Can we fix harbingers?

You tell an ACU or SACU to attack-move, they ignore engineering tasks and attack-move as warriors, you tell the same to harbingers, they start reclaiming trees or assist whatever there is on their way to the enemy base. It's pain.

You tell an ACU or SACU to patrol, they do engineering if there are no enemies nearby. Can we have the same for harbingers?

Thats one of the things that drove me crazy while coding my AI.

Those harbingers always got stuck in base while relaming and repairing stuff instead of moving to the enemy.
From code side i did not found any solution to prevent this behavior.

Thats the reason why AIs normaly don't use harbingers or use normal move instead of attack move for them.

At least i found no solution. 😕

Won't removing their ability to assist/reclaim fix it? I'd rather have them with proper AI and no build power than this. What about giving them the Mantis assist ability instead?

Could we add a toggle button with two states:
on: "while this unit is on patrol/attack move, it will consider reclaim/assist/repair"
off: "while this unit is on patrol/attack move, it will not reclaim/assist/repair"

SACUS for example don't have that problem, mb there is a solution

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
— Steve Jobs.
My UI Mods

Yes, please! Nothing more frustrating than playing random, getting aeon, and then forgetting to never attack-move your armies once you hit t3. I've lost some games in the past when my harbs started reclaiming random stuff in the backline of a hectic battle while their support units get massacred just in front of them.

The suggested solution of them behaving like SACUs would be perfect.

You guys just don't understand Aeon. It's not about killing the enemy commander. The Princess can only be appeased by stealing trees.

TREES FOR THE TREE GOD!

You must deceive the enemy, sometimes your allies, but you must always deceive yourself!

Tried looking into this, see also: https://github.com/FAForever/fa/pull/4218

It appears there are two solutions that are viable:

  • (1) We remove the ability
  • (2) A magical engine patch that manages to isolate harbingers somehow to let them move like support command units

If you bet for option (2) then chances are it remains like this forever (pun intended). Option (1) can be done right away with the next balance patch. I highly encourage option (1) for the sake of consistency - it is a nice idea, but if it doesn't work then you've got to adapt.

A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

@jip My main is Aeon and I vote to remove it. We can come up with a proper fix later, if ever.

@Jip is there a reason why it works with sacus but doesn't with harbingers?

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
— Steve Jobs.
My UI Mods

Yes, see the PR. It is the category.

A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

@jip Wtf ? there is absolutely no sense to remove the cools features from Aeon units like this one.

If a feature breaks what a player expects then it isn't a feature - then it is broken.

A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

@jip Removing one of the coolest thing of the Aeon just for the ai, I don't understand the point it makes no sense to me

This isn't about an AI, it is about unit behavior.

A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

@Jip So if it is about units behavior it is even crazier like Aeon is the micro faction like u have to baby sit all your units (aurora, harbs, snipers, shields ans aa), i would just say skill issues if u wanna remove this for that reason

You can't answer 'skill issue' to 'inconsistent game design', it is not one of the options. Units need to behave as you expect them to. If they don't, then you need to fix that. One solution is removing the ability.

A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

@jip Removing feature of a game??? Like it makes no sense to remove a thing which works as intended for skill issues problem like u attack move to reclaim and move order to fight, your point makes no sense

This man apparently never attack moves his army

@blackyps U know how to read I just wrote u attack move to reclaim with harbs