weasello Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 I'm really enjoying commanding a battle, placing turrets, and overall aiding my allies in the fight against the evil reds. Unfortunately, I'm having a bit of trouble wrangling the bots. I notice the bots have a lot of very specific commands, but general commands would be nice too. Here's a list of commands I'd really like to see, to make commanding life easier: - "Drop Unit" - no destination set, just suggest a unit for the bot to use. - "Drop Here" - select a destination, but not a unit. AI will pick whatever it feels is best for the mission. (eg: Capture missions should probably have a Cutter) - "Escort Unit" - Bot will stay as close as possible to the target unit and defend it, but the target unit won't slow down and it's position won't be set as is the case in "Formation" mode. - "Smart Drop" - set a drop point for a unit that moves! eg: Set the drop point to another unit. If the unit moves, the drop point moves with it. Maybe offset it a few hundred feet so it doesn't touch down on top? - "Support" - I'm not sure if this functionality is already buried in there, but I'd like to tell an AI unit to move to a semi-decent hiding spot and fire at places I select on the map (without taking control of the unit). Probably best if it would fire at waypoints I make, maybe if I put a special character in the waypoint name? "#AI" or something? Also, some of the pre-existing commands are a little hard to understand and thus difficult to decide on in battle. Does "Defend Flag" defend the flag's position, even if it's halfway across the map? Or does it only defend your starting position? The latter would make more sense, since "Recover Flag" is a seperate command. How does the AI react when set to "Capture Flag" and the flag has already been captured? How does "Attack" and "Advance" and "Move" differ? When I tell AI to move, it fires on enemies while moving, which I'd imagine is exactly what "Advance" is. How about "Hull Down?" Do I just generally tell a tank to go hull down and it tries to defend itself against the nearest enemy? Do I have to select an enemy? Do I select the area I want the tank to move to and go hull down at? I could go on, but a detailed list on what each command does and how it differs from it's neighbors would be really nice. (The manual is a teensy bit too vague) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 I'm really enjoying commanding a battle, placing turrets, and overall aiding my allies in the fight against the evil reds.I agree 100%. What's also nice is that this type of play - which is VERY different from just driving around the map and shooting things up - is also possible for people with slow connections. Uh, like me. I am on ISDN and still was able to participate in a number of hot battles during internal testing, directing units and e.g. pointing out enemy units, but also sometimes simply dropping a few arty rounds on the right spot at the right time. Ask Steve Of course you're toast in direct confrontations, but when you park your command vehicle somewhere safe, the game can be highly enjoyable this way. (Interestingly enough, I found that teams with one player acting as commander also tend to do a LOT better overall and win more battles, not only because of the better team coordination, but also because he can take care of mines, arty, turrets and other neat things to harrass the enemy in a focussed way) Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kapps Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 How exactly do you command? I've played my fair share of BF2 and love the idea of being a commander but I haven't figured out how to do it in Drop Team. There really isn't a good manual about all the features of the game. Most of the stuff I learn in online here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
makaera Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 kapps, this was mentioned in another thread. You hit "esc" and then you can use the menu to promote yourself. See <a href ="http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=54;t=000050#000021">here.</a> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 kapps, that's because you're only playing a multiplayer beta demo with a couple of limited missions The full printed manual will come with the full game and include a lot more detail about various aspects (including e.g. modding). Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yllamana Posted March 24, 2006 Share Posted March 24, 2006 I would like to be able to issue multiple orders to a vehicle in a queue. At the simplest level, this would just be things like setting multiple attack waypoints to get units to attack through a specific route. At a more complex level, it could be something like getting Magellan to drop a Cutter, capture a facility, then drop a tank destroyer near the facility and defend it from a hull-down position. The "capture" order is especially problematic because the bots suicide when they complete it (I assume they're meaning to extract but getting caught by the extraction bug) but if they have a drop order to drop the Cutter they'll just go straight back and drop another one and start defending in it. Bots also desperately need to start disregarding their drop point, if not the drop type, if they're getting shot down by AA weaponry while trying to deploy there. For example, if someone drives a Hermes into the drop zone the bots will just keep mindlessly deploying into their dooms at the hands of its AA turret. Same goes for emplaced AA batteries. Hull Down I assume operates like it did in Combat Mission, where the vehicle moves from the first point towards the second point until it has a hull-down view of that second one. Also, slightly related but I don't think the view should snap back to your tank when you issue a drop order from the command track. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drusus Posted March 24, 2006 Share Posted March 24, 2006 I find the hardest part of controlling the bots is managing the drop points. If you have manual set drop points, you should be updating them continuously, because you never know when some of your bots get killed. If you don't have manual set drop points, they might drop anywhere with anything. Also, if you have manual drop point, but you run out of the item the AI is ordered to drop, it seems the AI goes to autonomous mode for the drop and then back to managed mode. This means that if I have my bot set to defend the flag with a drop point near my own flag the AI might decide it is a good idea to drop to other flag to capture the flag. When it has dropped, it will start going back to my flag base to defend the flag. Bots and Cutters. Once in a while they decide that it is a good idea to drop a cutter somewhere where it is definitely not needed. Please fix or... something. About the commands. I think move is just move to the point, never stopping. Dangerous command. Advance is advance to contact. Attack is the most flexible command. The AI can stop to fight, then again continue and so on. For me the biggest problem when using turrets seems to be the bots, which are particulary good at picking out my "well" placed turrets... But still they are very important in the flag capturing, because they give you some time so that you can operate with more units to take the enemy flag. Ofcourse their bad side is that if you aren't able to take the enemy flag, you are in big problems because of the points cost. BTW it seems that there isn't many aspect of the game that aren't moddable. I have had some fun trying out various stupid things. Seems if you change one value, next you need to adjust something else to balance things and so on. After all the tweaking, I must say that the defaults are actually quite good... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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