Author Topic: Tooltip updates  (Read 13804 times)

Offline keith.lamothe

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Tooltip updates
« on: January 29, 2011, 12:08:00 am »
So, judging by a rapid influx of questions, looks like I fail at updating tooltips ;)

Normally I'd leave this to the normal one-mantis-record-per-issue process, but at this particular time I think it would be helpful for folks to post here about the tooltip updates necessary.  My preferences:
1) One unit per post (so not corrections to multiple distinct tooltips in one post).
2) Please include the name of the unit and the old text (not all the stats, just the textual part; if you want to avoid typing it all in you can copy/paste it from the ships.xml file in RuntimeData/Language/ ).
3) Please include your suggested new text.  That way other players can chime in if they think it needs further refinement.  Also easier on me if I can just proofread,copy,paste rather than try to compose it myself ;)
4) If someone's already posted a correction on a unit's tooltip, don't post another one on that unit unless you think the already-posted one is totally missing some important point.  Generally better to try to correct the correction :)

Anyway, thanks to everyone for patience and assistance, hopefully we can clean these up rapidly.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2011, 08:24:49 am by keith.lamothe »
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Offline TechSY730

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Re: Tooltip updates
« Reply #1 on: January 29, 2011, 12:59:39 am »
Can this get stickied until this is mostly fixed?

EDIT: It saddens me that a stable version of this with these corrections won't come out for some time, based on what was said earlier about stable version schedules. This means for a month or two, we will have all sorts of confusion from newbies about where the in-game documentation does not match up to what is really happening.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2011, 01:03:19 am by techsy730 »

Offline Jesterman

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Re: Tooltip updates
« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2011, 04:31:40 am »
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Offline Burnstreet

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Re: Tooltip updates
« Reply #3 on: January 29, 2011, 07:04:55 am »
I don't find RuntimeData/Expansions/1/Language, all the texts seem to be in RuntimeData/Language for me.

For the olems I will combine the broken and non-broken into one post because they belond together.

Armored Golem - Broken

old:
Incredibly highly armored, this golem fires many powerful flame waves in quick succession, letting it really chew through groups of enemies.  Vulnurable to enemies that can pierce its armored exterior.
This golem is ancient and broken, and must be repaired to full health before it will become operational.
There will also need to be at least 600,000 net energy available before the golem will come online.

new:
Incredibly highly armored, this golem fires 5 very powerful flame waves in quick succession, letting it blast through even the strongest armor.
Vulnurable to enemies that can pierce its armored exterior.
This golem is ancient and broken, and must be repaired to full health before it will become operational.
There will also need to be at least 20,000 net energy available before the golem will come online.

Arbmored Golem
old:
Incredibly highly armored, this golem fires many powerful flame waves in quick succession, letting it really chew through groups of enemies.  Vulnurable to enemies that can pierce its armored exterior.

new:
Incredibly highly armored, this golem fires 5 very powerful flame waves in quick succession, letting it blast through even the strongest armor.
Vulnurable to enemies that can pierce its armored exterior.




Edit from Keith; here's what I went with:

This incredibly tough golem can blast through even the strongest armor with wave after wave of intense plasma-flame.
This golem is ancient and broken, and must be repaired to full health before it will become operational.
You must also have enough net energy available to power the golem (200k on Broken-Golems-Medium, 20k otherwise) before it will come online.

(the non-broken variant doesn't have the second and third lines, obviously)
« Last Edit: January 31, 2011, 01:42:07 pm by keith.lamothe »

Offline Burnstreet

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Re: Tooltip updates
« Reply #4 on: January 29, 2011, 07:10:11 am »
Artillery Golem - Broken

old:
Fires extremely, extremely powerful artillery shots over long ranges. Is very slow, and very fragile, though.  Great for taking out very heavily defended targets.
This golem is ancient and broken, and must be repaired to full health before it will become operational.
There will also need to be at least 600,000 net energy available before the golem will come online.

new:
Fires extremely, extremely powerful artillery shots over long ranges. Is very slow, and very fragile, though.  Great for taking out very heavily defended targets.
This golem is ancient and broken, and must be repaired to full health before it will become operational.
There will also need to be at least 15,000 net energy available before the golem will come online.



Edit from Keith; went with:

Fires extremely, extremely powerful artillery shots over long ranges. Is very slow, and very fragile, though.  Great for taking out very heavily defended targets.
This golem is ancient and broken, and must be repaired to full health before it will become operational.
You must also have enough net energy available to power the golem (150k on Broken-Golems-Medium, 15 otherwise) before it will come online.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2011, 01:43:25 pm by keith.lamothe »

Offline Burnstreet

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Re: Tooltip updates
« Reply #5 on: January 29, 2011, 07:24:24 am »
Black Widow Golem - broken
old:
Relatively low health for a golem, but doesn't damage itself when firing.  Fires 50x fairly powerful shots at a time, dealing extreme engine damage with each volley.  Excellent for immobilizing or outright destroying large fleets.
This golem is ancient and broken, and must be repaired to full health before it will become operational.
There will also need to be at least 300,000 net energy available before the golem will come online.

new:
This giant spider can catch and immobilize a whole fleet with its 100 high-range tractor beams and 50 high-power, engine-destroying shots.
The fastest of all golems.
This golem is ancient and broken, and must be repaired to full health before it will become operational.
There will also need to be at least 17,000 net energy available before the golem will come online.

Black Widow Golem
old:
Relatively low health for a golem, but doesn't damage itself when firing.  Fires 50x fairly powerful shots at a time, dealing extreme engine damage with each volley.  Excellent for immobilizing or outright destroying large fleets.

new:
This giant spider can catch and immobilize a whole fleet with its 100 high-range tractor beams and 50 high-power, engine-destroying shots.
The fastest of all golems.


Edit from Keith; went with:

This fast, giant-spider-like golem can catch and immobilize large groups of ships with its many high-range tractor beams and powerful, engine-destroying multi-shot cannons.
This golem is ancient and broken, and must be repaired to full health before it will become operational.
You must also have enough net energy available to power the golem (170k on Broken-Golems-Medium, 17k otherwise) before it will come online.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2011, 01:49:17 pm by keith.lamothe »

Offline Burnstreet

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Re: Tooltip updates
« Reply #6 on: January 29, 2011, 07:30:21 am »
Regen Golem - broken

old:
Very little in the way of weapons, but is able to use its own health to resurrect allied mobile ships that are killed on the current planet. Resurrected ships are teleported back to the golem at full health at no cost beyond the health of the golem.  The regeneration function stops when the golem drops to 10% health or lower.
This golem is ancient and broken, and must be repaired to full health before it will become operational.
There will also need to be at least 400,000 net energy available before the golem will come online.

new:
Very little in the way of weapons, but is able to use its own health to resurrect allied mobile ships that are killed on the current planet. Resurrected ships are teleported back to the golem at full health at no cost beyond the health of the golem.  The regeneration function stops when the golem drops to 10% health or lower.
This golem is ancient and broken, and must be repaired to full health before it will become operational.
There will also need to be at least 25,000 net energy available before the golem will come online.


Edit from Keith; went with:

Has very little in the way of weapons, but is able to use its own health to resurrect allied mobile ships that are killed on the current planet. Resurrected ships are teleported to the golem at full health at no cost beyond the health of the golem.  The regeneration function stops when the golem drops to 10% health or lower.
This golem is ancient and broken, and must be repaired to full health before it will become operational.
You must also have enough net energy available to power the golem (250k on Broken-Golems-Medium, 25k otherwise) before it will come online.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2011, 01:52:05 pm by keith.lamothe »

Offline Burnstreet

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Re: Tooltip updates
« Reply #7 on: January 29, 2011, 07:45:00 am »
cursed Golem - broken
old:
Cursed Golems continuously take passive damage, and so must constantly be repaired to survive.
This golem is ancient and broken, and must be repaired to full health before it will become operational.
There will also need to be at least 200,000 net energy available before the golem will come online.

new:
The Cursed Golem, already starting with low health for a golem and no armor, decays 3 times faster than other golems when not constantly repaired or powered down, but due to its high firepower at sniper range it is one of the most versatile ships in the galaxy.
This golem is ancient and broken, and must be repaired to full health before it will become operational.
There will also need to be at least 10,000 net energy available before the golem will come online.

Cursed Golem
old:
Cursed Golems continuously take passive damage, and so must constantly be repaired to survive.

new:
The Cursed Golem, already starting with low health for a golem and no armor, decays 3 times faster than other golems when not constantly repaired or powered down, but due to its high firepower at sniper range it is one of the most versatile ships in the galaxy.



Edit from Keith; went with:

The Cursed Golem is much less durable and decays much faster than other golems (the decay stops when powered down), but can project its high firepower over effectively infinite range.
This golem is ancient and broken, and must be repaired to full health before it will become operational.
You must also have enough net energy available to power the golem (100k on Broken-Golems-Medium, 10k otherwise) before it will come online.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2011, 01:57:41 pm by keith.lamothe »

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Tooltip updates
« Reply #8 on: January 29, 2011, 08:34:31 am »
EDIT: It saddens me that a stable version of this with these corrections won't come out for some time, based on what was said earlier about stable version schedules. This means for a month or two, we will have all sorts of confusion from newbies about where the in-game documentation does not match up to what is really happening.
Well, the 4.021 official came out pretty quickly after 4.0, if you recall.  Of course, 4.0 had much more serious issues than 5.0 seems to have.

In general, the interval before the "Official N+1" is inversely proportional to the severity of issues found in "Official N" ;)  Another thing that can push the timeline out is simply not being done with stuff from the current dev cycle, but we're not planning to do anything major for a while here.  And of course, Chris's willingness to spend a full day getting a new official version out takes a while to recharge ;)

And I'm not planning to sticky this unless it actually starts falling very far down the list before it's done.  Stickys often get a lower read rate than current nonstickys.

Quote from: Burnstreet
I don't find RuntimeData/Expansions/1/Language, all the texts seem to be in RuntimeData/Language for me.
Quite right, I'd forgotten that was the one runtimedata subdirectory that's collected all into one :)  Fixed the OP.

Thanks for the submissions on Golems :)

And Jesterman, yes, the Military and Logistics command stations were in mind when I posted this, I'm just looking for someone to propose a new text and see if other players agree that it handles the problem.  Since you eradicated the original text of your post I'm guessing you already realized this :)
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Offline Burnstreet

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Re: Tooltip updates
« Reply #9 on: January 29, 2011, 08:57:04 am »
Thanks for the submissions on Golems :)
More to come, the others need love to the energy requirements, too, at least.
But now I have to pimp my Radeon with a new cooler first :)

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Tooltip updates
« Reply #10 on: January 29, 2011, 09:00:33 am »
But now I have to pimp my Radeon with a new cooler first :)
Haha, someday someone's going to try 7 video cards cooled in liquid helium or something, and there'll be a shattering sound from the computer as the cold-hot transition overcomes the manufacturing tolerances ;)
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Offline c4sc4

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Re: Tooltip updates
« Reply #11 on: January 29, 2011, 12:17:35 pm »
I feel that all of the golems should state that they take damage over time. It could be the same for all of them, something such as "Like all Golems, this unit continuously takes damage when it is not in low power mode." 

Offline c4sc4

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Re: Tooltip updates
« Reply #12 on: January 29, 2011, 12:43:38 pm »
Military Command Station

Original: (yes it does have a typo, higest)
Military Command Stations provide very little in the way of economic gain, but have much more health and the ability to shoot at enemy ships, along with some specialized immunities like the immunity to blade attacks. They also emit tachyon beams (the higest mark version providing planetary tachyon coverage) and an attack boost to all allies on the planet. Command Stations are the nerve center of every planetary base. All other base buildings are created here. Can only build one per planet (counting all players). Can be built at destroyed planets, but provide no supply there.


New:
Military Command Stations provide very little in the way of economic gain, but have much more health and the ability to shoot at enemy ships (which teleport hit ships across the map), along with some specialized immunities like the immunity to blade attacks. They also emit tachyon beams (the highest mark version providing planetary tachyon coverage) and an attack boost to all allies on the planet. Command Stations are the nerve center of every planetary base. All other base buildings are created here. Can only build one per planet (counting all players). Can be built at destroyed planets, but provide no supply there.


I only added the translcation ability, I'm not sure if they is some other new ability missing.

Actually, should the whole, when destroyed, all colony ships on the planet are destroyed, be added to the command posts?


Edit by Keith; went with:

Military Command Stations provide very little in the way of economic gain, but have much more health and fire translocating shots at enemy ships (which teleports them to random locations on the planet, along with some specialized immunities like the immunity to blade attacks.  They also emit tachyon beams (the highest mark version providing planetary tachyon coverage) and an attack boost to all allies on the planet.

Command Stations are the nerve center of every planetary base.  All other base buildings are created here.  Can only build one per planet (counting all players). Can be built at destroyed planets, but provide no supply there.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2011, 02:01:34 pm by keith.lamothe »

Offline Red Spot

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Re: Tooltip updates
« Reply #13 on: January 29, 2011, 12:54:39 pm »
See the attachment, not sure if you can do something about it, but how do you expect me to go to that link? Alt-tab'ing means I will be doing it 10 times before I have the link in my browser :)

edit: Perhaps a note "*view the wiki for additional information" in the tooltip. And have a link to the wiki in the main menu of the game.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2011, 12:58:04 pm by Red Spot »

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Tooltip updates
« Reply #14 on: January 29, 2011, 12:56:47 pm »
Well, I could have ctrl+right-clicking the button use the same "open link in browser" behavior as some of the tip-of-the-day's do :)

But in general there's just no way I can pack all that info into that tooltip ;)
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