Prerelease 3.026 (Improvements to formation movement, arc move, plane nerf)

[HitmanN]

One note on the arc movement:

" ; " is a very poor choise of a command button for non-english keyboards, as it has come to my attention when I tried to use it.

On my norwegian keyboard I must hold shift inn to use that button, and that messes up my commands in game.

As an alternative, how about: c+right click?

Seconded. Took me a while to find the correct key on my Scandinavian layout as well.

[keith.lamothe]

Was there any changes made to the variable type in the construction of the more expencive buildings? Just wondering

We worked on that for a while, and tried to make an FInt24 (24 bits for storing the right-of-the-decimal value instead of 12 for normal FInt), but discovered that multiplication overflows happen at way-too-low operand values then (only so much can be done with 64 bits).  There's no native 128bit type in .NET (yet) so that's out for now.  But we are working an alternative build-increment system for ships that have costs so high that they cause precision errors.

Perhaps there could eventually be a way to define how thick the circle is? Then it would be exactly what I had in mind. Grin

Yep, that is in the plan; basically it would process it as multiple concentric circles (radii differing by collision radius).  Also want to support specifying arc size less than 360.

Wow, thanks for the arc movement!

Yay! I'm really thrilled to see this update of amazing stuff!

I was hoping there were other players out there like me that like this sort of thing

" ; " is a very poor choise of a command button for non-english keyboards, as it has come to my attention when I tried to use it.

Yes, it wasn't my first choice but the keyboard is *very* crowded in this game.  Suggestions for a different key are quite welcome.

As an alternative, how about: c+right click?

C is taken by "zoom to a crystal resource on this planet".

[HitmanN]

Yep, that is in the plan; basically it would process it as multiple concentric circles (radii differing by collision radius).  Also want to support specifying arc size less than 360.

You guys are awesome.

[carlosjuero]

Hrm - the keyboard is very very crowded with shortcuts :/, and some that I could think of may not be accessible to all keyboards (esp. laptops [Scrl Lock being one]). How about  'Y' (+RMB)? [pored through existing shortcuts over and over and didn't see Y used, but I could have missed it :/].

[HitmanN]

Hrm - the keyboard is very very crowded with shortcuts :/, and some that I could think of may not be accessible to all keyboards (esp. laptops [Scrl Lock being one]). How about  'Y' (+RMB)? [pored through existing shortcuts over and over and didn't see Y used, but I could have missed it :/].

As nice as the formations are, I have to agree on the crowded with shortcuts part. (And thus the following shameless plug)

In case anyone's interested, I made a suggestion (with a mockup pic) of a formations popup menu, here:
http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,317.15.html

Good? Bad?

[eRe4s3r]

On German keyboard ; is also requiring shift but you can do to it with 1 hand, if you have a right shift (thats the fat key below enter ,p)

I wonder if order popup would be a solution but this sounds like a huge change. It would require right click to always bring up the popup menu, not just sometimes.

So if the popup menu is considered, and if that would replace everything and offer access to ALL orders and is Context Sensitive ... well that still sounds like a huge thing to do... but if done right it could improve control a lot....

Edit: I am talking about a complete order popup thats context sensitive on right click, not just 1 for formations. As a example on how this can look, Homeworld 2 does it well.

[keith.lamothe]

Hrm - the keyboard is very very crowded with shortcuts :/, and some that I could think of may not be accessible to all keyboards (esp. laptops [Scrl Lock being one]). How about  'Y' (+RMB)? [pored through existing shortcuts over and over and didn't see Y used, but I could have missed it :/].

Lol, I used Y+rmb as the shortcut while testing for a similar reason; it's not any of the normal commands.  However, if you get a yes/no popup (do-you-really-want-to-gift-these-ships?, etc) the Y would be interpreted as saying yes.  So it would be a rare conflict but potentially a very annoying one.

I do want to do a separate "shape mode" where pressing a key shifts the interface mode (not a popup or new window probably, as those are a lot of work and tend to be more cumbersome to the user) which interprets various keys differently.  That's not really a priority as we'd like to see how the current batch of advanced ship-positioning orders do before going hog-wild.  But Chris does seem receptive to the idea of an alternate interface mode for these kind of advanced positioning orders (movement or placement) and I think it's quite doable.  So it's a priority list thing.  A feature's ranking on the community DLC poll can possibly affect its priority (hint hint).

Thanks for the feedback
Keith

[PineappleSam]

Does holding the right mouse button do anything? What would happen if it went automaticaly into arc-move if you pressed and held with the right mouse button?

What about holding the right mouse button and clickling the left mouse button WHILE THE RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON IS HELD to toggle between the different move orders?

Been playing too much single player UT2004 recently and loves his rocket launcher,
-Skitter

[x4000]

Most likely either holding the right mouse button will need to bring up a context menu, so that then players can choose from a variety of different kinds of move orders.  I think that it would indeed be a good idea to make this more generalized so that it includes things like attack-move, free-roaming defender move, arc-move, etc.  Given that we already have a popup listbox capability, that might even be considerably less work than we were once figuring.

[carlosjuero]

As long as there is a short delay w/ the RMB click/menu popup so that we don't have to dismiss the menu for normal move orders [e.g. hold down for X seconds for the menu to come up]

[x4000]

As long as there is a short delay w/ the RMB click/menu popup so that we don't have to dismiss the menu for normal move orders [e.g. hold down for X seconds for the menu to come up]

Yeah.  Or, the "hold right mouse button and then left-click" idea could work even better, from that perspective.  Thus it is never accidentally triggered by right-clicks, but also players who want to use it don't have to hold for an annoying amount of time.

[Ozymandiaz]

Hmm, I forgot about that shortcut. Basically any letter that is not used is good with me.

My 'perferd' list:

a/A

r/R

u/U

or even ' . ' or ' , '

[carlosjuero]

Hmm, I forgot about that shortcut. Basically any letter that is not used is good with me.

My 'perferd' list:

a/A

r/R

u/U

or even ' . ' or ' , '

All of those are used :p

[quickstix]

Although I'm yet to try them out, the new formation mechanics are great. For someone like me that micros my ships a lot, they make life a lot easier and make optimum ship placement a snap.

A right click context menu sounds like a great idea. I've recently started dabbling in Homeworld 2 again, and the context menu there is very helpful. (HW2 also made me realise how useful important automated build queues are, especially when combat is taking away all of your attention.)

Thanks again for all the awesome improvements.

[eRe4s3r]

In Homeworld 2 the best tactic was to micromanage every big ship, and put some smaller ships in guard duty around the big ones (And not do formations..) thanks to a pause button and few ships that was fairly easy to do. Also, the AI in Homeworld 2 does use fleets which is the ONLY reason you should use them at all yourself. Without the AI doing that a fleet only makes you slow and sluggish. Most missions in HW2 even require you to do custom mixed and micro managed strike groups even with capital ships in them.

Atm i am not sure what exactly the purpose of formations is in AI-War. Just select my ships and group move is still faster than formations. And given the scope of AI War, i don't even know what I'd ever use formations for. And i voted for them as well but the more i see them in action, the less i think they add anything good to the game. The time it takes to make a formation perfect you could be blasting a planet to smithereens with a group moved fleet.

Just my 2ct ;p