IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited March 2013
Sometimes you gotta right click twice. I wish it used a verb instead like "following" to designate your success instead of what sounds like an instruction
They should add a UI icon and shortcut for it too, because it doesn't seem to be all too responsive atm, particularly when trying to order it to follow and weld a moving marine.
They should add a UI icon and shortcut for it too, because it doesn't seem to be all too responsive atm, particularly when trying to order it to follow and weld a moving marine.
Well it should be deffo on the UI I mean they sell as an RTS/FPS ... while they are at it make they might as well make a notify box to show idle macs... hey to stay in the spirit of RTS
I think it'd be swell if drifters/macs acted as resource gatherers.
That is, they go to the extractors and return it to the nearest hive/command chair.
Why? There's already enough busy work in taking out extractors. Having to chase down MACs/drifters as well doesn't exactly provide more fun. It would just take the focus away from PvP a bit more, and clutter up the place.
I think it'd be swell if drifters/macs acted as resource gatherers.
That is, they go to the extractors and return it to the nearest hive/command chair.
Why? There's already enough busy work in taking out extractors. Having to chase down MACs/drifters as well doesn't exactly provide more fun. It would just take the focus away from PvP a bit more, and clutter up the place.
To make the game more RTS-ish?
I was also thinking it'd be kinda cool if drifters or cysts were used to create alien structures.
That is:
If you want to place a crag, you have to move a drifter there first, and tell it to turn into a crag.
Or
If you want to place a crag, you have to evolve a cyst into a crag.
Had some macs following an exo into crossroads on summit, coming from flight control. Where the power node is in summit reception, they moved away from the exo they were following and started repairing it.
This brought them into the range/view of the aliens round the corner. They soon died and could no longer repair the exo who was covering some ARCs just round the corner.
Had some macs following an exo into crossroads on summit, coming from flight control. Where the power node is in summit reception, they moved away from the exo they were following and started repairing it.
This brought them into the range/view of the aliens round the corner. They soon died and could no longer repair the exo who was covering some ARCs just round the corner.
...Select them and move them back to the exo... I imagine there being more complaints if 'follow and weld' made mac's repair one unit exclusively. They could reduce the radius a mac will find things to repair in but that's likely to lead to more micro-management in other areas (repairing bases) and won't stop these incidents occuring completely. They've severely cut down on the micro-managment with the follow and weld command, which was needed, but they should and do still need looking after.
My biggest issue is they get in the way so much when trying to shoot things off exo's, but that's a trade-off i'll have to live with
They should add a UI icon and shortcut for it too, because it doesn't seem to be all too responsive atm, particularly when trying to order it to follow and weld a moving marine.
Well it should be deffo on the UI I mean they sell as an RTS/FPS ... while they are at it make they might as well make a notify box to show idle macs... hey to stay in the spirit of RTS
There is an idle worker button, it's by the top-left corner of the hotkeys grid.
I was also thinking it'd be kinda cool if drifters or cysts were used to create alien structures.
That is:
If you want to place a crag, you have to move a drifter there first, and tell it to turn into a crag.
Or
If you want to place a crag, you have to evolve a cyst into a crag.
They tried using drifters like this in the beta, it wasn't very good, if you think about the average alien comm in pub games for a few seconds you will probably realise why this would be bad. The cyst idea is kind of interesting but I don't think it would be workable seeing as you have to space cysts quite far apart - and what would happen if you echoed something away, would the cyst chain be broken?
They should add a UI icon and shortcut for it too, because it doesn't seem to be all too responsive atm, particularly when trying to order it to follow and weld a moving marine.
Yeah, there is a short delay between giving the order and the game actually checking where you clicked. You have to lead a moving player a bit when assigning the order for it to work. Will probably be fixed at some point in the future.
And while they are at it, they should improve the AI of the MAC slightly. It should give priority to whatever target has the lowest HP or at least to the target it's assigned to, so it doesn't start repairing a structure if the Exo it's assigned to is almost dying.
Also not sure what to do with MACs that are assigned to a player that uses a PG. The MAC will travel across the entire map and try to catch up with the player. While that is good for the player, it is bad for the MAC as it leaves him pretty vulnerable and prone to move through enemy territory.
The "Select idle Drifter" button doesn't work all the time either. Sometimes you may have 3-4 idle Drifters and it simply won't select any of them. Probably it broke in some way due to the death of another Drifter.
The follow and weld is an improvement but it still needs work. One option I thought up - Once the commander assigns a mac to 'follow and weld' you, he will only do exactly that unless otherwise instructed by you or the comm. You can then approach the mac and select 'wait here' or 'continue following' because sometimes you do not want the mac to follow you around the corner where you KNOW 3 gorges are waiting to bile bomb you, in which case the macs all execute Private Sub DERP_MODE() and just vibrate until they die.
Comments
Well it should be deffo on the UI I mean they sell as an RTS/FPS ... while they are at it make they might as well make a notify box to show idle macs... hey to stay in the spirit of RTS
That is, they go to the extractors and return it to the nearest hive/command chair.
Why? There's already enough busy work in taking out extractors. Having to chase down MACs/drifters as well doesn't exactly provide more fun. It would just take the focus away from PvP a bit more, and clutter up the place.
To make the game more RTS-ish?
I was also thinking it'd be kinda cool if drifters or cysts were used to create alien structures.
That is:
If you want to place a crag, you have to move a drifter there first, and tell it to turn into a crag.
Or
If you want to place a crag, you have to evolve a cyst into a crag.
Had some macs following an exo into crossroads on summit, coming from flight control. Where the power node is in summit reception, they moved away from the exo they were following and started repairing it.
This brought them into the range/view of the aliens round the corner. They soon died and could no longer repair the exo who was covering some ARCs just round the corner.
...Select them and move them back to the exo... I imagine there being more complaints if 'follow and weld' made mac's repair one unit exclusively. They could reduce the radius a mac will find things to repair in but that's likely to lead to more micro-management in other areas (repairing bases) and won't stop these incidents occuring completely. They've severely cut down on the micro-managment with the follow and weld command, which was needed, but they should and do still need looking after.
My biggest issue is they get in the way so much when trying to shoot things off exo's, but that's a trade-off i'll have to live with
They tried using drifters like this in the beta, it wasn't very good, if you think about the average alien comm in pub games for a few seconds you will probably realise why this would be bad. The cyst idea is kind of interesting but I don't think it would be workable seeing as you have to space cysts quite far apart - and what would happen if you echoed something away, would the cyst chain be broken?
Yeah, there is a short delay between giving the order and the game actually checking where you clicked. You have to lead a moving player a bit when assigning the order for it to work. Will probably be fixed at some point in the future.
And while they are at it, they should improve the AI of the MAC slightly. It should give priority to whatever target has the lowest HP or at least to the target it's assigned to, so it doesn't start repairing a structure if the Exo it's assigned to is almost dying.
Also not sure what to do with MACs that are assigned to a player that uses a PG. The MAC will travel across the entire map and try to catch up with the player. While that is good for the player, it is bad for the MAC as it leaves him pretty vulnerable and prone to move through enemy territory.
The "Select idle Drifter" button doesn't work all the time either. Sometimes you may have 3-4 idle Drifters and it simply won't select any of them. Probably it broke in some way due to the death of another Drifter.