Poll: Skirmisher Move State

There's currently an argument going on as to whether skirmishers should be on hold position by default or whether they should inherit their movestate from the factory like the majority of other units do. Since the devs seem to be split evenly both ways I'd like to get feedback from the community as to which you would prefer.

This issue affects skirmishers, arty, and AA.

On the one hand if you set skirmishers to hold pos, if random units run up and attack them they'll stand there and die like idiots.

On the other, if you set your skirmishers to maneuver/roam, then it's fairly easy to bait them into suiciding into enemy porc.

With hold pos you have to manually tell your units to fight to get them to skirmish, and with maneuver/roam you have to manually stop them from getting baited.

Obviously neither one is perfect in every situation, what I'm asking is only what you would prefer to be the default.

Note: The new unit states widget is getting some new buttons which will allow you to set all skirms/arty/AA to holdpos with a single click (one button for each category, technically), and also a button that will allow you to reset the move states of all ground units to 'inherit from factory', making it much less tedious to manage movestates for most of the unit classes that they're relevant for.

Also note: This does not affect crabe, slasher, or tremor which will continue to use holdpos by default.

I am strongly of the opinion that hold-position is a better default for the following reasons:

- If a skirmisher is not on hold position, and you want it to not be baited, the only way to achieve that without constant vigilance is to change its state to hold position. You then have to remember to change it back whenever you want the original behaviour.

On the other hand, if a skirmisher is on hold position, and you want it to skirm incoming enemies, you only have to give it a fight order. This fight order will naturally go away when the order is complete or you decide your Rockos should be doing something else.

Furthermore, giving a fight order is much easier than changing the unit's state to what you want (even if I ignore the additional cost of remembering to change it back).

Nobody has yet advanced a reason why the above does not end this discussion.

- Skirmishers are *really easily* baited if they're not on hold position. For example, a Rocko near the edge of a Stinger's range will run in and die if an enemy constructor walks even the tiniest distance in front of the Stinger (assuming it has vision).

- Having AA on non-hold-position is even worse since I expect they will frequently run away from your army chasing Swifts which happen to pass near.

I chose that as a really obvious example, but your skirmishers will just move around doing stupid shit, getting out of position, and getting themselves killed all the time - and you'll need much more APM to keep them in line. If you've positioned your skirmishers somewhere that they can't be baited, they're in a position where they're never going to be in combat.

I promise that if I'm playing against somebody and I know their skirmishers aren't on hold position I'm going to abuse the hell out of that.

Don't get me wrong, I've lost Rockos to failing to fight-order them in the past, and it was annoying... but I'm aware how many more I'd lose to them running out of position whenever I failed to maintain constant vigilance.

Stop trying to make this discussion about the menu changes. Nobody has any objection to those as far as I know, and even if they did that is not what this thread is about.

[Spoiler]

I am not derailing your thread. I am presenting arguments so that other people who wish to express an opinion will have an informed opinion.

quote: your arguments do not make you right

If you don't have any valid counter-arguments (and you haven't raised one against the arguments above in the last four times you and I have discussed this, you've instead diverted into either repeating your original statement over and over, or derailing into irrelevant UI changes) it's a fairly clear indication that my point of view has more validity than yours, aeonios .

edit: As you say, I can set up my presets however I like... I am concerned with which of these settings will cause a new player less problems and teach them less bad habits, and for the reasons above I believe hold-position default to be the superior option.

Unless somebody makes a valid argument to the contrary which convinces me, that will continue to be my opinion.

Personally, everything should be set to hold position all the time. It is really annoying when my units wander off or get baited. They all need to be able to sit just outside the range of turrets. If the defaults were based on exactly what I want to use then everything would be set to hold position. This is why I don't care much about exactly what you want to use. The start states are configurable, configure them to suit you.

An advantage of hold position is that it does not expose players to tactical AI unless they do a fairly specific thing (use the fight command). Tactical AI implements some unintuitive behaviour so it might not be best to introduce it to people right off the bat. For example if you have a Rocko on maneuver and tell it to attack a unit the Rocko is likely to run away in response to your attack command. This is puzzling behaviour.

The important thing here is what new players want. This is not merely a matter of weighing up the situations and comparing the default usefulness of the unit when set to various states. The cognitive load on the player also matters, probably more than anything else. It is much simpler for a unit to stand still than it is for it to run around all over the place so even if running around all over the place turns out to do slightly better averaged over all situations it can not be a worthwhile default.

Cognitive load is not the only metric, it is also important that units not be frustrating. Here are some frustrating things that units can do.

• 1. Not staying where you told them to move.
• 2. Failing to reinforce nearby allies. Imagine a few enemy Glaives killing a spread group of your stationary Glaives.
• 3. Dying when skirmishing and living was strictly better.
• 4. Being baited into enemy range.
• 5. Being told to attack an enemy, appearing to ignore the order and decide to move somewhere else.
• 6. Being stuck on terrain.

Hold position opens up frustration 2 and 3. Maneuver creates frustration 1, 4 and 5 and makes units more vulnerable to 6. My feeling is that whether a unit should default to hold position depends on the definition of "nearby" in frustration 2. Glaives should be set to maneuver because an enemy 400 elmos away is perceived to be near them, and might even be able to shoot at the Glaive, so the might as well engage it. On the other hand, a Rocko can shoot at all nearby targets without moving. It is also more likely to run away from enemies and generally can 'move all over the place' in a wider area because it has more range. Therefore, I think whoever decided to set skirmishers and artillery to hold position had the right idea (this was probably about eight years ago). If Buoy is not set to hold position then it is simply because the copypasta to create Buoy did not have hold position. Nobody has thought about this topic for years.

quote: I do not consider that to be a good default because it will inevitably be confusing and frustrating for new players who don't know every detail about the tactical ai and unit start state systems.

Inconsistent state inheritance won't be confusing for new players because they won't even know that states exist.

quote: I disagree. Fight move is one of the first things tutorials should teach, and players should understand what units will do when given that command considering how ubiquitous it is.

You misunderstood. I think it is fine for new players to be introduced to fight. My point is that if a player actively chooses to set fight they are much more likely to know why their units are moving all over the place and how to control it.

quote: There is no reason to set artillery to hold pos because artillery outranges and skirmishes vs porc automatically and thus is naturally resistant to baiting.

This doesn't stop them from running around, appearing to ignore your order. Units with self assigned attack commands will skirm their closest target so you could even put some artillery somewhere only to find later that it was chased away.

quote: If they read the manual at all they should at least be aware that those things exist, even if they don't know where the button for it is. You can't even set your factories to use repeat orders by default without going into new unit states, which was probably the first thing I ever used them for. Setting all my facs to maneuver was probably the second thing after that.

New players don't read any manuals. They don't know what any buttons do.

I want a button which allows me to easy change the unit movestate, with immediate effect

I want them to inhert movestate
I find the idea of holdpos absurd for skirms, since all of them cannot outrange, and will get shot by stinger, which means massing them on the edge of it's rsnge is downright useless, as they cannot fire anyway,yes you'll be able to shoot once you get in close, but to do such a thing means you won't have as much space to fit other units in.
Also, the Gauss has 560,enough to engage a Recluse, which is one of the longest ranged skirms which means others will get shot as well unless your a crabe
S


Second,artillery outranges all of cheap porc, and being able to move when a warrior approaches is a pretty nice idea, so they don't get assrushed and destroyed.


I can see where the manuever is detrimental for skirms, but they really shouldn't be alone, because not only are the susceptible to bait, but they could just get assrushed if they are on hold pos, but on manuever, they follow a warrior and then get swamped by ten glaives out of nowhere and get shot by the enemy tower.


AA I say manuever, so they follow enemy aircraft and help destroy them, as opposed to having them sit there whilst your fusions are undergoing nuclear meltdowns.


I find it easier to tell the skirm/arty to stop moving, as opposed to fire command since I am often controlling quite a lot of units

quote: New players don't read any manuals. They don't know what any buttons do.

Stereotype confirmed?

quote: New players don't read any manuals. They don't know what any buttons do.

quote: I want a button which allows me to easy change the unit movestate, with immediate effect

quote: Stereotype confirmed?

Back to the topic:
Would you rather have your units get baited or just die immidiately? I would rather prefer them to get baited since it gives me a couple of seconds to react. If they are on hold pos I have a much smaller window to react to the enemy.

quote: No, because then units will refuse to attack things that you told them to attack.

On F command* your Rokos will avoid DDMs attack range, they wont suicide on their own, but if u give them direct attack, or tell them to move in range oF it, they will (and consequently - die)

* - since A and F commands were swapped some time ago u mighy have missunderstood me. I still use old, prehistoric hotkeyes, which mean that to me a "F(ight)" command is the blue fight/move command.