Easier - Drag and Drop.

[madjack]

A drag and drop system for units and missiles would improve the interface very much. It's up to developers how it would work but ideas could be like,
- Drag and drop missiles to aircraft, and enter a number.
- Drag and drop a military unit to "reserve" or "sell" icons.
(also when multiple units are selected)
- Select multiple aircraft and a single type of missile, then right click and select how many should be loaded to the aircraft.
Would this improve the gameplay? Any ideas like this?
or maybe the devs just planned something else..

[Balthagor]

While an interesting idea, I'm not sure this really fits. This kind of system would be a variation on how to put the missiles onto a platform but what has been a real challenge has been managing the missiles and the platforms, not putting them together once you've found a match. If you look at an SR2010 unit popup and go to the available missiles list, there would be little difference in selecting a missile and saying load all vs. dragging and dropping the missile pack. It's the ability to specify quantities that ppl are looking for and that has nothing to do with the drag and drop.

[brukmann]

please don't completely ignore this concept. obviously a new game is a chance at new interface development. i see why it might be difficult to allow drag detection to units (etc), but at the same time the u.i. real estate required for (recycle bin-like) sell and reserve icons would be tiny and those two features especially would be superior to menu-driven commands. i know the keyboard could be used, but it is a game that already has enough learning-curve overhead.

[Legend]

A drag and drop system for units and missiles would improve the interface very much. It's up to developers how it would work but ideas could be like,
- Drag and drop missiles to aircraft, and enter a number.
- Drag and drop a military unit to "reserve" or "sell" icons.
(also when multiple units are selected)
- Select multiple aircraft and a single type of missile, then right click and select how many should be loaded to the aircraft.
Would this improve the gameplay? Any ideas like this?
or maybe the devs just planned something else..

As mentioned by Balthagor, the ability to give quantities to missiles before you load would help. But, what about making it work a diffferent way, such as "load missiles to 25% capacity"? or 50% 75% 100%? instead of clicking away and chosing the exact number, would it be better to pick a plane and put 25% of missle A and then 75% of missile B? If we give four load options 25, 50, 75, 100% it would be less mouse clicks when you want to load part of a plane up with one missile type.

The third point above could almost be done now, through the use of "unit roles". You can select units and then pick the unit roles button and assign units to particular roles, such as land attack. then you can load all missiles to match roles with a check box I believe. Try this and see how this helps.

[Il Duce]

...Thinking about missile loadouts...
I don't really care whether you drag and drop or how they get there, but there are some odd issues, most of which have already been identified. One I really dislike is that you can't associate a given type of missile to a given platform, or a launcher instance.

It would be really nice if you could establish a load mix profile by unit type and missile type, rather than attempting to load missiles that fulfill the roles selected for the given unit. A case in point - you have two differnt launchers - one has a max missile unit size of three, the other can accept larger units. You build a bunch of anti-tank missiles of both sizes. What happens is that the small size missiles get loaded onto the launchers that can accept a larger size, and the launchers that are size contrained get none. This seems kinda wrong to me. Regardless of how you revise loadout selection, please add some intelligence to the entity that makes these selections for me, or let me do it myself, by any interface you please.

[madjack]

"It's the ability to specify quantities that ppl are looking for"

yes, thats exactly! I don't insist on the system, but I saw a need for a little improvement. Since that you also plan such an improvement, it's ok with me. I guess there wont be a big change in the u.i. Thanks for discussing this..

[Balthagor]

... Thanks for discussing this..

My pleasure, as I mentioned it was an interesting idea and it wasn't until I considered it that I was reminded of the missile load quantites.

It would be really nice if you could establish a load mix profile...

A good suggestion. I've already got notes on some issues with the previous design and missile management is in there. I'll add these to the notes. But we're still a little early to talk about this, probably be more info when we work on that area. The blogs should give you a sense of when we're getting close to addressing this issue.

[powercell]

As mentioned by Balthagor, the ability to give quantities to missiles before you load would help. But, what about making it work a diffferent way, such as "load missiles to 25% capacity"? or 50% 75% 100%? instead of clicking away and chosing the exact number, would it be better to pick a plane and put 25% of missle A and then 75% of missile B? If we give four load options 25, 50, 75, 100% it would be less mouse clicks when you want to load part of a plane up with one missile type.

The third point above could almost be done now, through the use of "unit roles". You can select units and then pick the unit roles button and assign units to particular roles, such as land attack. then you can load all missiles to match roles with a check box I believe. Try this and see how this helps.

Unit role isn't working well now for auto-load missile. It will work when forced, but then the efficiency drop. For example, I have a group of 7 Texas ships with ground attack, Anti-Air, Anti-ship, Anti-Sub roles and with auto-load missile on. There will be no way to tell which missile they will load (unless, I have to load and reload manually). At some point, the ships may have missile for a role that there is no target to fire off the missile = can't load other type of missile any more. Now, I can force them to load the missiles I want by unselecting some roles. Let's say I have 3 ships for ground attack + AA, and 4 ships for anti-ship + anti-sub + AA. Even though they will auto-load the missile types that I want, but only half the number of ships will engage either enemy ground units or ships at any given time.

The load percentage idea is very good, and I also like what Il Duce pointed out. We need more options to filter or narrow down what type of missile a unit should load.

- Load missile for target type (percentage): basically, we have 4 target types: Area, Ground, Naval, Fortification. Player can specify auto load missile for target type (similar to auto build missile target type selection) and specify the percentage. The target type selection will be activated when player turn on the auto-load. Percentage slider under each target type (similar to research spending focus sliders) with one extra slider for cargo/ammo space to determine space for each. Auto load missile will not be linked to unit role anymore.

- Specific missile loading: I guess this will be a little trickier. I was thinking of an option to tell the unit to reload the exact same load. First, player will have to manually load the unit as wanted, then have the option to let the unit reload the exact same load.

- Another idea for specific missile loading: have check box similar the lauch authorization for each missile type loaded on the selected unit. Check box will tell the unit to reload the exact type of missile. This option will much depend on the player. 1) Player will manually load the first load as wanted (the number of missiles will not matter). 2) Player will select which missile to reload. If not specify, unit will load any missile for the selected target type. 3) Player will then select auto-load and specify the target type and percentage for each type. If there are more than one missile type specified to reload for any target type, the percentage load for that target type will be splited into equal percentage for each missile. For example: I want my Texas to load 25% ground attack, 50% naval attack and 25% fortification attack missiles. My first load consist of M40 NTACMS, M48LG NTACMS, Exocet, Harpoon, CASOM and KEPD-350 (random quantity). All with reload on. The unit then will try to load/reload: 12.5% M40, 12.5% M48, 25% Exocet, 25% Harpoon, 12.5% CASOM and 12.5% KEPD. Not as much control as specific quantites, but I think it is easier to implement.

[Legend]

I personally like the last suggestion...
try to reload what it used. "reload to match current missile load"

We'll review all ideas when we revisit the area.

Any other ideas?