Different, special caretakers

generally said, there are already a (too) high number of units. more specialization is nice but somehow OP. the way should be to get rid of some units ;)

about your idea, what do you think about a customizable unit-mode for the caretaker, like the "movement orders", which controls the priority of the caretakers behaviour? should not be too hard to integrate.

Build priority should be explained here: http://zero-k.info/Wiki/unitstates (it isn't currently because noone feeds the wiki)

We have a lot of construction units, the caretaker exists mostly for range. We're not messing with the reclaim/repair/assist rules because the easiest system to learn is one in which everything does everything and I don't think the extra complexity is beneficial.

Such a button would do little more than set a un-finishable area reclaim or repair command.

I don't see the need. Buildings need to be considered carefully before being added because they're added to every con and so players need to be aware of all the buildings. Having redundant units only clutters one factory, while having redundant buildings clutters every con.

I really can't see how anyone could change the caretaker anyways. If you nerfed its range it would be useless with a too-small working area. If you buffed its health it would be OP for supporting defenses. If you nerfed its BP/cost ratio you'd just build cons instead.

Put your nano on repeat. Then do an area reclaim. He nano will not try to reclaim anything outside its range.

You can also put your nano on repair/repeat, this will also assist structures, so just make your repair zone not include any factories or building sites. As long as you have plenty of energy, put it on low priority to ensure it's -never- going to steal metal even if your allies build something there.

One button IE a state icon (What you're proposing anyway) and a single command. Your circle for reclaim or repair can be any size (whole map if you like), the nano will not be given a command outside its actual build radius and thus will never get stuck on a command it cant complete. It wont even do that old thing where if a damaged plane flew over, it would get stuck trying to repair that plane.

Only problem you have is distinguishing repair from build, which is basically a matter of ensuring the repair circle does not encompass any factories or construction sites. The only way I could think to improve this is to ensure that nanos will stop building and repair instead if you're stalling metal, rather than wasting BP (I'm pretty sure they do this anyway when on patrol?).

It really isn't complicated to use nanos, and introducing a whole range of nano towers is hardly a concise solution. You don't need to carefully draw circles, it will only reclaim/repair things in range. Drawing a circle is one click/drag that is virtually instant. Putting the nano on patrol causes it to behave in an automated fashion, but usually you want them doing a single task at a time, which requires... 1 order. or several orders queued with shift, either way it is very simple. Compared to the micromanagement of, say, any other RTS, economy in ZK is already virtually on autopilot.