Protector Bots in passive don't bubble. I don't know if they heal, though.
Hmmm... seemed that mine was just fine. Anyhow, that's either an error or oversite on my part, which doesn't especially change the point of the guide - the point of which is to build invisible pet groups through specific pet naming.
oh, hello...
i've been trauling for something just like this, now to rename every one of my minions... -sigh-
This is some nice thinking by the way, thanks for sharing.
This was a great post...
I have never felt the need to bind anything before, so I am still a little confused on that part of it, any link to find previous postings on that?
Nevermind the link... I guess I just needed to pay attention...LOL
(Edited for my blindness)
Lol i just came by to see what i could get my robots to do and learned some nifty stuff great post man thanks. O and on a side note if you used the right gimmick (ie named yourself something from Nintendo) the idea with the Nintendo characters would be "funny" if funny is what you are going for.
just wanted to add a new post to an old topic, i use this naming system a lot on my Necro/Dark MM, and as a plus i only renamed one pet (the matching default names fit my character theme). i renamed the soul extraction pet to 'Ghost' (note: i was aiming to just rename the 'Tortured Soul' pet, but found that now ALL pets created with Soul Extraction now bear the name 'Ghost', no matter what pet they were created from, in the end it works, though readers should take this fact into consideration), and i use the command '/petcom_name e go def' so now all "melee fighters" (zombies, grave knights, dark servant) shamble into melee range where i want them, and all "caster support" (lich and ghost) stay put and range attack. i find this a simple adaptation to a wonderful idea.
(I originally posted this on the DOOM SG boards, but figure the community at large can benefit. Enjoy!)
And now, a lengthly discussion on Pet Commands, naming, and other fun things. This guide assumes you've got some basic knowledge of Mastermind Binds, so when you see "petcom go agg" you know what it's trying to accomplish.
Much like how every n00b in Atlas Park once asked "so when do I get to fly?", every MM n00b has asked "how do I make my zombie dance?"
At the lowest level, there are only two things any given pet can do - talk, and perform an action. The commands to do either aren't especially different.
Pets can be commanded as an entire group (every pet you have), by power (only pets summoned with one power), and by name (every pet who's name matches x).
These are the basic 8 commands you will use to make your pets do absolutely everything:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
/petsay <what to say>
/petsay_all <what to say>
/petsay_pow <power name> <what to say>
/petsay_name <pet name or part thereof> <what to say>
/petcom <what to do>
/petcom_all <what to do>
/petcom_pow <power name> <what to do>
/petcom_name <pet name or part thereof> <what to do>
</pre><hr />
The /petsay and /petcom commands apply to your currently targetted pet... this seems like a rather flakey way to control pets to me, as it kind of wastes time clicking on them to activate a bind, when you could have just written a better bind in the first place :P
It may be that you'd like to command a group - lets say, 4 henchmen - to attack, while a 5th and 6th stay back either to defend yourself, or heal your other henchmen from safety. The problem is, unless you're holding back your most powerful pet (which is silly) you won't want to command an entire power group to stay behind.
/petcom_name becomes very useful for this task, though naming your pets to make use of it can be a little frustrating. When you command a pet by name, you have to supply at least one letter of the pet's name. That said, ANY pet matching what you've given will respond to the command.
If you used /petcom_name Soldier any pet who's name contains Soldier will do what you ask - and it can be anywhere in the name, not the beginning. Unknown Soldier and Soldier Ricky would both do the same thing.
Using this, we can "code" our pets into groups, based on the letters in their names. To the casual observer, you will seem to have ultimate command over a variety of pets, when you're really just exploiting hidden codes in your Pet's names.
So we're going to code our Pets into two groups - Group O for offense, and Group D for defense. O will consist of 2 first-tier pets, 1 second-tier pet, and your third tier pet. D will consist of your remaining two pets, 1 first and 1 second tier. For Robotics, this would mean one Battle Drone and one Protector Bot will stay behind. For Mercs, your medic (preferably) and one Spec Ops would hang back.
Now, the trick is to choose names that allow this to work. Remember that all of Group O will need a letter in their names that Group D don't have, and vica versa.
Start by choosing a naming scheme... some concept around which to pick all your names. Pick a few more names than you need - say 8 or 9 - because you might be throwing a few away.
For this example, I'm going to use names from Nintendo characters - which I don't personally suggest since they're copyrighted and all. We'll end up with something like:
Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Bowser, Koopa, Toad, Link, Donkey Kong, Kirby.
If we look at that list, we'll notice 5 names have the letter i in them, 6 have the letter o. Mario and Yoshi might cause us trouble because they have both. If we eliminate these two, we're left with 4 characters with the letter o in their name (Bowser, Koopa, Toad, Donkey Kong), and two with the letter i (Link, Kirby) - and no names with both.
Name all of your Group O pets Bowser, Koopa, Toad, and Donkey Kong. (BTW - it's a total coincidence that the Group O pets have o-containing names). Name your two remaining pets Link and Kirby. Now, it's time to set up the binds.
First, we need to bind all of our Group O pets to perform some attack command. I'll provide both "Attack my Target / Aggressive" and "Go To / Aggressive" below. I'm going to use the number pad for pet commands here.
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
/bind numpad1 petcom_name o go agg
/bind numpad2 petcom_name o att agg
</pre><hr />
Now let's set up Group D. We'll create commands for them to Follow Defensive, and Go To Passive.
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
/bind numpad4 petcom_name i go pass
/bind numpad5 petcom_name i fo def
</pre><hr />
Why Go To Passive instead of Go To Defensive? In Defensive mode, the pets will return fire against anything which attacks them. In Passive mode, they'll just stand around - and solely make use of any special abilties they have, such as bubbling and healing for Protector Bots. This basically turns a Protector Bot from an "offender" who spends half his time attacking and the other buffing, into a full-time buffer. Yea, I referred to them in Hero Archetypes... live with it :P
This naming scenario becomes much simpler when you only want to command a single pet to do something different from the group. Using our Nintendo names again (Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Bowser, Koopa, Toad, Link, Donkey Kong, Kirby) we'll drop Kirby and Link because they really don't fit with the rest of the characters. Now, every name except Luigi has an o in it.
Oh, but Duck! We can't use i to refer to Luigi anymore, because then we'll confuse Mario and Yoshi! But Luigi is a loner now, so we can just call him by his full name, and not worry about confusing other pets! Assuming we want the same binds as before, they're going to look like this:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Group O:
/bind numpad1 petcom_name o go agg
/bind numpad2 petcom_name o att agg
Group D (just Luigi now):
/bind numpad4 petcom_name Luigi go pass
/bind numpad5 petcom_name Luigi fo def
</pre><hr />
In reality, Nintendo pet names are very dorky, and other Masterminds will shun and humiliate you, as their pets with infinitely cooler names emote your pets to death in public view.
[censored].
I honestly didn't mean this to be a social commentary... it just worked out that way
Oh, the dancing zombie?
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
/petsay_name Zombie <em dance>Zombie... dance...
</pre><hr />
(Yes, the emote needs to be inside < > brackets)