Auton controls: making and recalling sub-groups with hotkeys

[WillyTheSquid]

As it says on the tin. Probably intimately familiar to those of you who have played RTS games -- you could select a group of units and assign a hotkey to them. It would be great if you could separate your mules from your other autons so they won't try to catch up.

In 1.07a you have to call the combat autons to your side individually, or give an attack order immediately (mules don't respond to that). But that leads to total anarchy when they all 'break and attack'.

If there was a way to create sub-groups of autons (even if it's only the armed/unarmed autons being separated into 2 separate groups by default), it would save so much time and effort. Right now you need 3 keystrokes PER auton, and the letter which is assigned to them tends to get shuffled around when you enter a new system with some freshly-acquired autons in tow.

Related to this: "guard target" (or "escort target") command option for autons. AI-controlled Tenhove-class sentinels will do it for Corporate Ice Farms and Outlaw Mining Colonies -- it's one of the reasons that autons exist in the first place! They never get tired, never make mistakes (well... except for being a bit too alert/trigger-happy...)

The reason I'm suggesting that is that I've only recently started using autons -- I sort of suspected them to suck. Was surprised when most of them turned out to actually be useful in specific situations.

(I would also like to nominate PM's 'Auton Assembly Hangar' mod for inclusion into a future version of vanilla Transcendence. It's completely within the flavor of the vanilla game, is seamlessly integrated gameplay-wise and adds a lot of spice to the game. With the new 'create-a-mule' option in the latest version, it's possibly my favorite Transcendence mod.)

[Atarlost]

First, PM's auton assembly hanger is the only reason you find Autons to not suck.

Second, I suspect this is already in the queue since George is trying to make Transcendence into a dual functionality RTS/Shooter engine, but this probably deserves to be a ticket. Grouping is going to be important for that design goal and may as well be made available to the auton/wingman system.

[shanejfilomena]

I remember a game where i had alot of mules plus fighting autons, was doing great because i was loading up loot like crazy : but recalling my fighters would always bring the mules right into a hot zone.....very annoying to sit there and and try to get them over to help me while at the same time keep the Mules safe so I did not loose my loot or worse, the mule itself. IF a Mule is given a weapon it is " fine " , I have given mine weapons and shields in the past, I tried alot of silly ideas but NOTHING has ever worked against the #1 enemy to a Mule : the Ventari.

[WillyTheSquid]

Yeah, Shane, same experience here. They ganked my loaded-to-the-gills-with-ringer-ores Ore Packer RIGHT as I gated out of the system... the other 19 Autons I was using: not a single scratch. And of course... exiting the system autosaves. Would have been so much better off not hoarding them for conversion to rin, but give a man too much room to put his stuff in and the promise of it becoming really valuable in the future and hoarding becomes a certainty.

Several hundreds of tons of easy rin, and right before I first enter Ringer Space... it gets taken away from me. Worst economic damage ever done to me by any enemy in any game. Bastards perma-fried my brand-new Koshiba-500 as well (thanks for putting the Fun Disruptor back in, guys )

[Atarlost]

If you want to do this what you need to do is keep your autons in the previous system and only bring them in to loot and mine after you've killed everything in the system.

[WillyTheSquid]

Agreed. Not ideal (tons of micromanagement select individual 'bots to get them to park on the sun or a suitable planet; also: hope and pray to Domina that no enemies using area of effect weapons drop by to say "Hi!" when on the way out of the system.)

[alterecco]

I have a 90% finished mod that adds subgroups. It works like a charm, just needs to be updated to 1.07a. If anyone is interested in working on it, I will be happy to post it. Perhaps i will get the time to finish it myself one day.

Just to be clear, this is absolutely doable in a mod.

[RPC]

'ecco: put in in the Transcendence shared dropbox folder, I'll see if I can add it to Sandbox

[WillyTheSquid]

I have a 90% finished mod that adds subgroups. It works like a charm, just needs to be updated to 1.07a. If anyone is interested in working on it, I will be happy to post it. Perhaps i will get the time to finish it myself one day.

Just to be clear, this is absolutely doable in a mod.

I think I want to have your babies. Permission to use your sub-group mod for 2 projects I'm working on? Full credit, of course.

@RPC: please do!

[alterecco]

Sorry for the late reply. It's in my dropbox folder now. AutonomousAutons.xml in the UnfinishedStuff folder. Do you have access to the shared T dropbox folder, WillyTheSquid? If not i can post it some accessible place (or you can get access :)

A few notes about the mod. Apart from adding nesting, it was an attempt to make autons behave better. So, there is a lot of new orders that work so-so. Feel free to rip the nesting part out. Also, there is a dockscreen that goes along with it, but it is written in the deprecated DSF syntax. It should probably be rewritten as a regular T dockscreen. I should be glad to help with any questions, and potentially with code, time permitting. I would recommend making it as a pure nesting mod, and then allowing for it to be included in sandbox that way. No point in duplicating the effort. You can use any bit you like, no attribution required. Stuff i have made for T i put in the public domain :)

Have fun ^^

.]

[FourFire]

... But what if you can only have groups of up to 40 units; Uhh I mean Autons...

No that sounds like a great Idea, I found myself constantly annoyed when parking my attack group to do some strategic frontline sniping then "Q/F"ing them called my mules to the front (which can obviously be painful losses).