"Just Curious" about something else

[DRG]

I stumbled onto this remark about these games on an old thread on Reddit

"THIS is the biggest problem with the UI, or the entire game IMO... the inability to deselect a unit."

Does anyone think they can explain WTF that means ?? We can't.

[Dion]

I think what their saying is you can't deselect units after they've been selected. You can only "deselect" units by not selecting them in the first place.

In my opinion this is both good and bad. Good, because this requires you to really pay attention to what your doing, making you focus on your battle plan. Bad, because this is really fatiguing to the player, which causes players to make a lot of simple mistakes, which really adds up over the course of the game, becoming a major problem.

[Mobhack]

The game is built on the premise that the currenly selected unit is the "live" one.

The poster may have had difficulty selecting a target for the next selected unit in a mess of wrecks perhaps?. In that case he could use the N and P keys to cycle through (perhaps selecting a more isolated one of the desired formation first, for example), or used either of the HQ menus to choose the exact unit he wanted directly off the force listing.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Dion

I think what they're saying is you can't deselect units after they've been selected. You can only "deselect" units by not selecting them in the first place.

That was the only thing I thought it could mean as well but it still makes no sense to me

In the context of working with a unit---- moving, firing etc. To "deselect" that unit you choose another unit or press 'N' or 'P' to move to another unit

[Griefbringer]

Perhaps what the person meant is the lack of ability to have "no unit (at all) selected" at a given time?

The current set-up where you always have a unit selected can sometimes lead to unfortunate moving incidents if accidentally clicking the mouse at an unintended moment (e.g. when just browsing the map and making plans), or accidentally clicking at a wrong hex when trying to access a certain unit (granted, this can be avoided through keyboard or HQ commands, though they may feel less convenient). These have happened to me a few times, sometimes leading to unwelcome results with a unit moving when I did not want it to, or in a direction that I did not want.

Not a major issue overall, though I guess it could be at times be convenient especially for beginning players to be able to view things without needing to worry about accidentally moving things. Granted, there are some workarounds such as viewing the map through the bombardment menu.