What’s the verdict on coordinated attack?
Coordinated attack is a feature in Supreme Commander that was highly-touted prior to release. Since then, it seems it’s been almost entirely forgotten about. Basically, to coordinate an attack, you set one attack order with one group of units, select another group of units, and then double click on the same attack point on the map as the first group. The two groups will theoretically coordinate with each other to arrive at the same time, with the group that is nearer (in time) to the objective slowing down or even waiting for the other group to arrive. I say “theoretically” because there have been reports of the coordinate attack feature not working correctly. I usually just micromanage my units for a coordinated attack rather than using the explicit feature.
My question is thus: Is anyone using the coordinated attack feature regularly? I tried it out a few times upon first buying the game, but it has since faded from my repertoire (contrast this with setting ferry routes, which has not). One of the largest promises for coordinated attacks, I thought, was coordinating air units with land units. This works decently well with gunships, but fails horribly with bombers. Bombers pretty much always have to be manually targetted; there’s no good way to select a group of bombers and say, “Pick your targets to attack within this area”.
So what’s the verdict on coordinated attack? Revolutionary new real time strategy game feature, or forgotten gimmick? And if you say that it is a forgotten gimmick, is it because the implementation is poor, or because the entire idea is bad?
May 1st, 2007 at 4:16 pm
There is something wrong about it in some cases but from what I’ve heard (and have seen myself once in-game) it only works if you give both attack forces a move command prior to the coordinated attack command (which seems to be only properly activated with a double left-click).
Correct me if I am wrong on some of these details but I am positively sure that I have seen it work once, which looked awesome but in the end I use my own coordination too. :) I guess on larger maps it would be more useful.
May 1st, 2007 at 5:39 pm
I have tried to use it once and it didn’t work at all and I haven’t tried it since.. it might work now but I shall have to see :)
May 1st, 2007 at 7:58 pm
It seems at least the first group to attack needs to have be executing a move command with the attack en-queue before the you can order the second group to coordinate-attack. As for the bombers… if you move a group of bombers over enemy units, they’ll drop bombs as they pass, but they won’t “reload” for a while. So, if you just use a move command to a point beyond the enemy’s base, they’ll end up dropping them only at the front-most part. It works better when they’re in a line, so that the first part of the line destroys some buildings, and the following bombers bomb the next targets, further inside the base. If it’s successful, you end up with a line of destruction through the base. :)
May 1st, 2007 at 8:05 pm
worthless, never use it. :(
would have rather had aircraft engineers or T2 walls or more variety in T3 or something else instead ;P
May 1st, 2007 at 8:54 pm
“there’s no good way to select a group of bombers and say, “Pick your targets to attack within this area”.”
just press ctrl + alt and select an area of attack - units will move there and attack anything on their path :)
May 1st, 2007 at 8:57 pm
I’ve never been able to get coordinated attack to really work properly - you can do better just by eyeballing it in pretty much any case.
May 1st, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Okota: Yeah, I know about the attack move, and it’s absolutely terrible for bombers. They get all hung up on insignificant things in their path (like tech 1 PDs on the outskirts of bases), and then turn for a second pass immediately after dropping bombs, just leaving themselves wide open to be taken out by AA. The only real way to do a bomber attack is to assign targets manually, which is tedious, because strategic bombers kill their targets in one to two hits, so you basically need to assign a different target for each bomber (which is very micro-intensive). Bombers picking their own targets never works. And just forget about putting bombers on patrol routes; it’s worthless.
May 1st, 2007 at 11:14 pm
I would use it if it worked - especially for bombing runs. Instead I’ve been painstakingly trying to micro them and it takes my focus away from other things.
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:11 am
I like the feature, it comes in handy when using shiled units, as they move a slower pase than the other units. I would actually like the coordinated attack to become standard, for example, you would select all units you want to attack, no matter the type, and they would strike withing a small time period. Why wouldn’t you want your units of different types to attack at the same time?
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:05 am
What would really make it useful is an “attack all targets in this box” command.
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:10 am
Reading this post reminded me of just how much I’d ignored the coordinated attack after the first few times using it…so I consulted the manual and started up a quick skirmish to see if I could get it to work again. I sent four cruisers to different corners of a water map and gave them all a coordinated attack command. Low and behold the cruiser closest got there first and was quickly sunk - while the furthest one got stuck by an island and never even got there! Love that path finding! : )
Verdict: The coordinated attack is busted
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:30 am
CydeWeys said the feature was “highly-touted prior to release,” is it really that big of a leap in RTS games? I would have thought that this kind of feature would not be too hard to program, unlike some of the ground breaking features of supcom.
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:04 am
Sounds like some people think it works. I won’t disagree, but if it’s working, it’s a weak feature that doesn’t work well enough to be worth the time relying on it. I am very disappointed, it would help my game a lot. (Well, I think it would.) :-)
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Originally quoted by Niall “What would really make it useful is an “attack all targets in this box What would really make it useful is an “attack all targets in this box especially those shooting at you” command.
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:22 pm
sorry last post was messed up. How cool would it be to have an “Attack all units in this box, especially those shooting at you first” command
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:25 pm
@Jdude1: To perfect the command, it would be great if groups could have assigned hierarchys to their targets. Maybe simple categories like “None,” “Offensive,” “Air Defensive,” “Ground Defensive,” and “Production” and “Economic.” Check the box, and your group gives priority to those types of targets.
How sweet would it be to throw a group of ground forces into an enemy base with “Air Defensive” targets as their priority? Their sacrifice would be well worth it when your bombers could fly overhead with impunity a few seconds later.
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:43 pm
gryphyn thats a cool idea
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:50 pm
It would definitely reduce the amount of micromanagement, that’s for sure. I feel that something like this is the next stage in RTS evolution, bringing us even farther away from tedious micromanagement than Supreme Commander has thus far managed. Units and groups of units really should have selectable unit AI. Units already prioritize their targets to fire at the enemy commander; why not let us customize those priorities further?
May 3rd, 2007 at 6:33 pm
SupCom could really use a “do this command in this area” box anyway.
For example, alot of time a single engineer on reclaim duty can do alot of good, unfortunately you have to micromanage their reclaiming duties. It would be really cool if you could click on the engineer, click on reclaim, and then drag a big box over a number of trees and rocks and that engineer would just run around reclaiming that stuff until that area was clear. I’ve thought about that several times in games recently.
May 4th, 2007 at 4:14 am
Ever played Earth 2150? If you switch the units to “Advanced Battle”, there are very many things that you can change.
May 4th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Sir_Brizz: You make a great point. I can’t even begin to say how many times I’ve put engineers on patrol routes, forgot about them, and then twenty minutes later I realize they’ve been circling the same barren landscape for fifteen minutes, having already reclaimed everything in range. I catch all of my idle engineers by using the idle display. If they’re not “idle” in the true sense of the word, but rather, in a pointless support or patrol, it’s way too easy to lose track of them.
October 31st, 2008 at 11:09 am
Sir_Brizz: Actually, it’s already possible to make an engineer / commander / support commander reclaim all scrap material within a designated area. Just make it patrol the area, and it will automatically reclaim all scrap as well as repair all damaged units within the patrol area. :)
October 31st, 2008 at 11:12 am
Disregard the last post, on closer reading it seems you’re aware of the feature already and were simply adressing the pointless patrol-problem :P