Harass

The “Harass” behavior, found under the Orders Menu, instructs the currently-selected units to move around the map automatically. They search the map much in the same way as the Scout behavior, but respond to threats differently.

When a unit with this behavior spots an enemy that he can attack, he will take a potshot at the foe. As long the enemy doesn’t retaliate, he will stand there and shoot it. However, once the enemy shoots back, the unit will move on. If the unit has a turret and can fire while moving, it will continue scouting while shooting at enemies that it encounters.

Harass, put simply, is used to pressure and annoy the enemy. Units will wander around, shooting at whatever they see and then retreating once they draw retaliation. This works best with fast units, naturally. Spider Bikes are good candidates for effective harassment, as are any units that have independent turrets (such as Plasma Tanks). Air units such as Cyclones also make for good harassment since they can approach from any angle and have an easier time getting away from the enemy once they draw attention.

Although units under this behavior will attempt to avoid enemies that are shooting at them, they sometimes don’t know the best direction to flee. Frequently they simply run into even more trouble. As such, units set on this behavior will generally be destroyed sooner or later. When you send someone out to harass the enemy, don’t expect him to be coming back.

You can prolong the survival of your units, however, by building a Field Hospital or Repair Station and setting your units’ Damage Tolerance to LOW or MED before you send them out on their mission. Assuming they can extricate themselves from the enemy in time, they will return as necessary for repairs and then resume their harassment orders until you give them a new command.

Note that the “Harass” behavior does not work for a Sniper that is morphed; the Sniper will not shoot at anything, but will behave as if she is under the “Scout” behavior instead.