question about targetting

[SeraphimLeftNut]

What is the current state of air targeting air units?
At what point does the air unit lose its target once it loses radar or direct visual?

It appears to be instant in the following replay. Watch first 5 minutes bottom rock

http://www.mediafire.com/download/7dsu5 ... .fafreplay

This did not happen at all in a 1v1 ladder game, where on a 10x10 map an intie in one corner targetted a transport in another corner and followed the transport across the map without any visual. Exact same mods were on, which are em and common tools

[Morax]

I've noticed this as well...

My issue has been that in early game when a bomber is coming after engies making facts in a home base or expanding (e.g. Syrtis Major) the interceptor(s) I assign to take down the bomber give up and I lose the engies. This is REALLY frustrating as I'm used to dedicating apm once the inties get the attack order. When I realize the bomber is still having a field day it's enough to throw the game...

[Cuddles]

bombers op again?

[alegnagyobbkiraj]

Not sure I'm reading this right but what happens to me in such cases is I click to attack the bomber/else but it if I'm an instant too late and the icon already disappeared (not sure) it auto puts an attack move to the posi where I clicked. So the intie flies there but obviously doesn't track anything. No mods involved.

[SeraphimLeftNut]

Not sure I'm reading this right but what happens to me in such cases is I click to attack the bomber/else but it if I'm an instant too late and the icon already disappeared (not sure) it auto puts an attack move to the posi where I clicked. So the intie flies there but obviously doesn't track anything. No mods involved.

Yes I have seen that many times. It happens even more often with the assist command that is initiated by moving the mouse cursor over factories.

[Morax]

I guess the origin questions is best here:

If a interceptor is given an attack order should it be able to track a target down and kill it without radar?

If a land unit is assigned to attack an incoming raid (eg a lab on open palms) and vision is lost the unit immediately halts and just sits there.

Should I being paying more attention to air unit engagements or should I allow the AI to track and kill targets?

[Ionic]

I find it counter intuitive that when I tell units to attack a unit they are able to track the unit through the fog.

The best example of this is strat bombers on a tele ACU. So funny when they blow up 1 minute later because the bombers are tracking them still.

[keyser]

i've a ui mod that make unit auto ground fire when out of facto.
which is funny is that what aleg explain, still works for me, but this "attack move" is a ground attack move.
so i can see some of my unit ground firing nothing because i told them to attack a tank, but there is this buggy thing that happen.

[Exotic_Retard]

i imagine this fog follow thing is/was intended to combat the incredible amount of annoying that would result if this wasn't the case:
for example:
t1 bombers hiding being microed to leave intie visual range, and therefore getting away because order is cancelled.
bombers cancelling their own attack orders because the target just left intel, (especially if you scout then the scout moves somewhere else/dies)
also bombers might have messed up passes because of this - im not sure but if the unit leaves intel while the bomber is coming for a second pass,

in short, this mechanic prevents many situations where units lose their orders, and just land in the enemy base or something, and to avoid a lot of "luck based" air plays where a player sends planes in a slightly wrong direction to intercept.
for land its not so important as you know where the tanks are more or less, unless you are dealing with raids ofc, but even then it doesn't seem to do that much as people usually use move orders.

and just in general air being a pain to deal with because its so mobile.


i would like to see a maximum engagement distance, or a follow timer, so that aircraft follow for some time to preserve your sanity but then stio after a bit.

perhaps the best course of action may be to leave it. its unintuitive, but at least it isn't super annoying.

[SeraphimLeftNut]

in short, this mechanic prevents many situations where units lose their orders, and just land in the enemy base or something, and to avoid a lot of "luck based" air plays where a player sends planes in a slightly wrong direction to intercept.

This I have to deal with all the time, as is shown in the op thread replay.

The issue that is bigger than losing orders or giving wrong orders is the fact that a group of inties that is given an attack order will not only go after the enemy but will attempt to form a formation along the way. This slows the inties down allowing transports to have a few more seconds of flying time.
The way around this is to always keep most of your airforce in a big clump(watch luxy), or to use spread attack(against a single target) and spread attack move orders.

This is an extra hastle that is a pain even when you "understand" what is happening, to newer players this is probably complete nonsense.

TAKE AWAY ALL FORMATIONS FROM AIR UNITS. Unless the player specifically pressed ctrl key to specify a formation move order. (currently the regular move/attack orders and group attack and move orders are both group attack orders with slightly less organization without the ctrl key)

I would actually want the standard move order or attack order to never care about formations, force the player to use the formation move order to get the formation at the way point.(Regular move order followed by formation move order)

The hidden issue, which is obvious to some, but is hard to convey to others is that the formations are formed slightly differently on different pc's.(I remember Zock's explanation was that all these people who get slow moving formations from regular move orders are accidentally hitting the ctrl key)

To play around with formations in sandbox with cheats, change the value of path_ArmyBudget in the console. Also try the other path_xxxxxx commands.