[UI] Prod Queue Ship Species

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alleryn
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[UI] Prod Queue Ship Species

#1 Post by alleryn »

Github issue at https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/issues/1919

How difficult would it be to add the species of a ship to the production queue list?

It's not entirely uncommon for me to build at the wrong planet in a system and end up with, say, exobot troop ships accidentally. If the display said Troop Ship (exobot) in the prod queue, as it does in the fleet window, this would be much easier to catch.

Would it be more or less as simple as adding this logic:
https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/ ... d.cpp#L861
to here:
https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/ ... d.cpp#L447
?

Are there any concerns that this would make the production queue too cluttered?
Last edited by alleryn on Fri Dec 15, 2017 9:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: [UI] Prod Queue Ship Species

#2 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Stuff on the queue is not a ship object until it is completed. It would be necessary to check the planet's species. Yes, clutter is a concern.

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Vezzra
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Re: [UI] Prod Queue Ship Species

#3 Post by Vezzra »

Geoff the Medio wrote:Yes, clutter is a concern.
The point of the proposal is to avoid accidentally building e.g. a troop ship at the wrong planet (e.g. Exobot instead of Egassem), so the place where the species would need to be displayed is the producible items list, not the queued items. But as it's the queued items list that has the clutter problem, not the producible items list, clutter shouldn't be too much of an issue in this case...?

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: [UI] Prod Queue Ship Species

#4 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Ah, OK then. The producible items list needs, and has needed for some time, an overhaul, so an option to have a species column or other indication would be reasonable. Although for any given selected production location, there will be only one species available, so perhaps just putting it in the window title would be better...

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Re: [UI] Prod Queue Ship Species

#5 Post by Vezzra »

Species actually matter only for ships (at least with the current mechanics), and what's needed is just a sufficiently prominent indicator which species a ship will belong to. As you visually focus on the producible item when you want to queue one, having the species displayed right beside the ships design name (maybe in parenthesis) would do the trick perfectly fine.

Of course you can make a separate column too, but if you're going to put it in the producible items list window caption, it really needs to be visually prominent.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: [UI] Prod Queue Ship Species

#6 Post by Geoff the Medio »

I think that if there were to be a column or bracketed indication of the species of a ship to produce on the producible items list, the resulting player expectation this would cause would require there to be rules created for specifying the species of a ship to produce, somewhat independent of the species at the production location. This might include things like increasing the production time depending how far away a source of the species is from the production location (similar to colony production time variations?), or having ships of a species have variable costs as a property of the species.

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alleryn
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Re: [UI] Prod Queue Ship Species

#7 Post by alleryn »

What about adding the species to the planet panel? The small species icons are not all that distinctive; maybe a highlighted text readout could help? What do you think?

Here's a (very) crude mock-up:
FOshipSpecies.jpg
FOshipSpecies.jpg (510.64 KiB) Viewed 1683 times

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Vezzra
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Re: [UI] Prod Queue Ship Species

#8 Post by Vezzra »

alleryn wrote:What about adding the species to the planet panel? The small species icons are not all that distinctive; maybe a highlighted text readout could help?
IMO visually still not prominent enough, and too far away from the producible items list. When you queue ships, you look at that list, and can easily overlook that bit of text on the far right of the screen.

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MatGB
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Re: [UI] Prod Queue Ship Species

#9 Post by MatGB »

Something I try to avoid doing is having different species with shipyards in the same system, when I do I end up building troop ships with Mu Ursh and warships with Egassem, so something to make that less likely would actually be very useful.

But I agree with Geoff that it's important to not give the impression there's a picker, choosing where and with who to build up a shipyard should be one of the most important strategic choices you make according to the design specs (and at some point the PP cost of most shipyard buildings needs to go up, but that's a very low priority at the moment).
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Vezzra
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Re: [UI] Prod Queue Ship Species

#10 Post by Vezzra »

MatGB wrote:at some point the PP cost of most shipyard buildings needs to go up
I couldn't agree more!

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Re: [UI] Prod Queue Ship Species

#11 Post by Oberlus »

MatGB wrote:choosing where and with who to build up a shipyard should be one of the most important strategic choices you make according to the design specs
I roleplay that a lot. I don't build even a scanner building in a planet different from the "conqueror" one unless that species has earned their respect (by becoming troops or pilots for the empire, or by providing a long and successful service to the science or industry of the empire). And just because of the (perceived) burden of having to queue the shipyards and later on the orbital drydocks, etc., I never have more than one shipyard per system, and only one or two main military shipyards for the whole empire (and usually only one is at full throttle, the one closer to the enemy lines, unless I'm in between several empires at war with me).
MatGB wrote:Something I try to avoid doing is having different species with shipyards in the same system, when I do I end up building troop ships with Mu Ursh and warships with Egassem, so something to make that less likely would actually be very useful.
Yeah! I always have to double check that the selected planet is the one I want. Many times I've queued two Gaia Transformations to the same planet, or one exobot colony and one laenfa colony to the same barren outpost and nothing to the ocean outpost in that system.
Regarding the building of new military forces, I've come with the idea of being able to "fav" planets (and fleets) so that it gets associated with a key (numbers? haven't cheked if they are used for anything in the current GUI), and when you press that key it gets selected and the corresponding window opens (the production queue for planets and (obviously) the fleet window for fleets). To "fav" an object you would select it and then click ctrl+number or something like that.
It would be great to be able to push "1" and then quickly add a batch of the updated Doomstar Battlecarrier DRBS to the Imperial Docks of Blackhole III, then click "2" and go to my doomstack fleet to give new orders... Maybe that is already a functionality of FO?

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Re: [UI] Prod Queue Ship Species

#12 Post by MatGB »

Oberlus wrote:Yeah! I always have to double check that the selected planet is the one I want. Many times I've queued two Gaia Transformations to the same planet, or one exobot colony and one laenfa colony to the same barren outpost and nothing to the ocean outpost in that system.
If you'[ve managed that for Gaia please report it as you've found a bug (you probably meant Terraform there right? ;-) )
Regarding the building of new military forces, I've come with the idea of being able to "fav" planets (and fleets) so that it gets associated with a key (numbers? haven't cheked if they are used for anything in the current GUI), and when you press that key it gets selected and the corresponding window opens (the production queue for planets and (obviously) the fleet window for fleets). To "fav" an object you would select it and then click ctrl+number or something like that.
It would be great to be able to push "1" and then quickly add a batch of the updated Doomstar Battlecarrier DRBS to the Imperial Docks of Blackhole III, then click "2" and go to my doomstack fleet to give new orders... Maybe that is already a functionality of FO?
If it is, it's not one I'm aware of and

I SO WANT THIS

It's one of those ideas that are so obvious that you wonder why we didn't do it ages ago but until now I'd not thought of it. Anyone fancy giving it a code?

I'd be more interested in hotkey planets than hotkey fleets because my fleets change constantly, but I can definitely see it would be useful (and keying up your most recent high end scouts so you don't forget to keep them moving as well)
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Re: [UI] Prod Queue Ship Species

#13 Post by Oberlus »

You're right, I meant Terraforming.

I guess I came with the idea because that is a common (I would say essential) feature in RTS games like Starcraft.

And fuck yeah, hotkey, that's the word...

Edit: I'm already thinking how I would assign the keys... 1-2 for weaponry shipyards, 3-4 for trooper shipyards, 5-6 for outposting shipyards, 7-9 for scouts early game and doomstacks late game...

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alleryn
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Re: [UI] Prod Queue Ship Species

#14 Post by alleryn »

MatGB wrote:Something I try to avoid doing is having different species with shipyards in the same system
When i actually get burned by this, 90% of the time it's on colony bases or troop drops.

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Re: [UI] Prod Queue Ship Species

#15 Post by Vezzra »

MatGB wrote:I SO WANT THIS
Well, in that case I strongly recommend opening a feature request issue. After all, suggestions here on the forum tend to get buried and forgotten if they aren't picked up somewhat quickly by someone who decides to implement it. With an open feature request, chances are a bit better that eventually someone will start working on it. :D

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