implementation

tranquil jacinth
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Hopefully they see this post then op

cursive shard
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there's a bit more detail in this thread: #1142701081688801320 message
I could've sworn i compared guard functionality on various movestates at the time, but if i did, i didn't document the results apparently

shy flicker
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You can just set units to "roam".

tranquil jacinth
shy flicker
# tranquil jacinth but what if I *don't* want them to go wandering off into the enemy porc to chase...

"Sometimes you just want them to get close and keep chasing as the enemy runs away, and for that, you need a command that doesn't stop your units from moving once they get in range."
Then you should not set them on "roam", or remove it on time if you dont want them to keep chasing enemys at some point.
You want them to run after units you selected, and you are sure there would never be a tick among others? You want them to attack units that are not ticks? You want them to attack units in spcific spot, but then you can just move your units into that spot, no need for extra command. You want computer to decide at your place when to attack, chase or not to chase?

tranquil jacinth
# shy flicker "Sometimes you just want them to get close and keep chasing as the enemy runs aw...

Jeez, you guys don't have to dig up reasons this isn't necessary. 3:

Sometimes you want to say, "attack these specific units and get as close as possible when you do that, and if they run, keep moving after them until I say stop."

With one command. What's the problem here? The entire problem is I can't stop paying attention at any point to these units or else they stop moving and I look like a dipshit.

shy flicker
tranquil jacinth
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Y-yeah, but the difference is I get to choose the units that do this and which units they do this to. So that's why I want this.

cursive shard
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Unless i'm mistaken, roam doesn't make units try to get close to their enemies once they're within attack range, just get within range and reatively try to stay at that range when the enemy retreats. This is woefully ineffective for situations where a unit

A. has multiple weapons with different ranges, as they will only get in range to use one weapon.

B. Is a laser unit, and therefore will be doing only half damage if it stays at max range

C. Is literally any unit which has lower speed than its target or has a hard time starting/stopping, as enemies which start retreating will immediately be safe from all damage and pursuit

shy flicker
cursive shard
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From the thread i linked earlier: #1142701081688801320 message

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I'll hazard a guess you're seeing that with roam

shy flicker
cursive shard
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Not sure if you're reading the linked message or some other message in that thread, but basically the desired functionality would be a repeated move command onto the target's current location, wherever it moves. Would be a large dps increase for many units compared to fight.

shy flicker
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For what I have seen, this is what "roam" does. I have not tested all units, but for those I have seen, it works like that. And when this enemy unit dies, it goes to the next enemy unit. Have you seen something different? Have you seen that units on "roam" does not get close to enemy?

cursive shard
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Can't confirm for certain until quite a few hours from now, but i have good reason to suspect they don't get as close as is desired in most cases, and the inability to actually target specific enemies is an enormous setback regardles

tranquil jacinth
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Right, so if we keep getting told "just use Roam 4head" then it's such a poor replacement for what we're asking for it's kinda like being told "we have Melee Command at home" and the Melee Command at home is:

"Your commander is heavily damaged" curselfexplo

(I look over and see that my com walked directly into five t1 popups because it saw an LLT within its aggro radius and I forgot to turn Roam off)

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Now if that's the only thing Maneuver and Roam did and units did not suddenly have an idiotic aggro radius that made them charge directly into porc, that would actually be a lot better. Hell, if that's what Maneuver did and Roam was the only thing that gave an increased aggro radius, that'd be ideal.

cursive shard
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all blue units set to roam, all blue units chose to park at their max range.

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tranquil jacinth
jolly basalt
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Just use patrol

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It works sometimes

cursive shard
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patrol is literally fight command on repeat

jolly basalt
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Y

cursive shard
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Have you read any of the thread? that wouldn't be helpful for this at all.

jolly basalt
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I set my figs on patrol

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And they actually chased down units before returning to the route

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Did that with pws too

tranquil jacinth
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That's because fighters physically can't stop moving forward unless they're landing. Patrol is very unreliable for land units and many times units will also just park at max range and stop moving when they get there. So no, it's not what I'm asking for, I'm asking for something that makes units close to melee punch you in the face range against a group of specific units we designate until somebody dies or they get a new command.

shy flicker
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I was able to add video about that. It opens/downloads at least for me.

spice heron
heavy plank
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Doesn't roam just dictate how far the unit can move away from the player command and nothing to do with the range they engage at?

cursive shard
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Roam + maneuver mostly dictate whether units will give themselves attack commands on enemies who move closeish to them, and from how far away, but there're a bunch of little things like, for example, the fact that cons on maneuver or roam automatically assist constructing things your other cons or labs are building inside an area repair command you give, and will start assisting allies' construction as well on roam. I've never fully dug into the intricacies, but i assume there're an abundance of those type of things beyond the ones i already know

heavy plank
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would be interesting if there could be a behaviour toggle to make units prefer max range, medium and close tbh

cursive shard
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There're a dozen things that would be nice to have toggles for, but at some point you end up with information overload, both in the settings menus and elsewhere in the ui. Deciding whether a new function is worth the bloat is rough

tranquil jacinth
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We could just make it so this is what alt+Attack does unless there's already something alt+attack does.

cursive shard
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Area attack depending on keybinds

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One of the default binds for the volley fire widget as well i think

tranquil onyx
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I think a good way for 'melee' to work would simply be to behave like the fight command, but instead of stopping at max range, it pretends like it has a very short range, so it isn't 'following' any units, but following the original pathing order and not stopping until it's right up in the face of the enemy and then it will stop and shoot and if they move away it will begin moving forward again until it's in the face of another enemy. Tricky thing is if a unit is at a tangent, does it keep moving forward or stop to avoid it going out of range?

Another thing you could change about the fight command, is once it has stopped to attack a unit, if any other units enter its attack range, instead of going for the closest one, instead use normal target prioritization until all targets in range are dead and it needs to move again, then it will stop and target the nearest thing, but reprioritize as needed when other targets move in range while it's stopped. This might make it less dumb and more useful, so if it actually moves in range of good targets it isn't constantly distracted by ticks.