These changes to interface possible in patch?
 

Just wondering if anyone knows if these changes would be difficult or easy to implement:

- A hotkey enabling you to see which spells the selected commander can cast. Best would be a shortcut key linking directly to "set battle orders / cast a specific spell". (Or anything other than select province, hit "t", set battle orders, cast specific spell.)

- let us see the personal gems (if any) a commander has when setting battle orders. Nice here too would be not only letting us see them, but clicking in that field lets us exchange them too (direct link to f7/exchange).

- the f1-f# screens pop up no matter what screen is currently active (thus allowing me to change items from my treasury, for example, while inspecting my army)

- Giving an item to a commander automatically switches items should a slot be filled (e.g. I do not need to put his helm in the lab first before giving him a new one).

- allow for key-mapping (I personally dislike having to hit *shift* so much)

- in connection with key-mapping: allow a function that lets me select commanders in the currently selected province with keys (I would suggest the 1-9 buttons).

- In connection with above: let there be a function which allows you to select the first / select all units in the garrison and then give them to the (number / hotkeyed) commander in that province's army by hitting that key: by default they go to a new squad / Last made existing squad, hitting (shift or ctrl) puts them to other squads. (This I find not so important as the other changes.)

- Allow a setting which lets you switch between default "returned actions upon invalid command", i.e. when you have a mage forging a helm selected and forget she is still selected and click somewhere she cant move to, she goes back to "defend" instead of forge that helm and you have to reset.

OK well I will try to keep the list short. Or am I already asking too much?

Well gee I cant resist: a "save game" feature would be nice. Is that hard to do?

Re: These changes to interface possible in patch?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Better a hotkey to see what units has selected commander under command. It's hard to remember all commander's names and troops from army setup and then perform movement.

Re: These changes to interface possible in patch?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">When inspecing your army you can right-click on a commander, then click on an item slot or the 'gem slot' to give them items and gems.

Re: These changes to interface possible in patch?
 

The number one change I'd like to see is a better post-battle report. The report would show which units were killed on both sides, clickable for stats; which units received an experience upgrade; a list of units that retreated; to where they retreated; and a list of the units that ended the battle wounded.

Right now tracking down this important information calls for massive clicking around and either a good memory or note taking.

It would also be cool to get a list of what spells were cast.

Re: These changes to interface possible in patch?
 

Hm ok.
I really does want to know. Would some of the changes to interface be just too difficult to implement, or cost too much time or other resources? This is an honest question. Well the new patch is out and it mostly covered other issues, not interface ones -- is that because fixing the interface is too difficult? Thanks

Re: These changes to interface possible in patch?
 

>Just wondering if anyone knows if these changes would be difficult or easy to implement:

> A hotkey enabling you to see which spells the selected commander can cast. Best would be a shortcut key linking directly to "set battle orders / cast a specific spell". (Or anything other than select province, hit "t", set battle orders, cast specific spell.)

Hmm. Not without merit, but wouldn't it be confusing to have a set battle orders somewhere on the main screen.

>let us see the personal gems (if any) a commander has when setting battle orders. Nice here too would be not only letting us see them, but clicking in that field lets us exchange them too (direct link to f7/exchange).

Not a bad idea

>the f1-f# screens pop up no matter what screen is currently active (thus allowing me to change items from my treasury, for example, while inspecting my army)

Problematic with the current coding. Not likely anytime soon.

>Giving an item to a commander automatically switches items should a slot be filled (e.g. I do not need to put his helm in the lab first before giving him a new one).

I thought you could. So it would probably be a good idea if you cannot already.

>allow for key-mapping (I personally dislike having to hit *shift* so much)

>in connection with key-mapping: allow a function that lets me select commanders in the currently selected province with keys (I would suggest the 1-9 buttons).

1-9 are used to store battle orders. Perhaps they can be used to store commanders as well. Personally I would prefer a province selector (after playing on the word map).

>In connection with above: let there be a function which allows you to select the first / select all units in the garrison and then give them to the (number / hotkeyed) commander in that province's army by hitting that key: by default they go to a new squad / Last made existing squad, hitting (shift or ctrl) puts them to other squads. (This I find not so important as the other changes.)

Hmm. I'm a bit sceptical to this one (not sure why). I'll have to think about it some more.

>Allow a setting which lets you switch between default "returned actions upon invalid command", i.e. when you have a mage forging a helm selected and forget she is still selected and click somewhere she cant move to, she goes back to "defend" instead of forge that helm and you have to reset.

Probably a bit problematic. It is difficult to know what a clumsy player really wanted to do http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

>OK well I will try to keep the list short. Or am I already asking too much?

No. Ask on.

>Well gee I cant resist: a "save game" feature would be nice. Is that hard to do?

Probably not, but it is even easier for you to add a commandline switch that copies the Last turn into a save library or to do it manually. It might be a misconception but I didn't think people saved their games much. Remember nethack http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: These changes to interface possible in patch?
 

Wow thank you very much for this information. I no nothing about programming so I cannot tell what is hard or not. Thanks.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">To be honest, I miss this almost the most and do not find it confusing. Perhaps it could only be a link from the one screen to the next.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Is this difficult? Perhaps it would solve some problems?

THank you

Re: These changes to interface possible in patch?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You can't. It's rather annoying actually, you find you can't give that nice new helm to your commander, hit Escape, go back to commander, get to his inventory, then send item back to laboratory, and then go back to inventory to give him back the nice helm... a lot of clicks. Well, at least they are clicks worth doing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">As it is now, the "primary" action (i.e., left clicking) means cancel, and the "secondary" action (right clicking) means confirm. And the forge order can already be cancelled from the forge screen if you were just looking at things. The problem is deep-rooted : you select provinces by right-clicking and move by left-clicking, while most other games do the opposite. It sure is surprising at the beginning (even though you get used to it).
My current record is having to re-set the forge order 5 times before I acually manage to make it stick http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif
A quick fix might be to automatically de-select the commander when he has received a forge order. This way he won't accidentally be ordered to move out, losing his order...

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, for my AAR, I made myself a quicksave script and mapped it to one of my keyboard keys. Not that I re-load often (twice in 72 turns so far, once on turn 4 when I was hit by a very bad event, and once on turn 8 because I forgot to re-hire my mercs). In fact, I am now big enough to shrug off mistakes and bad events. They make fun AAR Posts anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
I also regularly make copies of my folder, in case I want to go back and take some screenshots.
And in my normal games, I sometimes save before trying a new battle order, or something risky, because I want to know how it works, but can't afford to lose in case it doesn't work well.
So I don't miss the save feature too much, but only because I added it myself http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

By the way, something I would like to see : a reminder that mercs are about to leave you !! Make it a message at the start of the turn for example...

[ January 13, 2004, 09:28: Message edited by: General Tacticus ]

Re: These changes to interface possible in patch?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Looks like you are considering easy things. And at least you are avoiding saying things like "broke" or "must be fixed". I'd suspect that a couple at least might make it to the Devs "to do" list to be done sometime down the road. None look so extreme that Id picture it on the "for Version 3" list. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

There is a thread here somewhere that has something like a hundred different things people have asked for. Alot of them have gotten some sort of interest from the Devs. It was a pretty good patch for a couple of guys in their free time and Im really looking forward to the next one. (well when Im done playing with all the toys iin this one)

[ January 13, 2004, 13:50: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: These changes to interface possible in patch?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You can't. It's rather annoying actually, you find you can't give that nice new helm to your commander, hit Escape, go back to commander, get to his inventory, then send item back to laboratory, and then go back to inventory to give him back the nice helm... a lot of clicks. Well, at least they are clicks worth doing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ive learned to experiment before bringing things up. Just like alot of programmers I know, there have been times when it was "I put that in but then forgot I did" here also. I will try to remember when I switch back to my game this morning to see if Ctrl or alt or shift on a click might automatically swap an item.