Unit formations

[Kneecap]

How come there are no unit formation system in the game? I'm not talking about formations with bonuses etc, but just simple square or line formations to make microing units a bit easier. Whenever you give a move order to a group of units its like they are all fighting over the same pixel spot, making them spin all over the place.

I'm sure you guys have thought of this already so im a bit curious as to why its not been implemented.

[segg2]

formalize that better,
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3 ... vement.php

what are the suggested mechanisms for using formation; like LMB down on destination, drag to new position, LMB up
LMB(left mouse button).
how many formations ?
how formation is chosen ?
how to make formation point a direction ?
tell me more

[Zarel]

Very few other RTSes support unit formations. For us, our pathing code simply doesn't support it. We'd have to spend a bunch of effort, and many other changes are far more urgent right now.

[Olrox]

(reading trough topics)
(hmm, unit formations topic updated)
(WTF, a bug in my screen!)
(tries to get it off the screen)




AHHHH!!! You user image is driving me NUTS!!!
Honestly, I've tried to get it off my screen... twice

Anyway, on-topic (sorry if that's too much smilies)

I think that formations would only be effective if the units would distribute attacks over an enemy group, automatically, not simply just attacking anything that came into their sensor's range first. But those add a great deal to forces composition - too bad the pathing code doesn't support it

But, when/if the other priorities (if other big ones don't appear) are dealt with, perhaps it'd be worthy all the huge effort, after all. But I agree, there are so many other important things that have a much deeper impact on gameplay, that formations seems too subtle and too costly to do, at least right now.

~Olrox

[segg2]

Very few other RTSes support unit formations. For us, our pathing code simply doesn't support it. We'd have to spend a bunch of effort, and many other changes are far more urgent right now.

Looking at the design page, you can identified the "path finding" as an NP hard algorithm,
that means care should be taking to have a time bound.

The design page should make it more clear that any preprocessing would be helpful.

try to convince me that "path finding" does not have a huge impact on warzone2100 design.

Navigation Meshes for example can make huge, very huge impact on our actual number that we have on time spent on different conceptual modules. do not tell me that we can not improve that. we can see that pathfinding is very bad.

[segg2]

(reading trough topics)
But, when/if the other priorities (if other big ones don't appear) are dealt with, perhaps it'd be worthy all the huge effort, after all. But I agree, there are so many other important things that have a much deeper impact on gameplay, that formations seems too subtle and too costly to do, at least right now.

if it is costly, and i agree, how is the thing integrated in the design.
In game on the web, all the problematic is on knowing "where are you ?"

That is, we are now dam stupid.
Crazy move's update are done consuming all the bandwidth.

where is the design of the time lag consequence ?
that is, when you kill that tank, he was really there, but when the other host learn about it, for him the tank is somewhere else.

looking at my docs, i have put it under "Basic networking". i have to rethink that.

[Olrox]

if it is costly, and i agree, how is the thing integrated in the design.
In game on the web, all the problematic is on knowing "where are you ?"

That is, we are now dam stupid.
Crazy move's update are done consuming all the bandwidth.

where is the design of the time lag consequence ?
that is, when you kill that tank, he was really there, but when the other host learn about it, for him the tank is somewhere else.

looking at my docs, i have put it under "Basic networking". i have to rethink that.

Hmm, I can't understand your english

~Olrox

[BlueMaxima]

if it is costly, and i agree, how is the thing integrated in the design.
In game on the web, all the problematic is on knowing "where are you ?"

That is, we are now dam stupid.
Crazy move's update are done consuming all the bandwidth.

where is the design of the time lag consequence ?
that is, when you kill that tank, he was really there, but when the other host learn about it, for him the tank is somewhere else.

looking at my docs, i have put it under "Basic networking". i have to rethink that.

Hmm, I can't understand your english

~Olrox

You're not alone

[Desolator4u]

BlueMaxima, think you went off topic there...

I would LOVE for this game to support formations! But it must be difficult to implement, especially since WZ does have some path-finding issues already, not to mention other stuff such as getting the speed of the slowest unit, finding untraversable terrain along with some crazy vector coding... :s
Hope formations will one day be available though, I especially liked it in Homeworld.

Nuff Respeck
~Des

[Systemofatoad]

Well if there ever will be formations I love to witness these:

Wedge-

Wedge.png

Column-

Column.png

And finally staggered Column-

Staggered column.png

There is also a echlon left and right where units are arranged diagonally. Each unit is stationed behind and to the right (a 'right echelon'), or behind and to the left ('left echelon'), of the unit ahead.

[pitsiunio]

Not bad idea, but need some more formations. Triangle, square etc.

[Systemofatoad]

Triangle would be the wedge ,and square? the only formation I would know of close to that would be the Schiltrom (circlular) formation.

[iwz]

The article that segg2 linked, "Implementing Coordinated Movement", seems pretty exhaustive in defining what I'm sure a lot of us would expect in a modern RTS. But before anyone protests that it is too much work to be practical, let us remember that WZ2100 has the luxury of implementing things incrementally. In other words, release improvements to group movement bit by bit. Just as an example, consider this list:

1. All units in a group move at the same speed. This one improvement seems the simplest to implement yet would probably drastically improve the gameplay experience just by keeping the group together most of the time, instead of the fastest ones speeding ahead on their own.
2. All units in a group move at the same speed, except faster units will catch up if they lag behind and units that are ahead will slow down to wait for stragglers.
3. Prevent shoving each other. This would geatly relieve the frustration of units making choke points even worse when they circle around and around trying to all go through at the same time.
4. Formations. It's at this point that we actually have to consider the additions to the interface that segg2 asks about. But this might not have any point unless we implement Point 5 below:
5. Smart formations. Lightly armoured and/or long-ranged units in the back or centre, while heavily armoured and/or short-ranged units in the front or perimeter.

Pathing is a very important part of any RTS. I know that even a small change might present a lot of work, but I think that improvements to pathing in WZ2100 would give players a lot of satisfaction and hope that the devs will be interested in looking into it.

[macuser]

I seccond that

[Assault Gunner]

we had formation speed limiting. It didnt work.