AutoCarryall can receive manual order and auto action can be turn on/off by condition

[dnqbob]

Summary

(1). Autocarryall can receive manual order, make a controllable carryall (unlike the one in D2k) with AutoCarryall easier to manipulate for player.

(2). Autocarryall's auto action can be turn on/off by condition, make (1) even easier to manipulate. In test case, you can use "Deploy" to disable and enable the auto action of TS carryall (when they has no passenger).

The change here is mainly to make AutoCarryall work like AutoTarget-- even if actor can automatically find their own target, player can still order them to attack elsewhere, and you can change to "HoldFire" for a better micromanage on you own.

Side effect

No side effect currently. The carryall in D2K cannot be selected so they are just like before, unless you find bugs or some unexpected behaviors due to this PR.

Some thoughts

I think we can change D2K carryall into my testcase and make it selectable, they are hard to use currently with full auto action.

[dnqbob]

Plus: I think when there is a high possibility that the creator of Carryall wants to cover some function of AutoCarryall and they messed up until now. I clear some of them but don't know if it is the correct way.

Plus 2: AutoCarryall cannot carry AutoCarryable manually (only allow automatically), is it a bug or feature? I consider it a bug in this PR and fix it.

[abcdefg30]

Plus 2: AutoCarryall cannot carry AutoCarryable manually (only allow automatically), is it a bug or feature? I consider it a bug in this PR and fix it.

AutoCarryall has auto in its name, why should it carry things manually? What is the problem with making Carryall and AutoCarryall conditionable and enabling/disabling those two traits depending on which behaviour is required?

[dnqbob]

AutoCarryall has auto in its name, why should it carry things manually? What is the problem with making Carryall and AutoCarryall conditionable and enabling/disabling those two traits depending on which behaviour is required?

Because in our mod (third-party) we require that when switch to AutoCarryall, it can still be ordered by player to carry things if required, not just stay still and refuse to go, which makes our players feel strange about it. They would prefer AutoCarryall works like AutoTarget in this case -- even if actor can automatically find their own target, player can still order them to attack elsewhere.

[dnqbob]

So I concern that if it is due to somewhere else in OpenRA need AutoCarryall to be like this. This PR does not affect the D2k Carryall, though, for this actor RejectsOrders cannot be selected.

[dnqbob]

Our players mentioned an usecase on this: if harvester get ambushed right on the place to harvest (like there is creeps/sandworm passes by) with a carryall, the most user-friendly way is that you can manually order carryall to pick up the harvester and make a run of it, instead of switching to normal Carryall first.

AutoCarryall in present version of OpenRA doesn't support it, AutoCarryall cannot pick up passenger when player manually order it.

[dnqbob]

What is the problem with making Carryall and AutoCarryall conditionable and enabling/disabling those two traits depending on which behaviour is required?

In addition, we cannot have multiple Carryall trait due to this:

AutoCarryall is also a Carryall trait.

Making the Carryall from an unconditional trait to a conditional trait will lead to some problem

1. how to dealing with reserved or locked carryable actor when the Carryall trait is disabled.
2. how to deal with already carried actor which tied to a disabled Carryall trait.

In conclusion, making Carryall conditional will result in a refactoring with nasty edge cases.

[abcdefg30]

Because in our mod (third-party) we require that when switch to AutoCarryall, it can still be ordered by player to carry things if required, not just stay still and refuse to go, which makes our players feel strange about it. They would prefer AutoCarryall works like AutoTarget in this case -- even if actor can automatically find their own target, player can still order them to attack elsewhere.

Ok, that makes sense to me. I expected a switch to entail the carryall landing and dropping off cargo, but this is more meant as controllable unit that usually does its own thing (just like harvesters automatically search for resources but can still be ordered).

[PunkPun]

When you give a pickup order to a carryall while it is moving to pickup the harvester, it doesn't cancel the activity queue. The unit you ordered to pick up will be moved to the place where the carryall was moving in the first place and dropped of there

Screen.Recording.2022-11-17.at.18.47.19.mov

[dnqbob]

When you give a pickup order to a carryall while it is moving to pickup the harvester, it doesn't cancel the activity queue. The unit you ordered to pick up will be moved to the place where the carryall was moving in the first place and dropped of there

Yes, so we cancel the activity queued?

Although we can use a stop command on this situation

[dnqbob]

Should be fixed now.

[PunkPun]

This PR now clashes with #20534 and #20490. I'm thinking it would be worth waiting for those to be merged before going forward with this

[dnqbob]

you can merge those PRs first. I will handle the conflicts.

[PunkPun]

LGTM

[PunkPun]

Changelog

[Porenutak]

Summary

@dnqbob pls can you post yaml from example above? Im trying to recreate AUTO/MANUAL decoration from your example but I stuck.

heres my yaml that dont work:
controlableCarryall.yaml.txt

[dnqbob]

@Porenutak dnqbob@729832d

Noted that due to some recently change you cannot use mouse click to deploy because GrantConditionOnDeploy conflict with Unload, but you can try pressing [F].

I think maybe add a autotarget and using stance will be a better idea,
or you can code a new GrantConditionOnDeploy that override carryall's Unload only when carryall has no cargo.

[Porenutak]

Or probably if AutoCarryall grant condition to itself if its on.
The point is that player must know if the carryall is on auto mode or not. Its not obvious if you just looks at it. Definitly not in heat of battle.

[dnqbob]

Yep, so the problem is the image is not showing? I suggest to use WithTextDecoration in my example.

[Porenutak]

But how to trigger WithTextDecoration with condition when GrantConditionOnDeploy dont work? Is there any other way?

[PunkPun]

stances use conditions afaik

[dnqbob]

But how to trigger WithTextDecoration with condition when GrantConditionOnDeploy dont work? Is there any other way?

My example code works.

[dnqbob]

I don't see any problem in your code, could you try use my example code in your mod?

Is there any other way?

You can use stances in AutoTarget, which will requre you to bind a fake weapon, or maybe we can fix this deploy key override issue @PunkPun.

[Porenutak]

If I select carryall and for example order it to move elsewhere it go there and stay idle. That mean carryall switch from auto mode to manual because he no longer automaticly transports Harvesters or anything else. But the Auto text is still visible. This will confuse people. Because they will think carryall is on auto mode but its not, it just flying idle with harvester.

2024-02-29.13-35-02.mp4

[dnqbob]

Maybe add

	RejectsOrder@AutoCarryall:
		RequiresCondition: !manual
		Except: GrantConditionOnDeploy ## Use 'SetUnitStance' if you use AutoTarget
		RemoveOrders: true

which will make AutoCarryall only recieve GrantConditionOnDeploy/SetUnitStance order when at auto mode, rejects all other orders.

If you want text is compeletely sync with current carryall behavior.

[Porenutak]

thx, this work, but overide issue with GrantConditionOnDeploy still remain.

Use 'SetUnitStance' if you use AutoTarget

Im missing something. How are stances related to this issue?
Also cant found any info for SetUnitStance in dokumentation or in autotarget trait

[dnqbob]

Im missing something. How are stances related to this issue?

Well becuase of overide issue with GrantConditionOnDeploy, if you need an alternative way to on switching AutoCarryall you can try add AutoTarget to the actor and player will use

to turn on/off the AutoCarryall. For example, you can add:

AutoTarget:
		HoldFireCondition: manual
		ReturnFireCondition: manual
		InitialStance: HoldFire

So switch carryall to HoldFire or ReturnFire in this case will enable manual mode, otherwise automatic mode.

[dnqbob]

Also cant found any info for SetUnitStance in dokumentation or in autotarget trait

See line 213 in AutoTarget.cs. If you really going to use AutoTarget then you should RejectsOrder Except the order 'SetUnitStance', or you can never set the stance in automatic mode.

[dnqbob]

Compared with GrantConditionOnDeploy, using AutoTarget is very hacky but solve the problem of collision between unload order and deploy order.

[Porenutak]

Thanks for advice, I will try it.