Small suggestions topic

@longhead said in Small suggestions topic:

I see a lot of improvement in the selection and command UI. For example when we select a group of engineers, the group should be able to build anything the highest tech engineer can build. right now, the group can only build what the lowest tech engineer can build. Something like an automatic "higher tech starts build, lower tech support build" would be very nice.

@longhead When selecting the stack of engineers this is indeed annoying that the lower tech gets the advantage with no ability to switch to higher tier and not losing the lower tier from selection.

Total map reclaim count in lobby or map details

@f-odin said in Small suggestions topic:

Total map reclaim count in lobby or map details

Reclaim for dead units is generated dynamically and would change with balance patches (the game spawns in "live" units and then kills them, that's why balance patches can change how much reclaim there is in the middle of Seton's)

And any SIM mods could change the total amount of reclaim

It would be possible for FAF to track the total amount of reclaim based on "no mods at all," generate the map with no ACUs spawning in, check the reclaim totals 30 seconds later, ignore the fact that a small amount of reclaim will die to ACUs spawning in. (And programmatically "kill" every civilian unit/structure on the map before counting the reclaim totals)

But this would have to be done per-map. Maybe someone could make a script to do this and then every time there's a balance patch, re-run it for every map.

And then you'd have to update the lobby to query FAF to ask for each map what the reclaim totals are.

It also should completely not work with adaptive maps, not that that matters. (I wouldn't throw away this innovation just because on 5% of the maps that people play it wouldn't work)

So basically I think it would require a lot of work, probably not worth it, but I certainly wouldn't mind if someone can get it done.

Alternatively, the host could generate the map and count the reclaim based on the active mods every time the host picks a map in the lobby just to get the number to display. This seems like a big waste of computer resources and would delay being able to start a hosted game. It would become super annoying to the host every time the host changed the map.

Edit: MAYBE it would be very easy to generate this number for mapgen maps. And that is where it would be the most useful to HAVE this number.

@f-odin said in Small suggestions topic:

Total map reclaim count in lobby or map details

I'd like this too - but I'm afraid it is not that easy. The Ozonex editor provides a small table that one can retrieve for total mass / energy reclaim values, but it doesn't appear to be accurate and it only takes into account props. Let alone that older maps and the GPG maps do not have this table.

Computing the total mass / energy reclaim values is easy once the simulation started, but before that we do not have access to the content of the map beyond a preview and the information in _scenario.lua.

@arma473 @Jip , yeah the suggestion was based off of mapgen maps having no real hints at how much reclaim is on the map. Didn't even taken into account adaptive maps, and how unit reclaim is generated.

My initial thought was just port ozone values. Taking a look, I didn't realise how far off some of these values are. Maybe it'll be simpler just to have part of the vault description dedicated to reclaim values and allow map makers to manually input initial figures, giving a ballpark figure for mass.

A generated map can take that into account and show it accordingly. It could even take into account wreckage.

Strategic overlay decals!

@nine2 wdym?

@jip said in Small suggestions topic:

A generated map can take that into account and show it accordingly. It could even take into account wreckage.

Unfortunately a generated map doesn't know the reclaim values during generation.

@Ctrl-K He means something similar as discussed last year.

An option to unbind the ctrl-click to select all of the same unit on the map.

Make the show "reclaim labels on holding ctrl+shift" be adjustable, so that you can e.g. show reclaim by just pressing and holding shift, or just ctrl or just pressing any other key you want.

I'm mostly thinking of having it work when just pressing shift, as that would make queuing up reclaim and move orders easier imo

A setting that allows queuing of the same structure on top of each other, combining their orders into one as if given to multiple engies.

Example use case:
I have two engies, reclaiming some rocks along two different paths on their way to an external hydro. If I give the reclaiming orders and then the order to build the hydro to the 1st engie, I can't do the same with the 2nd engie, as the game wont let me queue a hydro on the spot where there is already one queued.

So currently I can either have the 2nd engie assist the first one, which sucks if the 1st one gets killed,
or I have to give both engies their separate reclaim order, then select both of them at the same time, and then queue the hydro with both of them selected, which is cumbersome and error prone.

What I'd like to do is to just have the hydro be queued by the 1st engie, which then gets combined with the 2nd hydro build order once I give it

@cheeseberry Or you could give the second engie a "ground assist order" next to the hydro and queue up any other orders after that. It will arrive at the site, assist the nearest thing (which will be the hydro), then there will be nothing left to assist, so it will drop the assist order and follow the next order in its queue.

@archsimkat I'd like a "select all of same unit on map" too. Used to postion mobile AA in a strike team or select a subset of drones in stupid long type games.

@melanol said in Small suggestions topic:

Can we fix that annoying thing that resets the currently selected construction tab for various reasons? Like when you selected a T3 engi, switched to T1 to choose something from there, and then an event happens, and you are back in the T3 tab.

This happens because of Common Mod Tools mod that provides info about player's units to other UI mods. Unfortunately there is no special UI function to get all player's units, so from time to time we have to select ALL units on the map, get info about them and then revert selection back. All this happens in 0.1 sec, so it is not noticeble for your eyes, but still counts as reselection and causes reset of construction tab

@arma473 Yes, there are lots of workarounds, but all of them are suboptimal.

Your suggestion for example falls apart if the 1st engie dies to a lab or something. On a big map where my apm/attention is limited, I'd want the 2nd engie to start building the hydro anyway, but if I give a ground assist order, it just sits around doing nothing.

Also your suggestion assumes I know which engie will arrive at the hydro first, which is sometimes hard to estimate on e.g. mapgen maps.

There would be other use cases too:
For example it happens quite often to me that I queue up some t1 mexes with whatever engie is around during a hectic part of the game, and then realize a dozen seconds later that another engie actually can get there sooner.

If I could just place a second mex construction order on top of the first one, I wouldn't need to first cancel the order of the further away engie.

@cheeseberry in that particular scenario, you could have the second (closer) engie assist the first one, it will go build the mex (but will then sit there until the original one arrives and confirms it's done before moving on).

@deletethis That’s exactly what he’s trying to avoid though, and for good reasons.

I’ve gotten good at issuing different orders to different engineers ending with selecting both of them to build the hydro or whatever, but yeah would be a bit easier and less error prone to have what cheese is suggesting.

I'll throw this here was mentioned in a PM.
when in like 1v1 / any matchmaker I assume you are able to draw via the diplomacy tab from my previous experience when you press the button it does not prompt the other play that you're asking for a draw. my knowledge might be outdated and it may already do this but if not would be nice to have a visual aid to the option that you asking for a draw without asking in chat as they may not understand what you asking