The nagging questions thread

[mindloss]

There are a bunch of little things I keep meaning to ask about and haven't. I'll dump 'em here, and if anyone would be so kind as to answer a few, I'd be much obliged.

The list off the top of my head:

  --

1) Is there anything you can do with the right-click context menu that you can't do with hotkey-clicks?
1b) Is there any way to move a unit to a location within a system without using those directing rods (possibly with that magic context menu)?

2) I couldn't find a hotkey for pause/unpause all construction. Is there one?

3) What's with the "exclusive/inverse" 'x' key in the context of selection/control groups? It's listed under control settings, but I can't seem to make it do anything.

4) Is there any way to remove a priority label from a star?

5) When issuing plain right-click orders with my military in auto-FRD mode, sometimes they seem not to enter FRD (perhaps when entering a new star system?) Is this correct behavior?
5b) Thanks to Keith for the tip about using move followed by attack move outside of range to stop your auto-FRD'd guys from going berserk at an enemy. Very helpful!

6) Whenever I alt-tab or whatever to do something else, when I come back the screen has been scrolling the whole time and is way off course. Tiny bug, but gets old. Is this already in Mantis?

7) How is firepower calculated on the galaxy screen? Do most people generally leave their maps set to mobile unit count or mobile firepower (it sure seems to me as though one of those has to be the best default.)
7b) Why is 'Normal' view normal? It seems to lack crucial information (i.e., your fleet locations.) Does it show something I'm missing?

I'm confused about the Ctrl-# behavior for buildings. It seems like if you Ctrl-# a building, it will clear that control group, and from that point on any unit spawning from the building will be in that control group -- true? Is it then possible to add other units to that control group without canceling that behavior? I've run into problems trying to do that.

[keith.lamothe]

1) Is there anything you can do with the right-click context menu that you can't do with hotkey-clicks?

Shouldn't be.  Depends on your meaning of "can't".

1b) Is there any way to move a unit to a location within a system without using those directing rods (possibly with that magic context menu)?

Don't think so.

2) I couldn't find a hotkey for pause/unpause all construction. Is there one?

Thought there was, but not sure.

3) What's with the "exclusive/inverse" 'x' key in the context of selection/control groups? It's listed under control settings, but I can't seem to make it do anything.

Hmm, I thought Alt was what you held when you wanted to exclude ships from your selection, so I don't remember off the top of my head.

6) Whenever I alt-tab or whatever to do something else, when I come back the screen has been scrolling the whole time and is way off course. Tiny bug, but gets old. Is this already in Mantis?

Many, Many times.  Not a lot we can do about the behavior when the application doesn't have focus, as "do I have focus" is highly nontrivial to answer from the code, iirc.

7) How is firepower calculated on the galaxy screen?

Magic!

I'm confused about the Ctrl-# behavior for buildings. It seems like if you Ctrl-# a building, it will clear that control group, and from that point on any unit spawning from the building will be in that control group -- true? Is it then possible to add other units to that control group without canceling that behavior? I've run into problems trying to do that.

Shift-ctrl-# should work, I think.

[x4000]

1. Yes.  Some of the more obscure movement commands, which I don't use and thus can't remember off the top of my head.
1b. Directing... rods?  You mean rally posts?  If you're talking about giving a unit an order to another system that it is not in, then rally posts are the only way.  You can't give cross-system orders other than "go to that system" without rally posts.

2. I don't think there is one.  There's not really a reason to ever use this with any frequency, which is why it got moved into CTRLs.  It used to be a button directly on the GUI, but hardly anyone was using it at all anymore.

3. I'm really not sure, it's something Keith added.

4. Yes, go into any priority mode then just right-click it.

5. Auto FRD should be only applying when they don't have any other orders; so if you give them a regular right-click order that will override it and just have them do a regular movement (otherwise they'd not, for instance, leave the system when you told them, instead just wandering around in FRD if there are enemies).  If you give a ship orders directly, you have to manually tell it FRD if that's what you mean.  Otherwise it should go into FRD when it gets to a target system and no longer has orders, but if you want it to be FRD as soon as it enters the system, you need to give a FRD move order.

6. It's in mantis several times, and isn't something we can fix.  Hit H to come back to the center of your stuff.  The Unity 3D engine doesn't let us know when the game doesn't have focus, so there's not anything we can do -- it's a topic that's been beat into the ground already, and short of a new Unity version that allows us to tell when the game is minimized there's really nothing for it.

7. It's... complicated.  I don't know that we've ever published the exact formula, but it's something that needs some tweaking and which is only an estimate at best.  Most folks vastly prefer unit count, it seems.
7.b. It's the least cluttered view, but shows none of the unit counts.  It's easiest for new players just trying to digest the basics.

8. Any time you Ctrl+# any units, it removes all other units that were in that group already.  There are hotkeys that let you add to an existing group, though; I think it's Shift+#, or something like that.  TBH I don't use control groups myself, so it never comes directly to mind.


EDIT: Ninja'd by keith, but I guess I'll leave my responses just in case.

[mindloss]

6) Whenever I alt-tab or whatever to do something else, when I come back the screen has been scrolling the whole time and is way off course. Tiny bug, but gets old. Is this already in Mantis?

Many, Many times.  Not a lot we can do about the behavior when the application doesn't have focus, as "do I have focus" is highly nontrivial to answer from the code, iirc.

Ah. For a really ugly workaround, it should be relatively easy to detect when someone has been scrolling constantly to an area of no interest for an extended duration and then recenter their screen...? But yeah, it's a small enough thing that I wouldn't bother fixing it if it took any amount of time.

7) How is firepower calculated on the galaxy screen?

Magic!

Is the magic good enough that I should treat it as a more reliable indicator than raw ship number?

[Commiesalami]

2) I couldn't find a hotkey for pause/unpause all construction. Is there one?

Its in the CTRLS Menu, first one I think ...

[x4000]

I would not treat the firepower as the primary indicator, although it's useful.  I would go by ship number.

[mindloss]

Figured out one of my own, passing it on:

3) What's with the "exclusive/inverse" 'x' key in the context of selection/control groups? It's listed under control settings, but I can't seem to make it do anything.

Hitting Ctrl-X-# saves the current selection as a control group in that slot, and removes it from every other slot. Which is awesome. Cause that means when I want to split a group into two sections, no longer do I have to break out the group, save, go back, alt click a bunch of times, save. Now, it's just Ctrl-X-# bam done.

Reason I maybe couldn't figure it out before? It definitely seems bugged specifically when using control group 2. For all I know that's an artifact of the way my specific keyboard is wired, but it was definitely suspicious. It seemed to work fine with 1, and 3 on up...


Edit for clarification, in case anyone cares:

Say you have a big fleet as group 1. You want to break out your bombers as a separate group for a bit. Ctrl-click on them on the selection list (to select all marks of bomber), then hit e.g. Ctrl-X-3. Now the bombers will be in group 3, and will no longer be in group 1 (that's the part that ordinary ctrl-# doesn't do for you). There.

[BobTheJanitor]

Holy beans, that's useful. Give this man a 'tip of the day' mention in game. I've wanted an option like that forever!

[Blasphemy]

Figured out one of my own, passing it on:

3) What's with the "exclusive/inverse" 'x' key in the context of selection/control groups? It's listed under control settings, but I can't seem to make it do anything.

Hitting Ctrl-X-# saves the current selection as a control group in that slot, and removes it from every other slot. Which is awesome. Cause that means when I want to split a group into two sections, no longer do I have to break out the group, save, go back, alt click a bunch of times, save. Now, it's just Ctrl-X-# bam done.

Reason I maybe couldn't figure it out before? It definitely seems bugged specifically when using control group 2. For all I know that's an artifact of the way my specific keyboard is wired, but it was definitely suspicious. It seemed to work fine with 1, and 3 on up...


Edit for clarification, in case anyone cares:

Say you have a big fleet as group 1. You want to break out your bombers as a separate group for a bit. Ctrl-click on them on the selection list (to select all marks of bomber), then hit e.g. Ctrl-X-3. Now the bombers will be in group 3, and will no longer be in group 1 (that's the part that ordinary ctrl-# doesn't do for you). There.

I just move the new group away from the old group and then cntl# the old group but your method is faster.

[mindloss]

I just move the new group away from the old group and then cntl# the old group but your method is faster.

Yeah, it's always easiest to physically just move the stupid ships how you want them... but I love to pony and moan about not having a million hotkeys so that I can do exactly what I want without clicking anything.   Fortunately, this one already existed!

On a related note,

9) Alt+Shift+# is supposed to do some kind of removal too, according to the in-game help and the pdf manual (not to be confused with Ctrl-Alt-#, which removes your current selection from the group #)... but I can't figure out what it does, if anything.

[zoutzakje]

6) this one doesn't need a fix since you can easily work your way around it. I always got annoyed by this in the past (especially since I did not know how to return to your ships), until I realised you can't scroll the galaxy view. So just press Tab before you decide to press Alt+Tab.

[mindloss]

Oh, wow. Yeah, that works. Effectively, hitting 'H' when you switch back works about as well, but the galaxy view thing will probably be less irritating.