Form selected units into ranks

[Frogmorton]

I am often annoyed by groups of units bunching up and blocking my desired actions.
I would like to see a form-ranks function, where I could select a bunch of units then drag a line across the ground. The units should then do their best to move to positions spaced along that line.

I can see a number of different situations where arranging groups in preferred lines would be useful, with one being having the option to have units order themselves, especially if they move the most damaged units toward one end of the line.

[Cinh++]

it is called 'micromanagement'.
ex: You can see your units' heath without selecting them by pressing F9; retreating at heavy damage; patrol; repairing on the fly; decreasing enemy units' rof; etc..

[Frogmorton]

Thanx for that, tho one of the problems I seek to alleviate is that units tend to bunch into pathways and pin my most damaged units between themselves and the enemy.
Its a matter of having many attempts at micromanagement fail, because I can't get em to let each other move around.
If the idea seems so foreign to you then perhaps my playing style is quite different than yours, and maybe my idea was stoopid. I'm not here to judge but to learn ; )

[xShadow421x]

units tend to bunch into pathways and pin my most damaged units between themselves and the enemy.

I at least understand what you're referring to. I've experienced this many times and from I understand reading through some threads here, this phenomenon of poor pathfinding only exist in these later versions of the game's code, or at least it wasn't as frustrating as it is now. Intentional or not, I couldn't tell you, but like I said it has been addressed before at least once in the forum so perhaps it's being worked on? Until then, you'll have to learn how to manually move specific units &/or get the active groups out of the way. Just in case you were not aware, you can form groups of units by assigning them to a number on your keyboard if that is anything like your "form-ranks" idea. I believe the default key-binding is to hold Ctrl and press any top-row number key (not the num-pad) you wish to assign your group to after you select all the units you want in that group. Then you can just press the number key for the group assigned anytime to move just those units and double tapping the key quickly brings your camera view over to that group if you're not looking at them already.
BTW, if you set units to retreat when damaged, they will automatically become unassigned from a group if they're in one when they retreat so they won't interfere when you try to move the active group it was in which is good for that scenario, but you then have to reselect those units including the retreated unit when repaired should you want it back in that group.This also applies to adding additional units to an existing group in general.
Sorry for the paragraph, but I hope I've helped in some way .

[Frogmorton]

Hi xShadow421x,
Yes I rely on units retreating to the nearest repair station then moving to its rally point, which is very handy if you want a supply of freshly repaired units standing by close to where you need them, and being able to set the rally point for repair stations (and factories) is awesome. Reassigning their team numbers is not that big of a problem, the only one that annoys me is commanders dropping their number after damage, as I sometimes have factories delivering to them, but they are easy enough to locate via the commanders button.

I have been a fan of wz2100 for at least a decade, and ok, there are still some tricks and better techniques that I pick up from time to time, but the reason I desire to be able to rank a selection of units as described above, is mainly because of the one main problem I have when I get a bottleneck in the pathways and would like to retain a fighting front whilst sending damaged ones to the rear. Also between missions when everything is bunched up at a transport and I want to sort things... I guess I have a very visual approach to this kind of thing, I like to precede decisions with a little shuffling around and grouping.

My C/C++ is a little rusty but I am tempted to start looking at the source and thinking a little more deeply on this.

[xShadow421x]

No no I get the idea you were proposing, I was just speaking from the mindset of working with what is available due to the pathfinding issues; sorry about that.
Your idea certainly is a different tactic that would use a different playing style and I could at least see it being beneficial in certain situations, but ultimately even if you or someone else implemented it, I personally feel the pathfinding algorithm isn't up to par for it to work effectively. I mean I've had simple situations like getting trucks to build something become more work than necessary because the next thing I know, there's one driving in circles when there's plenty of room for it to go around and build on the other side.
IDK, that's my thought on it anyway. If you or someone else could figure it out I'm sure someone will appreciate it. I would but I don't know anything about the coding side of things. I just do modeling & art