Targeting Overhaul

[Kyzrati]

The targeting system is very old, like added almost five years ago from 7DRL times old, and it really needs to be brought up to the same quality as the rest of the UI. I'd like to try to fit this in for Alpha 13.

I thought about it for a long while today and the best solution I could come up with involves the following changes and new functionality. Directly from my notes:

• remove all targeting options (unified/singular behavior)
• if any armed hostiles in sight, tab/shift-tab cycle through those, nearest to furthest (unarmed/non-hostile ignored)
• otherwise if any non-allies in sight cycles through those
• will also add "+/-" keys  (-/=) to do the same thing as tab/shift-tab
• will always prioritize previous target if still in view and start targeting again
• if fired at a space instead, entering firing mode will again target that space (if in view)
• if fired a guided weapon and firing again, will recall/reload same waypoints (if all of them still in view)
• if enter targeting mode via 'f' with only a melee weapon active, autotargeting will only select from among adjacent targets
• item cycling will also change to use near-far order, to match targeting behavior

Any opinions on this? I'll probably be implementing it tomorrow.

Edit: Spent most of today doing all this and more. All ready for smooth keyboard targeting action as you can see below

Near-to-far armed hostiles cycling:


Automatically re-targeting the same space again (for obvious nefarious purposes):


Auto-recall previously used waypoints for subsequent guided weapon firing:


Item near-to-far examine (although in most case it'll still be more efficient to just move or jump the examine cursor, or use the popup labels):


Oh yeah, the jumping is here--cursor jumping a customizable distance via Shift-Numpad (sorry, no vi/arrow support for this one):


(and more I didn't record)

Edit 2: All this and more is in the latest release, Alpha 13.

[zxc]

Sounds great to me.

[Widmo]

Does targeting a space override autotargeting even if only a melee weapon is employed? If so it sounds great.

[Kyzrati]

Yes, there would be no difference with melee there--it would also prioritize a space.

[Kyzrati]

And done (updated OP).

[DDarkray]

I guess it doesn't have much effect for the mouse players? (Except for the waypoints from guided weapons?)

[Kyzrati]

Not really, no. Just the guided waypoint reloading, I think. Mouse players don't need targeting assistance in the first place, since you can just click on whatever you want to shoot at

[Senjai]

Please consider adding vi key jumping. Even if we had to hold down another modifier key. I play without a numpad :/ (laptop)

[Kyzrati]

Oh I certainly already considered it. My aim has always been to keep all four forms of movement keys valid under all conditions, but as you can imagine vi keys is especially hard due to the character overlap with other commands. I believe this happens to be one of only two (?) things it can't do...

We don't really have much in the way of keys left, and the usefulness of this particular features seems lower priority than other possibilities. The only way I can see this working is to make the targeting mode more modal than it is, which would free up more keys/combinations/modifiers, for example shift-letter can again be used together with vi keys to enable jumping rather than opening part info. I could add this as an option at some point; it's on the long term list, anyway.

(Personally I never found jumping to be all that useful given the current feature set--I'm a numpad user and don't bother with it )

Edit: The 'r' running modifier in keyboard mode can also be used to jump the targeting/examine cursor in combination with vi keys, arrows, or numpad as of Beta 15.