Patrolling & constructors, my pet peeve again

[Pocus]

Patrolling is under used in Spring, and I really do think that its a shame. With a few tweak, it could be even better implemented that in OTA.

Why bother with patrolling? Because if I'm not mistaken, one of the philosophy of TA is to free the player from some micro-managing aspects, far too present in other RTS, so that he can concentrate on strategy.

Ok, back to the point.

There is 5 roles for patrolling constructors:

a) repairing units
b) repairing buildings
c) harvesting resource (and wrecks)
d) helping finish building
e) helping factories produce faster their units.


Now the problems in Spring:

(a) and (b) are done correctly

(c) is done, even if the stock is full. This one is easy to fix, just add a check? (I'm a coder myself, but only in delphi...)

(d) is done correctly

(e) is a glaring omission... that spoil much the interest of having patrolling kbots in your base.

So if a dev could do something about (c) and (e), I don't think this should take long (but perhaps I'm mistaken, I don't know the code structure), and this would go a long ways in rising the interest in patrolling constructor. You base could literally run by itself with that.

[Zenka]

indeed point c would be very usefull.

about poin e, there is a reason it isn't there.
Most factories are constantly building stuff (as they should). so any patrolling con units will help building the units and remains doing that untill the factory stops (meaning, you won. or the lab is destroyed).
Therefore there wouldn't be a diffrence between area partrolling and setting the con unit to guard the factory. (making patrolling useless)

Well, in my opinion.

[Tobi]

Ideally they'd only help factories if there aren't any more important things to do, like reclaiming, helping building a building, etc.

While helping the factory, it could then check every few seconds to see if something more important turned up, and if so, do that instead.

[Zenka]

This calls for an unit AI, Alantai!

[colorblind]

No, it does not. This behaviour should be implemented correctly by default in Spring internally, not by some group AI.

[HAARP]

Prioritize tasks like repairing buildings and make units stop doing low-priority tasks when a high-priority one comes up

[Spectre]

and please stop them from trying to fix moving units at least if the target is faster than the builder... ( scouts following tanks in EE are nice though )

[AF]

Who says he was asking em to make a untiAI ina grouPAI? It wouldtn be psosible anyways as the grouPAI and the subAI would conflict.

I'll consider doing it once a dll/lua api is available.

[Pocus]

the task are already priotized, Spring start with task (a) then move down to (d).

[HAARP]

But builders won't stop assisting when the see something more important. Instead, they always finish their current task first

[Pocus]

indeed, but I think it can be discussed if its a bad thing or not. If a kobt assists a factory, when the unit is finished it would reassert his goal, based on the 4 tasks it can accomplish (that are sorted by descending priority)

[patmo98]

(c) is done, even if the stock is full. This one is easy to fix, just add a check?

There are many times when I want the unit to reclame, even when my stock is full. It isn't true as much with metal, but I use it all the time to get rid of trees, but that would meant that it wouldn't reclame the trees unless I was low on energy.
I don't think that doing it for just metal would help either.

[ILMTitan]

If you want to reclaim trees with a full stock, you can just use an area reclaim command. Deforestation is not a standard "base maintenance" operation like the other patrol effects, but a one time improvement operation.

[mongus]

in xta, use mine type 1. tree/minefield cleaner.


And for the record, many of this stuff is done if you put the units in Central Build AI.

[Pocus]

central build do not assists factories.

and reclaiming metal when your stock is full is not a standard behavior, sorry.

[zwzsg]

about poin e, there is a reason it isn't there.
Most factories are constantly building stuff (as they should). so any patrolling con units will help building the units and remains doing that untill the factory stops (meaning, you won. or the lab is destroyed).
Therefore there wouldn't be a diffrence between area partrolling and setting the con unit to guard the factory. (making patrolling useless)

Well, in my opinion.

I agree with Zenka. I wouldn't want my patrolling cons to stop patrolling and standing still near a factory, stuck helping it forever. I use the guard button when I want cons to help factory.

[Min3mat]

exactly.
since when was e) in OTA anyway?

[Pocus]

(e) was not in OTA, but it would do good for Spring, if you implement it like that:

1. check if another task is to be done (a) thru (d), they are by descending order of priority. If not, check (e), help build the unit currently produced. once done, browse again the priority list. So your unit is not stuck indefinitively on the factory, even if it is on repeat: as soon as a more urgent task is around, it will help.

and (c) in OTA checked your stockpile. if full, even for energy, the patroler moved to another task.

[Pxtl]

I find the low priority of repairs frustrating. Most annoying since I tend to plonk one nanotower behind any defensive cluster for repairing purposes. I tell it to patrol, and it dutifully ignores the wreckage and the damaged buildings and instead gets stuck helping with the local factory. Never mind it's right next to three critically damaged HLTs.

[Erom]

Sounds like a lot of extra complexity and some extra processor load (cycling through task priority checks for every builder on patrol) for a behavior that could be more accurately generated and tightly managed by having the patrol and guard commands remain separate.

Personally, I hate losing a turret because my damn patrolling repair con got stuck assisting with something. It is the presence of the d) behavior that made me generally give up on the patrol command. To my mind, I'd like a patrol command that did a,b,c only, but I know most of you will disagree with me there.