Mod request: ZK but you can't control your units

What would ZK look like if direct unit control were highly limited? Probably very different, but it would be fun to try. Whoever knowns how to get the most out of retreat zones and anti-bait settings could come out on top. Here are two ways to take this.

Idea #1 is that you can control units provided they are not too close to a visible enemy unit. The idea here is that you can set up battle plans with move orders and retreat states, then execute them in an assault. Taking the enemy by surprise is advantageous here. The range would be around the usual maximum sight range of 660. Some units have a lot more range than this, but perhaps being able to manually control artillery is fine. If a fixed distance does not work then perhaps some sort of way to detect whether a unit is "in battle" would work.

Idea #2 is that you are the commander, and you can only give commands to units within 500 or so elmos of yourself. This is conceptually simpler than trying to detect whether a unit is in battle or not, but the best strategies will probably boil down to rolling around with your commander. Also there is the question of whether you can control your factory and constructors when your commander is on the front. Figuring out how team play works with this version would also be rough, perhaps whoever is closest gets control of uncommanded units?

Both these approaches would possibly benefit from some coarse global commands. For example, it could be good to issue a general retreat to units in a battle that makes them return to safety. There is potential to exploit this by making retreat zones in the enemy base, so retreat zones may need to be limited in some way.

This mod should use its own shortname so as to have distinct settings from main ZK, because players would need to enable more automated unit behaviours.

AI control would be something else. The idea is that you set up queues and send units off to fight.

added ingame ui
units transfer to human commanders fast
units transfer to ai slowly 60-120 seconds

Zero-K Auto Battler when?

I'm down to try it Godde.

quote: That might feel a bit annoying (as in lag) and also still allows you to do a lot of "pre-micro".

I'm not sure that there are many types of heavy "pre-micro" you can do with a 10 second command delay.
Like bomber micro is one thing where you can force fire the ground or target multiple units ahead of time.
I mean, you can't do the usual thing with bombers where you sweep in looking for a target and attack immediately.
A 10 second delay would basically guarantee that your bombers take a lot of counter-fire if you try to do that so it might just be better to put your bombers on attack move in the first place.
One thing that would be annoying would be to kill lone raiders that has preordered move commands next to your mexes.
Or even worse, imagine trying to kill Ravagers running through your base with a 20 second command delay :-P

quote: Maybe reduce the number of commands a unit can take per some unit of time, like 10 seconds. Like only one command type (move, attack, etc.) each 5 or 10 seconds. In this way at least you can react fast if the unit was idle and you can change mind immediately (if unit was on attack, you can give it a move). Might be a bit strange if you need to do paths, but probably most waypoints would be couple of seconds away from previous one.

I'm not sure reacting fast and indirect controlled units goes together.
One of the things that made Supreme Commander/Forged Alliance more "strategic" is that a group of land units would take forever to turn around if you gave them a move order.
You basically cannot micro a group of land units that's more than 10-20 in SupCom because they get their orders sequentially with a delay the more units you have selected.
Anyway your idea is similar to mine but also more complex.

Edit:
Oh, and Supreme Commander also has an inherent 0.5 second delay to all commands to sync up the clients.

I think it was due to pathfinding so that 200 units wouldn't pathfind all at once if you gave them a command.
A group of air units will all move at the same time when you give them an order but they don't have any pathfinding.

I'd suggest using the old Flash game Desktop Armada as a base:
(Video with swear warning)
[Spoiler]

The basic idea is that units are controlled entirely by factory rally commands, followed by an attack move towards the opponent's HQ building, destroying which is a victory condition.

Income is based on linear territory control in the original design; a z-k conversion could instead use metal spots like normal.

Porc-building probably needs to be nerfed or forbidden to make it work in z-k, with the latter possibly being an extension of not directly controlling workers.

JayBird you should try my mod its basically what you wantd