Target Selection, a GOOD idea

[Zoombie]

How do i know its good? some might cry! Well it worked well for Epire Earth TWO! And because TA SPRING also uses combind forces, it should work fine for us to... and to recap from the end of really long thread:

I said

I also think we should ├óÔé¼┬ª. ├óÔé¼┼ôborrow├óÔé¼┬Ø a idea from Empire Earth II. In EEII you could press the ~ button and then you tell the tanks to come round the rode and attack the base, the infantry to go over the hill and the bombers to hit the AA towers and Radar systems. Then you press ~ again and all the units do what you told them to do at the same time! Its cool because it WORKS! You would still need to manage your troops, but at least you can actually use combined forces in a organized a efficient fashion. The trick, in making your own game, is to try and find things that work well, and see if they will work for your game. EEII has combined forces, and they are necessary to winning. In TA you ALSO need combined forces and they are necessary to winning!

Yes... borrowing...

[munch]

...press the ~ button and then you tell the tanks to come round the rode and attack the base, the infantry to go over the hill and the bombers to hit the AA towers and Radar systems. Then you press ~ again and all the units do what you told them to do at the same time!

Tanfastic! Get's my vote. Simple and needed. I've often wanted to do this in TA, and hopefully it's non-contentious (though I'm not sure I'd classify it as target selection).

The GUI for it could be interesting though. I guess you could have a "hold" button (hotkey ~) where the unit carries on with current orders, ignoring subsequent mouse clicks, until you take the unit off hold... at which point it moves from the old orders to the new ones you've given it.

Brilliant!

Munch

[Min3mat]

that'd be cool actually if it could be turned on/off by host like a command .allowAI or something! nice idea could really help noobs learn :)

[Warlord Zsinj]

Um, Zoombie, could you please explain this further? I don't really understand what the option delivers from what you said.

[munch]

that'd be cool actually if it could be turned on/off by host like a command .allowAI or something! nice idea could really help noobs learn :)

M3M I think you've misunderstood...

Um, Zoombie, could you please explain this further? I don't really understand what the option delivers from what you said.

The idea is you can get your troops all ready to do a simultaneous combined attack - you can make the orders as complex as you like, but you don't execute the order until the "GO!" button is pressed.

This means you can set up and coordinate complex multi-pronged attacks without having to do all the clicking in real-time.

Three ways of using this are:
1. to set-up a simultaneous attack on multiple fronts. In this case you set up all units with their orders and then tell them to GO at the same time.
2. to set-up multiple waves you might give one group the GO order and then wait till the right point in the battle before giving other groups the order.
3. have a load of units on "Standby" ready to go and assist your ally or protect some vital asset if needed.... whilst still being able to use them in some other (e.g. offensive) role. If you need to go to plan B, just hit the "GO" button, and they'll execute your pre-arranged plan.

As an example you might have some ground forces attacking a base where you don't know what the AA cover is like. You set up three groups - the ground troops, some hawks and some brawlers, giving orders to all of them. You give the GO order to the ground troops first. If they find the ground is covered in AA they try to take that out before giving the brawlers the GO command. On the other hand if there is no AA, you give the GO order to the brawlers straight away. On the other other hand if your ground forces are met by enemy gunships, you give your hawks the GO command to provide air cover.

That's just an example off the top of my head, but hopefully it gives you a flavour of the purpose - it means you can plan complex attacks, particularly after doing some recon!

This is particularly needed in spring as you can't use the minimap to issue orders - if you want to tell two separate groups of units to attack an enemy base from two angles, you can't just hit the group numbers and make a couple of clicks on the minimap any more. It means you can give all your gunships a prearranged "go home" order so that when they've finished attacking the target you've assigned to them, they don't just land in enemy territory and leave you scrambling to get them out of there, but instead can easily be send home, or perhaps be told to go on patrol - even if they're not on the screen.

Hope that helps

Munch

[Min3mat]

you can do this already. the pause button, or slow down the game speed. sounds like a fairly sound idea though now that you've actually EXPLAINED it!!! i'd like to see this in spring

[AF]

A groupAI that simply records all the commands given and prevents the units from recieving them, then when a button is pressed (GUI code needs fixing and linked with AI itnerface) the GroupAI can issue the command queue that had built up.

[munch]

you can do this already. the pause button, or slow down the game speed. sounds like a fairly sound idea though now that you've actually EXPLAINED it!!! i'd like to see this in spring

Hi MM =)

Well pause gives you part of it, but apart from the fact it would annoy other players, it doesn't allow you to control when the order is issued. You can't set the order up ready to go and then wait until the right circumstances occur before executing the order.

Does that make sense?

Glad you like the idea anyway =)

Munch

[Min3mat]

true anyeay nice idea. i love EE2...wish i could afford it! that new SW game comijng out soon is gonna cost

[munch]

A groupAI that simply records all the commands given and prevents the units from recieving them, then when a button is pressed (GUI code needs fixing and linked with AI itnerface) the GroupAI can issue the command queue that had built up.

Cool - maybe that's the answer, to have a generic command the user can give to any group AI - all group AI's could use one. Like it!

The only thing though is how would the group AI differentiate between orders for now and orders for later? Would it be possible for e.g. ALT-clicks to give you orders for later (not to be executed till you hit the "GO" button), but still retain control of the unit, allowing you to e.g. attack with it, until you hit the button to make them return to base. Even if this wasn't possible I think it would be a great start!

Munch

[AF]

You would assign units to a waiting AI, then the waiting AI would simpyl rpevent units following orders while queueing up all orders given.

Then when some signal was given the AI would issue the orders and release control of the units.

Just what the signal would be I dont know, I'm guessing a key combo or a GUI button, but otherwise it'd have to eb a unit doing a certaina ction such as blowing up etc.

Actually maybe if the AI class's destructor had the issuing code, that way you simply took away the AI and the orders where executed.

[munch]

Actually maybe if the AI class's destructor had the issuing code, that way you simply took away the AI and the orders where executed.

That sounds like a good prototype solution to me! Fancy implementing it???

Munch (hopefully)

[AF]

hmmm I'm not sure howto issue chains of commands, I shall get round to looking when I finish fiddling around getting the latest source otno this machine.

[Warlord Zsinj]

Frankly it seems like a rather redundant command, but I don't see anything wrong with it. If it makes it easier for someone, put it in, it doesn't affect the way I play.

You see, I already do similar things to what you describe, except I use the squad hotkey commands. I'll have my assault aircraft on hotkey who will be on a patrol somwhere, and if my ground forces run into difficulty (for example, an entrenched guardian), I'll just hit the group hotkey, and target the guardian. My aircraft will hit that unit, and return to the patrol. Its just a matter of using the game controls well.

What I would like to see (if it doesn't enter conversation here, I might start a new thread) is some extrapoloation of the group hotkey commands. I'd like to be able to make the same unit part of different groups. That way, if I have a "defence group" which I will select whenever there is trouble (such as an aircraft), I can make that same aircraft a part of assault group.
It also means that I can select my whole attack army, and tell it to move to a location, but in the middle of the battle, I can hit another hotkey, and select only the long range units so that I can use them to target a defence installation, etc.
It just means that Spring has to remember (and display) that units are part of different groups.

Another way to achieve something similar is by a means of delegation. At this point I don't know if this is a better or worse solution. You can make the first hotkey given to a group as that units "army". So any unit given hotkey 1 can be considered the "first army", and the number 1 would appear by that unit. Then, if I select all (for example) artillery units that are part of the first army, and sign them over to another group, those sub-units become "the first regiment of the first army". So there would appear on the unit the numbers "1:1". Then I could set all my fast attack vehicles to be "the second regiment of the first army", which would display "1:2".
Then if I wanted to select that army, I would hit the key "1". Then, if I wanted to select all fast assault forces within that army (or artillery, or whatever), I press "2". This tells Spring that I want to select the first army, and then the second regiment of that first army.
If I wanted to select another army altogether, I would simply deselect, which would restart the whole system, and then press the next button. One would think that no more than 3 levels of selection are needed (how many groups do you need?), so only Army, Regiment, Platoon. The names are just place holders, and don't actually mean anything. For all I care they could be X, Y and Z. It is just a method allowing different groups to be selected, and for armies to be divided up into smaller groups, to make large attacks more manageable.

[b1ind]

Zoombie's idea seems to be very similar to the idea of macros in other contexts. The delayed order could just be a 'recording' of clicks/orders to be instantly played back at a later time. For the moment, it might be simpler to have the 'macros' global, ie, not specific to a group. This might make the interface more general and flexible. For example, to accomplish a precision attack plan, you could click record, select squad N, then issue the orders, then click Save. (the record button would become save upon clicking it). Eventually, it would be neat if every saved 'macro' would be added to some convenient list for easy access. Also, and now I'm getting ahead of myself, this list could be saved and restored for future games. Mind you, it would be worthless to save a very game specific attack order, but it might be worth saving your nifty base layout to save some clicking.

[AF]

what you're asking for is both subgroups and command queing.

Fix the GUI code, give AI keybindings, and integrate GroupAI with a rudimentry GUI itnerface and I could do all that.

[Zoombie]

Cool! But it would also help if we COULD give orders via mini-map, and hence, be able to controll large battles more effectivly with out a lot of jumping around.

[AF]

Then fix the GUI code! It's soemthign that would be immensly beneficial, and I dont ahve the time to commit to it to do it myself(or the necessary knowhow)

[b1ind]

No, I'm asking for neither. Fine, perhaps command queuing, but I am not asking you to implement it, nor am I volunteering to do the work. I'm simply offering a path of lesser resistance to a feature that I think has a lot of merit. I don't know what your fixation is with groupAI's Alantai, but as far as I see it this would not be a candidate for groupAI's unless there was a means to have multiple AI's per group. The reason that I don't think that putting it in an AI would be a good idea is that the act of using this 'feature' would effectively prevent the use of other -- possibly more applicable -- AI's.

Perhaps I didn't make my suggestion clear enough. Here is how I see it, and keep in mind that this is only a simple, general solution: You would click 'record', then hit ALT-1 to select your first attack group. Once selected, you would give that group its orders. Then, if you wanted a second group to execute orders simultaneously, you would click ALT-2 and issue orders specific to that group, etc.. The nifty thing is that this decouples the idea of order queues or 'macros' from groups; you could easily record a macro to automatically toggle certain metal makers that might, or might not be members of a group. Basically, it would be a simple means of recording, then playing back a series of keystrokes/orders.

[AF]

No, I'm asking for neither. Fine, perhaps command queuing, but I am not asking you to implement it, nor am I volunteering to do the work. I'm simply offering a path of lesser resistance to a feature that I think has a lot of merit. I don't know what your fixation is with groupAI's Alantai, but as far as I see it this would not be a candidate for groupAI's unless there was a means to have multiple AI's per group. The reason that I don't think that putting it in an AI would be a good idea is that the act of using this 'feature' would effectively prevent the use of other -- possibly more applicable -- AI's.

untrue, I do not have a fixation with AI, it's just that a lot fo the thigns you people request can easily be implemented with GroupAI without changing the engine code.

Perhaps I didn't make my suggestion clear enough. Here is how I see it, and keep in mind that this is only a simple, general solution: You would click 'record', then hit ALT-1 to select your first attack group. Once selected, you would give that group its orders. Then, if you wanted a second group to execute orders simultaneously, you would click ALT-2 and issue orders specific to that group, etc.. The nifty thing is that this decouples the idea of order queues or 'macros' from groups; you could easily record a macro to automatically toggle certain metal makers that might, or might not be members of a group. Basically, it would be a simple means of recording, then playing back a series of keystrokes/orders.

Yes I had an idea ages ago that I called command queues, you'd ahve a panel with allt he queues you'd given queued up, you could save it and give it to another unit or units, or save to file and use later etc... It does what you've just said and is a description fo a close but not quite the same description of what I said in ym last post.

Only I've gone the step further and suggested an implementation, you've just amde a request.

As for 2 groups with 2 seperate queues executing them at the same time, perhaps just selecting both groups and pressing a keycombo.