I am tired of getting my hover/shield ball snitched. The current answer is to focus more micro to ensure I have a line of units that detects snitches before they become an issue, probably Halberds in front followed by maces or bolas. I view Zero-k as more of a macro focus, so I feel focusing on micro is the wrong answer. The other option is creating a widget. This is the approach I want to take. I am planning on making my own custom formation widget to handle this, and the more I think about it, the better the widget sound, while also making it more difficult to create. Features include:
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Direction formation is facing. Draw clockwise circle, units will face outside the circle. Draw counter clockwise circle, the units face inward. Draw downward line, units face to the right.
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Rank based on unit role, halberts in front to detects niches, and to tank damage. Lances in the back to protect them more, other units somewhere in-between.
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The line is the front of the formation. units will either be at the front or somewhere behind.
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[Merged] Anti clumping. Since rank is based on unit roles, lances will be spread out across the formation line
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Damage state modifies rank, damaged units more to the back were they can be repaired, while still being involved in the group, then once they are repaired, they rejoin their proper ranks. This does make them easer to die, but allows them to rejoin faster then traveling back to the far for repairs.
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Cons in formation will do 3 things. Reclaim, resurrect and repair, and their roles would shift based as needed based on damage level of the formation.
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The units in the formation should stay in formation while they move from 1 formation to another formation line. This allows units that were not in the previous formation to maintain their full speed to join the formation.
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Formation gaps from units dining, or moving in the back for repairs should be filled in by other units in the formation, lowering the density, until repaired are made.
Are there any additional features I should add to this advanced custom formation widget?
+4 / -0
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That sounds like a great idea! I always wanted one of those, I think formations are cool and add a whole other level to strategy in battle. Although, snitch is like the only counter to shieldball in some circumstances, as shieldballs are very hard to deal with sometimes, and they don't really need a buff, but if this is for everything than it sounds good. Although Although, it probably shouldn't do every one of those things for you, doesn't that sound like a bit much? it is almost to the point where all you have to do is tell your giant ball of units consisting of 20 different units where to move and the rest is done for you, but maybe I'm just misunderstanding this whole thing.
+1 / -0
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quote:
it is almost to the point where all you have to do is tell your giant ball of units consisting of 20 different units where to move and the rest is done for you. |
This is a balance between micro and macro. If I want a high micro RTS, I would choose one of the blizzard games. If I want a high macro game, Zero-k is were I would turn. The focus should be on the big picture. Where to expand, where to defend. How much should I spend on economy vs military. What units should I focus on building. Should I split my army, causing me to have 2 armies that are 1/4 as powerful, but can cover more ground, while my opponent needs to decide how to engage with my split army. If my opponents army slips by my army and has direct access to my factory, should I try to rush my units to my factory to defend it, or advance on his factory (this is usually the better option as it seems to cause my opponent to stop pushing on my factory.) Automation makes makes the game have less micro, so you can focus on the overall picture. And yes, I plan on releasing my widget once it is at a good point. I have another widget I want to work on first though, and would be more beneficial to me, especially with 1:1 games.
+1 / -0
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I'm not sure people making custom widgets for themselves to gain an advantage in competitive play is healthy for the game. Its borderline cheating, if not outright cheating. There is always a balance between micro and automation. I'd say zero-k is pretty micro intensive, though you arent fighting against your own units like in most rtses, the micro here is more meaningful. At least in 1v1. I don't think ZK is the type of only overall strategy sort of rts or anywhere close. That sorta leans more towards supcom, ashes or PA? Particularly ashes.
+2 / -0
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I'm not sure people making custom widgets for themselves to gain an advantage in competitive play is healthy for the game. Its borderline cheating, if not outright cheating. |
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I plan on releasing my widget once it is at a good point. |
I am not completely making it for myself, since I plan on releasing the widget, it's for the community, as well as for me. Yes I would gain an advantage while I am developing, if you call that unit not following the formation, causing the whole child blog to die if I don't quickly disable the buggy half developed widget. Once the obvious bugs are fixed, I can share it. Once I share it, I no longer have an advantage, other than knowing how my widget works, which will be public knowledge for anyone who cares to look at it. The widget will also not remove the requirement to micro. It will always be there. It will always be beneficial to micro a flea to kill a mex guard by two gloves, and retreat successfully with the flea as done by Godde.
+1 / -0
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In terms of being a configurable improvement to the game, this sounds best as a toggle on top of the current custom formations settings.
+1 / -0
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Are there any additional features I should add to this advanced custom formation widget? |
My suggestion would actually be to start small and useful, and then add more things as the UI is worked out.
+3 / -0
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This sounds great! Spring always felt a bit imbalanced with line move being one of the best movement tools I've ever seen in RTS, yet no way to specify plain old formations. Taking the line as the intended shape, but distributing the units more reasonably sounds like the best of both worlds. As Anarchid said, don't make it too complicated too quickly. Keep it simple and configurable. This will make it more likely for others to adopt and maintain the wubget. As a bonus, I wonder if Spring supports move orders with both a target position and orientation, since the default move command is only position? This would be good for artillery and vehicles. Vehicles not all having the same orientation in a formation leads to very inhomogenous movement afterwards.
+4 / -0
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Line mightve been seen as how units back when spring started were the ones that benefited most from being in a line (as in, being unable to shoot over eachother). The ability to shoot over eachother sorta tends to end up creating unapproachable doomstacks if there are no counters. snitches are one of those which might end up disappearing with the custom formation stuff
+1 / -0
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hmm, could most of this be implemented just by using circle guard as part of line move?
+1 / -0
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hmm, could most of this be implemented just by using circle guard as part of line move? |
Yes. Any formation is theoretically expressible as a very specific set of circle guards, since circle guard has options for keeping the position rather than orbiting, for orient to leader, and for limited arc with given angle offset. What remains is just all the logic for stuff like skirmishers in back and row switches etc. Maybe also for changing the leader when it dies. 
+3 / -0
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This could work, except that I want it to handle roam/hold position settings. Modify custom formation is better. The first fix to it should be to prevent clumping of like types. All lances should not be clumped together all in splash range of a likho. I’ve lost too many this way. Losing 1 is fine, as long as he goes down as well, but I don’t want to lose my fleet. After that, I can add in formation rank, and move higher rank back ~100 Elmo per rank
+0 / -0
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Made the first change and tried it out. It works well, units of same type are spread out along the formation. Likhos only get 1 lance. I will probably make a PR for it this week.
+1 / -0
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Since step 1 is complete, next step is to add formation rank. The lowest rank on the formation line. The higher ranks are offset based on the angle of the start and end points and the difference in rank compared to the lowest rank. This way if all ranks are the same, the behavior will be the current behavior.
+2 / -0
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Created second PR for to add formation ranks: https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/Zero-K/pull/4644The next step to update custom line formation is to modify behavior of units that are currently being building or are farther away then the rest to ignore the wanted speed change when holding control and to exclude them from the formation, while still moving them towards the formation.
+1 / -0
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