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Author Topic: A few more interface noodles  (Read 2126 times)

Star Weaver

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A few more interface noodles
« on: November 02, 2015, 02:26:00 PM »

Mainly, more 'maximize height' style buttons, for at a minimum the combat calculations logs, preferably all of the right hand list options.

The combat calculations can really flood in a single turn in a massive encounter, and its really hard to read in the little window. Could you also perhaps put a marker on the first line of combat log after your turn starts? Something like an asterisk in one of the margins so you can see where turns start and end from the point of view of user control.

Also a 'full column maximize' for the inventory list, so the packrats can have a better view of everything they have? For the keyboard this could temporarily use A-Z+1-0 for inventory while hiding the equipment list.

And finally I would like to be able to equip things off the floor directly into a filled slot, while ejecting the currently equipped item to the floor. With the mouse this could work by dragging the square you're standing on to one of your equip slots. I don't understand the keyboard layout well enough to have any suggestions there.

My motivation here is primarily to be able to swap reactors and possibly other storage units without temporarily removing my capacity or going through the inventory.
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zxc

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Re: A few more interface noodles
« Reply #1 on: November 02, 2015, 05:07:03 PM »

Regarding equipping items from the floor:

Say you're standing over an engine and you have two filled power slots. When you press 'a', it says 'Replace which item?', and you press 'b' to replace the item in slot b. This is how I think it ought to be. Are there any disadvantages to this? The only possible problem I can think of is if you hit 'a' accidentally, but I don't think that is likely to occur, and you'd press 'Escape', 'Spacebar' or something like that to cancel it.

Not sure with a mouse, but certainly some dragging would be in order.
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Star Weaver

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Re: A few more interface noodles
« Reply #2 on: November 02, 2015, 05:32:05 PM »

Another option with the mouse could be perhaps the volley window showing you "item under feet" info when your mouse is over the inventory side of the screen, and then you could drag it from there. That window doesn't have any mouse functions yet, no?
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Kyzrati

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Re: A few more interface noodles
« Reply #3 on: November 03, 2015, 01:08:41 AM »

Mainly, more 'maximize height' style buttons, for at a minimum the combat calculations logs, preferably all of the right hand list options.

The combat calculations can really flood in a single turn in a massive encounter, and its really hard to read in the little window. Could you also perhaps put a marker on the first line of combat log after your turn starts? Something like an asterisk in one of the margins so you can see where turns start and end from the point of view of user control.
I've planned to rework the entire calc window, but that's been pretty low priority. It wasn't meant as a complete feature originally, but something added quickly as an "alternative log" for those who wanted to crunch numbers in the 7DRL. I'd prefer to redesign it from the ground up to better condense the same information, if possible. Allowing it to expand like the message log is another possibility.

Also a 'full column maximize' for the inventory list, so the packrats can have a better view of everything they have? For the keyboard this could temporarily use A-Z+1-0 for inventory while hiding the equipment list.
Already planned, just haven't had time to do it.

And finally I would like to be able to equip things off the floor directly into a filled slot, while ejecting the currently equipped item to the floor. With the mouse this could work by dragging the square you're standing on to one of your equip slots. I don't understand the keyboard layout well enough to have any suggestions there.

My motivation here is primarily to be able to swap reactors and possibly other storage units without temporarily removing my capacity or going through the inventory.
Already planned, just haven't had time to do it ;).

In fact, if I hadn't rearranged the Alpha 4 TODO list, I almost could've just said "look, this is in Alpha 4!" :P. I had to push it back to Alpha 5 for lack of time.

My idea here is called "autoswapping": When direct-attaching from the ground (keyboard 'a' or mouse ctrl-LMB), if all corresponding slot types are full, it will check whether there are any items of the same subtype* that also have a lower remaining integrity ratio, automatically drop the one with the lowest, and replace it with the new part.

(*Power sources are excluded from the subtype restriction, as the differentiation between engines/cores/reactors is purely cosmetic)

This will also even work with attaching from your inventory when slots are full (this matters more to keyboard players than mouse players). Overall it should be fairly obvious what will be swapped out, and if you don't like what part that is then drop it manually.

I might implement mouse dragging from the map, but I'm not so sure about that yet. It would allow for more precision in terms of what you want to swap out, but then I'd be forced to provide the same convenience to keyboard players :/. I rather like the idea of it being automatic, which is easier on players and should work nicely in most cases.

As for the volley window suggestion, that's an interesting idea, though a bit confusing conceptually. The reason I did those buttons in the scan window was because labeling objects on the map is conceptually linked with showing their information in that same little window.
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