Smart Idle

Summary

Smart Idle is an ability enabled by the Comm Center/Hub/Mound along with Auto Hierarchy. Smart Idle allows units to make smart decisions when they are idle, for example a Blackbird will heal units that are damaged and a Frigate will un-jam any units that are communications jammed. Units will automatically use teleporters when they shorten a movement order.

Here's a relevant devblog entry.

Elaboration

The following is a more complete list of unit smart idle functionality:

• An idle repairer/healer will automatically make its way toward a heavily damaged unit to restore its health.
• Idle damaged Grekim and Vecgir units will automatically move towards a repair structure (Reaph or Foundation, respectively).
• Units will automatically move toward a building to reload on ammo (i.e., Cruiser towards Macrofab when you click its reload button).
• Virs will automatically move towards the closest Depot if they are not close enough to pilot.
• Units will automatically move toward the closest Teleporter if they are outside the Teleporter's active radius.
• If one of your units sees an ally that needs recovering (e.g., com-jammed), an idle recover-capable unit will automatically fly over and recover the hindered unit.
• If one of your units sees an enemy with a TSS, an idle break-TSS capable unit will automatically fly over to break the enemy TSS.

For most smart-idle (healing, piloting, teleporting) functions, units will only respond if they are within approximately 40 spaces (or about 2x the diameter of a Teleporter's active radius ), however for smart-idle functions where the responders are exclusively air units (Recover and Break TSS), that distance is more than doubled to a little over 100 spaces, since the air unit can cover that distance quickly and avoid obstacles on the way.