Topic: Suggestion: Switch to place production sites into "verbose mode"
Astuur Topic Opener |
Posted at: 2013-04-16, 08:26
Hi everybody!
Finally I'm back. Can't promise much, but I'll try to participate the way I can. Here's something I'd like to discuss. Without placing the mouse cursor upon it, currently only the trainings facilities
for soldiers show a detailed description of their last action when the status is enabled. While I would also welcome that soldier's training sites show their productivity rate percentage, this suggestion is about getting a more detailed report for some other sites. I suggest that at least all production sites that produce more than one type of ware should be able to display Pros:
Cons:
The following buildings would be affected if multi-ware-sites are choosen only Atlanteans:
Empire:
Barbarian:
Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills. |
wl-zocker |
Posted at: 2013-04-16, 12:03
I think this is a good idea. I sometimes want to know what my buildings (especially weaponsmithies) are actually doing. The text must be short ("produced %s", "failed producing %s", "trained %s from %d to %d"), not as it is currently at training facilities. Would it be possible to move the percentage to the name? It does not take much space, but if the player does not want the whole text, he would at least get a number. If the texts are changed, there are some other things I would like to have in (I have to click onto the building to see that information):
I think that the texts should look the same for all buildings, to not confuse the player. I think it is good to give the player the possibility to see additional information at a glance. If he does not want it, he can simply switch it off and will not be bothered. "Only few people know how much one has to know in order to know how little one knows." - Werner Heisenberg Top Quote |
ixprefect |
Posted at: 2013-04-16, 13:17
This is an interesting idea. Generally, trying to move information away from the mouse-over seems like a good idea to me. In the same go, one might want to clean up the "not producing because economy ..." messages. Care must be taken to keep the verbose message short and to the point. I think adding the productivity percentage (with a proper and sane definition of what productivity even means) to the building name is not such a bad idea. It doesn't take much space, after all. As for construction sites, it is still important to distinguish between builders missing vs. arriving, precisely because not having enough builders is a rare condition for experienced players. But when you are low on building materials and just continue placing construction sites, it is actually fairly easy to run out of builders, and people need to learn that this might be a problem. Finally, as to the technical considerations, I'm afraid that the suggested change is a bit awkward to combine with how buildings currently work in the code, because you are asking for a mixture of messages coming from the production programs and from things that are traditionally handled in C++ code (workers missing etc.). I have warmed to the idea of using Lua to implement most of the building logic, which is a major refactoring, but would probably allow to implement this change in a somewhat cleaner way. Top Quote |
Venatrix |
Posted at: 2013-04-16, 13:20
First of all: Welcome back, its been a long while. Good to see you around again. To the topic: I like the idea of more verbose status text. But I think that to click a button in the production site window to change the verbosity is not realistic:
Instead I would propose a third status text status: First nothing, pressing 's' for the normal one we have now and pressing 's' again for the verbose version. Pressing 's' the third time to switch it of again. Two is the oddest prime. Top Quote |
Astuur Topic Opener |
Posted at: 2013-04-17, 05:49
@WL-zocker:
I'd be a bit reluctant to pack too much in there. But details can be discussed if any of the coders and "makers" likes the idea well enough to get going. I can't do it. Ixprefect wrote:
Yeah, you're speaking my mind.
Not so sure, Venatrix. I really meant to enable "verbose" for selected productionsites, not for all. Sooner or later WL will need a way to adjust all buildings of a specific type at once. (I'm currently thinking this over). There would be the place to switch them all to "verbose". Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills. |