Target Priority Switch

[Lionhardt]

Hey,
Since a while now I have thought about a way to facilitate commander micro. The reason is, I find it really annoying that I have to tell my commander to attack low health units rather than high health units manually.

Example:

Player 1 has got 20 tanks and his commander engaging Plaser 2's commander. Player 2's commander is low on health and needs a hp boost by veterancy. Player 2 is retreating towards his base. He does not want to stop walking. His commander engages the enemy commander. Though he wants to kill some t1 to get vetarency. Therefore he needs to manually assign t1 targets to his commander, which in turn leads to his commander stop walking. This sucks quite a bit. Therefore it would be really great to have a button like the OC button that makes the commander attack units with the lowest health first.


Would this be possible to do?

[Golol]

i made a thread about this some time ago.
actually it were 2
moving and focus firing and prioritizing flaks, acus, bombers, whatever
Zep said it is complicated

[FunkOff]

Would this be possible to do?

No. Although you can change targeting priorities on the fly, and you can run scripts to automatically change them based on certain conditions, "health" isn't one of them. Target priority is based on units categories, which don't change during the course of a game.

Although you could manually control targeting with a script, this would probably be worse in most situations than using the normal targeting system, particularly for units with low turret yaw speed like the ACU. Specifically, the current system works like this: It finds priority targets based on the targets' categories, and simply tries to shoot at the priority target within its guard range that requires its turret to turn the least from its current position. It's hardly optimum, but relatively close.

[Lionhardt]

Oh, too bad. Thank you for your explanation though.


(I really hope not to see such unthoughtoutness in PA btw...)

[Veta]

I replied to this on the PA forums already, this is more akin to unit AI (deciding what to target for the player). If funk says it's not possible it probably isn't, although after reading his explanation I'm wondering if employing a priority targeting system like what I described here, would be.

Yes, this comes up on the FAF forums from time to time. Some Spring games over correct for this by adding separate target commands, e.g. select attack target, deselect attack target.

This may be unclear but let me try to articulate another possible solution. Instead of additional command types, target priorities could be integrated into traditional UI such that Attack-Walking (select+alt+right click) and then Shift+Attacking (...+shift+a+right click target) prioritizes selected targets if they are within range without altering the initial move command or adding an additional attack-move. Don't want to spam-click (...+right click target) for multiple target priorities? Give an Attack-Walk (select+alt+right click) followed by a Shift+Area-Attack (...+shift+a+right click+mouse drag) command. Then your com will priority target all units that were in that area.

If you want to normally Attack-Walk and then add a Shift+Attack you can still use the regular move command (select+right click) and Shift+Attack (...+shift+a+right click target). The commander still automatically attacks with regular move commands. You could decide whether the commander attempts to fire from max range (like supcom alt+right click) or moves directly to its goal with separate Fight/Return Fire stances.

If you want to add an Attack-Walk command you can use (...shift+alt+a+right click) instead of (...shift+a+right click).

Pretty hard to explain GUI in text but does that make sense funk?

[FunkOff]

If funk says it's not possible it probably isn't, although after reading his explanation I'm wondering if employing a priority targeting system like what I described here, would be.

It's not that it's not possible, it's just not possible without great effort and probably not worth it. Specifically, what if you had a 200 hp tank in front of your ACU and a 100 hp tank behind your ACU? You can fire three shots (roughly?) in the time it takes your ACU's turret to turn all the way around, so you'd want it to prioritize the tank in front, because it'll still kill both of them faster this way than if you target the lower health one first.

And then what if one tank has 210 hp and the other has 215? Is there any difference worth calculating because it'll still take the same number of shots (3) to kill each anyways?

I like your creativity, but this idea just falls apart.

[johnie102]

Can there at least be made a button which gives the enemy Commander the highest priority? This way you could still give your units a move order, but they will all attack the enemy commander.
Might try making this myself if you say it is doable.

[Golol]

this is what i wanted.
if the enemy com has 500 health and you have him in range of your 5 obsidians but they shoot fucking t1 spam he might survive because of LUCK.
and luck should not be a factor in supcom

[Veta]

It's not that it's not possible, it's just not possible without great effort and probably not worth it. Specifically, what if you had a 200 hp tank in front of your ACU and a 100 hp tank behind your ACU? You can fire three shots (roughly?) in the time it takes your ACU's turret to turn all the way around, so you'd want it to prioritize the tank in front, because it'll still kill both of them faster this way than if you target the lower health one first.

And then what if one tank has 210 hp and the other has 215? Is there any difference worth calculating because it'll still take the same number of shots (3) to kill each anyways?

I like your creativity, but this idea just falls apart.

What? No man, I was talking about what I quoted in the post above. Like being able to change what your commander targets while moving like in Zero-K. e.g. I want to priority a T2 unit while running from a battle.

[samoja]

luck should not be a factor in supcom

Every war has a "Luck factor" and every war game worthy of itself must be able o simulate it, saying that luck has no place in war is absurd.