Biggest Problem with Commander units?

[cruise]

I love the idea of the commander units - it's still one of the unique things about WZ that mark it out as a classic.

But from the ocmments on here, and indeed in my general play, I'm noticing an aversion to their use.

What is it that is keeping people from using them more often?

For me, it's the useless range on the laser pointer, that often mean the commander has to be within firing range of targets when none of the units its controlling do...thusly, one dead commander.

I'm curious as to what other issues there are, and how they could be overcome...

[Troglodactyl]

At this point for both Commander units and assigning indirect fire to sensor units, pathfinding issues are my biggest problem. Units tend to abandon the sensor/commander and go off in some dangerous direction or other on their own, especially when dealing with multiple heights. They seem pretty good to me, other than that.

[Tiberian]

I'd have to agree with pathfinding, i've had one commander screw up an entire attack because it stopped in the middle of a narrow cliff passage, clogging all it's assigned units behind it

[themousemaster]

For the single-player campaign, it's pathing. ESPECIALLY given some of the layouts of those stages.

For MP, it's the fact that human opponents are smart enough to target them first, and even though they have more HP than a HC, they still fall quite fast.

[Troglodactyl]

Could the Commander units be made less obvious? Maybe give them a more normal weapon along with target designation and a special overlay icon next to rank to ID them as commanders to their owner? Just an idea. Other than that, I'm sure there's a lot of work going on to improve pathfinding already.

[psychopompos]

this is all 2.0.10, maybe some fixed in newer betas

pathing as has been said, is a big issue.
but that kills more then just the commander.

the lack of communication in commander assigned units bug, where one assigned unit sees an enemy, but gets no firing support from other units that can see said enemy.
proper shared LOS would fix this.

another is the *sit-scracthing-own-arse-while-being-killed* bug, where a com-assigned unit just sits there, doing nowt, just cause the commander doesnt have eyes on with the target
again, proper shared LOS would fix that

another, is that if your commander is damaged & retreating, the units behind it will get it killed, as they piss about like decapitated chickens, cause they are too dumb to get outa the way.
healthy yields to retreating could help that!
retreating unit collides with healthy, healthy told to shift, unless strict hold position.
healthy unit collides with retreating, healthy evades.
its a pain putting the effort into a commander in skirmish just to have it die pointlessly, but i suppose traffic rules could be part of pathing.

you cant even move other units in as shields, as the projectiles(rocket, bullet or shell) will simply travel through the shield units.
did you know scourge missiles & vtol bunker buster can go through walls without hitting them, still striking their target?

that said, i find commanders with 8/10 along with 8/10 unassigned expendable units (viper HVC & viper BBR) quite effective for smashing bases especially with arty support turned on.
and the fact they act as repair destinations is pretty bloody useful in an assault.

[armigus]

I always assign 2 MD (Mobile Repair) units to each commander (and every other combat team I deploy). It keeps them in the field for much longer while their AS (artillery) charges rain death on the enemy. Having a MB (tank) team nearby to cover if needed is also a good idea.

[Kreuvf]

you cant even move other units in as shields, as the projectiles(rocket, bullet or shell) will simply travel through the shield units.

A bit offtopic, but: With the collision-based hit-system introduced in 2.1 (and already available in the betas) projectiles actually do some more collision detection and afaik should hit the shielding units instead of the commander behind it.

[cruise]

That's something - one of the things I always loved about TA was the full physics on all projectiles.

Not requiring the commander to have LoS to a target would be a great help - if it has been sensed or seen by any member of the assignees then the commander should be able to assign it as a target.

Maybe the higher level commanders could use other teams sensing data, so that they'll target units sensed by anything you control (with reason, obviously)?

That would be a good help...