Petition to reinstate Guard, Persue and Hold orders!

[Guardsman Brendo]

I liked the hold order. I mainly used it for my AA tanks, so they could work like a hardpoint, but move if the vtol approach angle changes.

[Berg]

I bounce this to the top again as a reminder the community would like the removed features returned.
here is a youtube video that shows pursue works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDn39xoQiSE

[-Philosopher-]

I've just found this thread and was going to add my 2c worth, but reading back through I think it's all already been said.

What's the latest status on this?

It's maddening that I can't make my units stay still when I want to. I also had uses (albeit less frequently, admittedly) for the other modes too.

Between that and the equally maddening change to CB Radar behaviour (on mobile units) I've reverted to playing earlier versions, but it's a bit of a catch-22 as I'm reminded of some of the old issues that got fixed... so frustrated either way. Sufficiently so that I play much less frequently than I used to Been playing this game for a long time and since the early versions so it's a shame.

Edit: OK, reading on, I discovered a new (undocumented?) feature of H for hold which, I believe sort-of does the same thing the old hold command did (?). It's not a mode though, so you have to go to the trouble of hitting it every time you move the units again. You feel like you're constantly fighting their natural tendencies. I only found this feature in the discussion on #4303 however so I imagine most people - folk new to the game in particular - won't find it. It should have a presence in the menus at least, right? And then there are the other two removed modes...

There was mention of the features being removed due to bugs. What were they? I never experienced any with them. Also, shouldn't features that don't work be fixed rather than removed, or is it not the objective to recreate the original here?

[Twister22]

I've just found this thread and was going to add my 2c worth, but reading back through I think it's all already been said.

What's the latest status on this?

It's maddening that I can't make my units stay still when I want to. I also had uses (albeit less frequently, admittedly) for the other modes too.

Between that and the equally maddening change to CB Radar behaviour (on mobile units) I've reverted to playing earlier versions, but it's a bit of a catch-22 as I'm reminded of some of the old issues that got fixed... so frustrated either way. Sufficiently so that I play much less frequently than I used to Been playing this game for a long time and since the early versions so it's a shame.

Edit: OK, reading on, I discovered a new (undocumented?) feature of H for hold which, I believe soft-of does the same thing the old hold command did (?). It's not a mode though, so you have to go to the trouble of hitting it every time you move the units again. You feel like you're constantly fighting their natural tendencies. I only found this feature in the discussion on #4303 however so I imagine most people - folk new to the game in particular - won't find it. It should have a presence in the menus at least, right? And then there's the other two removed modes...

There was mention of the features being removed due to bugs. What were they? I never experienced any with them. Also, shouldn't features that don't work be fixed rather than removed, or is it not the objective to recreat the original here?

Agreed I-i-i really want the pursue and other moving order back too

[Bethrezen]

Seems to me we have two main categories: movement orders and behavior orders. Let's call them Movement Orders and Rules of Engagement (ROE). There are also Retreat Orders.

Movement:
Move to a point
Attack
Patrol
Stop

Rules of Engagement:
hold position vs pursue
fire at will vs hold fire vs return fire

Retreat Orders:
do or die
retreat at minimal damage
retreat at max damage

Am I missing anything?

Short answer yes.

Long answer you forgot about Guard and no Guard and The Guard State are not the same thing, just to stop people being confused here is a quick explanation of each.

The Guard State is the default behaviour of combat units, which is to say they will move to engage any units that come in to range will follow them for a short distance if they retreat but will otherwise not pursue the target more then few tiles before they leash.

Guard is a way of setting combat units to protect a structure or unit and the way that is set is by selecting a combat unit hovering over a unit or structure you wish to protect at which time the curser will change to a icon of a shied and then when you click that unit will be assigned to protect that assets and will counter attack anyone that tries attacking the assets in question.

Now while guard isn’t something I use much it is handy because I can set a couple of units to protect my trucks when they are roaming about the map building stuff and they will simply follow the truck around and protect it the same way that body guards will follow VIPs around and will protect them if they come under attack, think secret service agents protecting the prime minister / president same idea.

With regards to needed commands here is what is needed in my opinion

Primary orders

Move - self explanatory
Attack - self explanatory
Stop - cancel your current order

Secondary orders

Patrol - Move back and forth between assigned way points attack any units that are detected within the patrol area.

Circle - Circle over an assigned area of the map (VTOL only).

Guard (requires a target, either a structure or a unit)
Body guards will counter attack any aggressor that attacks there charge.

Secondary States

Pursue state - Chase the target until its dead or your units is dead, if your unit is set to do or die.

If your unit is set to retreat at medium or heavy damage then chase the target until the target is dead or your units hp drops to medium or heavy depending on which is set, at which time it should disengage and go for repair and the Pursue state should switch off automatically.

Hold state - Don’t move from your current location unless order to do so by the player, or the hold state is switched off.

Guard state (default State) - Move to attack hostile units that come in to range but do not follow them for more than a few tiles before leashing.

Fire at will - Shoot at all hostile targets.

Hold fire - Do not shoot at the enemy unless order to do by the player, or the hold fire state is switched off.

Return fire - Only fire on the enemy if fired upon first.

Sugestions

This state doesn't currently exist but would be helpful to keep none combat units out of harms way. So if a truck is out building stuff then you might want to have it set to retreat back to base if any enemy units come into range if its on its own or if it has combat units assigned as guards then retreat beyond the firing range of the aggressor while the guards deal with the situation.

Retreat upon enemy detection (new)

Again these states don’t currently exist but would be helpful to give you more fine grained control over your units especially when using specialist weapons like bunker busters the idea being to extend the existing file control states, when a unit is set to fire at will these states would determine what that units will auto fire at.

Attack units and structures (default state) (new)
Attack structures only (new)
Attack units only (new)

Now with regards to the range states I'm not really sure what they are supposed to do, i have tried them but was never able to figure out what they where supposed to do because by default units will normally attack at the maximum range of the weapon anyway since no units with the exception of artillery can fire further then they can see or at least not in campaign mode anyway so I'm not really sure that there is any advantage to be gained from restoring those unless someone can clearly show what they where for and how they work.

finally this video demonstrates the correct behaviour for guard hold and pursue, however you want to implement it

https://youtu.be/Fz_vvwFovIo

[Guardsman Brendo]

Hey guys,
Haven't been on recently, but after playing in a few games on the newest version(I use 2.3.9 mainly and for campaign mode), I noticed how little there is in that right-click menu. What I especially do not like is that there are no more range "orders". Not everyone notices their usefulness but I find that they give some units benefits. First, they allow units to stay farther back before attacking structures. Sometimes this helps to mitigate issues with pathfinding/retreating from engagement. Also, it allows units with weapons like Hyper velocity cannon with no range penalty to make full use of their range before shooting. I also love to use it on short-range weapons such as flamer weapons to keep them further away from enemies.

[Berg]

unit-orders.png (374.44 KiB) Viewed 1640 times

Example from 3.1.5 and 3.2.3
Do note range orders are also missing.

https://youtu.be/KDn39xoQiSE

[alfred007]

Fix that fu..... hold order. This primary order did not work. Every time I gave my AA tanks the order to hold their position they move after they shot some vtols and even if I give them after they shot some vtols the order to hold their position they still move a bit later. The same with repair tanks moving in the line of fire and commit suicide and trucks running where ever they want and not where I want them. Most annoying and worst change ever.

[Bethrezen]

Fix that fu..... hold order. This primary order did not work. Every time I gave my AA tanks the order to hold their position they move after they shot some vtols and even if I give them after they shot some vtols the order to hold their position they still move a bit later. The same with repair tanks moving in the line of fire and commit suicide and trucks running where ever they want and not where I want them. Most annoying and worst change ever.

to be honest I'm not really surprised because now hold and stop commands do the same thing which is to say cancel the units current action but wont actually make the unit stay still because as soon as you click the hold button it automatically goes back to guard again instead of staying on hold and then the unit continues to do what ever it was that you told it not to do like charging head long in to enemy fire resulting casualties

I don't know what the big idea was removing that stuff but it needs to be restored because it is indescribably infuriating when my units countermand my orders and wont do what there told.

[Per]

to be honest I'm not really surprised because now hold and stop commands do the same thing which is to say cancel the units current action but wont actually make the unit stay still because as soon as you click the hold button it automatically goes back to guard again instead of staying on hold and then the unit continues to do what ever it was that you told it not to do like charging head long in to enemy fire resulting casualties

That is not as it should be. It has now been fixed in 27460ef00625c9c2d8594892bd5263896f1afcfb.

If 'Hold' still does not work as it should, please report the problems.

[alfred007]

to be honest I'm not really surprised because now hold and stop commands do the same thing which is to say cancel the units current action but wont actually make the unit stay still because as soon as you click the hold button it automatically goes back to guard again instead of staying on hold and then the unit continues to do what ever it was that you told it not to do like charging head long in to enemy fire resulting casualties

That is not as it should be. It has now been fixed in 27460ef00625c9c2d8594892bd5263896f1afcfb.

If 'Hold' still does not work as it should, please report the problems.

It is still not working as it did in 3.1.5. Combat units like AA tanks are now holding their position. But trucks and repair units are still moving whenever they want. Test it by yourself. Start a new campaingn, produce a few repair units and then let the scavengers shoot at them. You can give them the hold order as often as you want, as soon as one of them is damaged all are moving. Same with trucks. As soon as there is something to repair or other trucks are building something near of them they move, hold order or not, they move. 1/3 success, 2/3 of the job still to be done.

[Bethrezen]

That is not as it should be. It has now been fixed in 27460ef00625c9c2d8594892bd5263896f1afcfb.

If 'Hold' still does not work as it should, please report the problems.

Apparently not because the hold order is still not working as it did in v1.10, when I set the hold state on a unit or units in v1.10 that state will remain on until I turn it off, regardless of what i order that unit or units to do.

however on master when I set the hold state on units if then direct those units to attack something or to move the hold state is incorrectly switched off, which shouldn't be happening.

Not to put to fine a point on things but this is precisely why Hold, Guard & Persue where set up as secondary states in the first place instead of as primary orders, because as primary orders they simply don't function correctly and there is no way to make them function correctly, because as soon as you give another order hold will be incorrectly switched off because that is just how primary orders work.

So ultimately this is going to need to be completely rewritten and set back up as secondary states along with the accompanying buttons in the interface as it was in v1.10 because hold is simply not going to work as a primary order because every time you tell units that have been set to hold to do something then the hold state will get switched off which is infuriating and inferior to how it worked before.

[Per]

Combat units like AA tanks are now holding their position. But trucks and repair units are still moving whenever they want. Test it by yourself. Start a new campaingn, produce a few repair units and then let the scavengers shoot at them. You can give them the hold order as often as you want, as soon as one of them is damaged all are moving. Same with trucks. As soon as there is something to repair or other trucks are building something near of them they move, hold order or not, they move. 1/3 success, 2/3 of the job still to be done.

Ok, should be fixed now in 561bbbc7653927d9326a43657648ccec9a2a34d7. Please test and see if there are some more edge conditions where it is not working. Looking at the code, I see possible problems with rearm and firesupport, but not entirely sure what the correct behaviour there is for 'hold', so I'm not messing around with it until someone tells me it is broken somehow the way it is now.

[Berg]

Ok, should be fixed now in 561bbbc7653927d9326a43657648ccec9a2a34d7.

So does this mean that the removed unit commands are being replaced?

[Bethrezen]

@per
If you want to know what the correct behaviour for hold guard & pursue is the easiest way is to look at v1.10 I already have a copy of v1.10 with all the patches applied the cd check removed all the video files, libs etc. copied in to the game folder.

If ya like I can upload it again all you would need to do then is download it and extract the zip, and run the game also the zip includes a copy of nglide so you can play it under 3dfx mode, as that gives the best display.

also if you want to know how to get the cheats working on v1.10 to make life a little quicker and easier i have instructions for that on the forum already.