Tweaks to Commander Interface
Alcapwn
"War is the science of destruction" - John Abbot Join Date: 2003-06-21 Member: 17590Members
"War is the science of destruction" - John Abbot Join Date: 2003-06-21 Member: 17590Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Bringing it up to speed with current RTS games</div>Since commander mode with the HL1 engine was pushing the limits as it is, there should be some extra tweaks and polish on the comm interface for NS:S.
Some idea's i had in mind:
<ul><li>A "Construction Complete" message for when structure's are done being built by teamates</li><li>Full customizability of key bindings (Bindings for all structures, and not having to put them in groups to select them when in play)</li><li>Zoom in and Out of the battlefield (Probably with mousewheel)</li><li>Ability to rotate battlefield view, and a button to reset it back to original view.</li><li>Commander can set beacons down to alert player's of important things to watch out for. Much better than constantly giving a marine a waypoint over an SC that you know is hidden in a corner</li><li>Maybe an area set aside for the commander's objectives. A commander can type a sentence or two in an objective box for marines, and then the marines can bring up a window to display what the commander typed out for em. (Usefull so you dont have to yell the same thing into the mic a hundred times)</li></ul>
Any more suggestions?
Some idea's i had in mind:
<ul><li>A "Construction Complete" message for when structure's are done being built by teamates</li><li>Full customizability of key bindings (Bindings for all structures, and not having to put them in groups to select them when in play)</li><li>Zoom in and Out of the battlefield (Probably with mousewheel)</li><li>Ability to rotate battlefield view, and a button to reset it back to original view.</li><li>Commander can set beacons down to alert player's of important things to watch out for. Much better than constantly giving a marine a waypoint over an SC that you know is hidden in a corner</li><li>Maybe an area set aside for the commander's objectives. A commander can type a sentence or two in an objective box for marines, and then the marines can bring up a window to display what the commander typed out for em. (Usefull so you dont have to yell the same thing into the mic a hundred times)</li></ul>
Any more suggestions?
Comments
- Commander can watch marines in first person?
agree on first point with whoppaXXL. on the second point, i dont think its a useful feature.
one thing to note is whether so many extra features would make comm interface too cluttered.
agree with water boy on his points, if it is possible for the devs to do it.
agree on first point with whoppaXXL. on the second point, i dont think its a useful feature.
<i>one thing to note is whether so many extra features would make comm interface too cluttered.</i>
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thats why i kept my comments to little features that wouldnt confuse the comm.
[*]Full customizability of key bindings (Bindings for all structures, and not having to put them in groups to select them when in play)
[*]Ability to rotate battlefield view, and a button to reset it back to original view.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i like these ideas the most, it would be heaps better to bind a key to the arms lab, armory etc, so you can get upgrades without having to actually look at marine start and click on the structure. and if the dev's include one of those mods where any guns/equipment are stored in the building, then you could equip marines with goodies, without taking your focus away from the action.....
and rotating the view would mean you could drop structures in areas that are currently blocked by other bits of the map.... relocating marine base to a small little vent after its been pwned would be heaps easier <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
**Allow the zooming in and out from the scroll on the middle mouse button.
**Allow a soldier to store 1 medpack on his person if an extra one is dropped and not used immediately. The soldier can then activate it using a keybind of some sort.
**Allow hotkeys to be bound to different sections/zoom/rotation parameters of the map. For example, on ns_veil a commander could have bound F7 to base, F8 to topo and c12, F9 to west & overlook, F10 to double, F11 to pipe, F12 to cargo. Allow the cfg. to remember the position/zoom/rotation parameters for each map and each bind associated to it. Then have a keybind possible to cycle through these section views per button press. So a commander can get diff. views of diff. sections VERY fast. Base, hive, siege spot, node-side-of-map. Also allow an option to 'temp-customize' off from the already customized set of binds. IE, the commander turns off the 'save changes to cfg' for the game, so that if he needs to bind an upcoming siege spot to one of the keys--he can w/out messing up his default-customized cfg.
**Allow the commander to passively "red shade and green shade" paths for marines to follow. Commander gives waypts to marines, and if they choose a less effective path it goes from green to red. The more inefficient the path is, the ...something... grows bigger, larger, or more alarming? I have no idea. But having a commander signal to say 'good path, bad path' is maybe good? Maybe have an option to turn it off? lol.
Or you could just give commanders the ability to assign multiple way points, like in most RTSes.
- Commander can watch marines in first person?
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
yes,like that, but the commander can choose by a drop menu the refresh rate...so if it cost to many peformence.
Slow down to show "all 5" seconds the "view picture" of the soldier only show all 5 seconds.
a way to display ALL health-circles at once. preferably toggle on/off using some hotkey.
reason:
when you're quite busy as a commander, you can easily overlook buildings which are critically damaged.
because of that, you can lose an important building (or even the powernode of your main base) although there are MACs around who had enough time to repair it.
suggestion 2:
allow rts-style "shift" to add a single target to your currently selected group.
reason:
this is a common feature in rts games and it comes in handy when moving multiple whips or drifters, or when giving orders to marines.
IMO, lots of good points about improving the command interface for both teams.
Have any of these been addressed/approved? ( ie. yes/in no/out .... or the dreaded .... eventually)
<!--quoteo(post=1567632:date=Sep 23 2006, 05:59 PM:name=WaterBoy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (WaterBoy @ Sep 23 2006, 05:59 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1567632"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><ul><li>Full customizability of key bindings (Bindings for all structures, and not having to put them in groups to select them when in play)</li><li>Zoom in and Out of the battlefield (Probably with mousewheel)</li><li>Ability to rotate battlefield view, and a button to reset it back to original view.</li><li>Commander can set beacons down to alert player's of important things to watch out for. Much better than constantly giving a marine a waypoint over an SC that you know is hidden in a corner</li><li>Maybe an area set aside for the commander's objectives. A commander can type a sentence or two in an objective box for marines, and then the marines can bring up a window to display what the commander typed out for em. (Usefull so you dont have to yell the same thing into the mic a hundred times)</li></ul><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1603489:date=Feb 2 2007, 01:01 AM:name=Buzzou)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Buzzou @ Feb 2 2007, 01:01 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1603489"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->i like these ideas the most, it would be heaps better to bind a key to the arms lab, armory etc, so you can get upgrades without having to actually look at marine start and click on the structure. and if the dev's include one of those mods where any guns/equipment are stored in the building, then you could equip marines with goodies, without taking your focus away from the action.....
and rotating the view would mean you could drop structures in areas that are currently blocked by other bits of the map.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I feel that these points would make playing the commander a much more enjoyable (almost desireable? ;) ) experience. Particularly for the marine commander, who currently has a much more involved and critical role.
Also, do we have , or can we get, some basic RTS unit selection mechanics(abilities? sunno right word.)
Such as holding shift to add/delete units from current selection.
When dragging a selection box, do not mix "unit types"(players, AI units, structures) in one selection. Prioritize: Players > AI units > Structures
Does the commander have the ability to assign hot keys to players? (or stuctures? ie. armory)
For non-RTS players hotkeys are usually the numbers 1 -> 0 on the keyboard. In simply select units then press CTRL + "desired hotkey, ex. '4'" those units will then be bound to the hotkey. the units then stay bound to that hotkey unless A) they are bound to a different hot key, B) the hotkey is rebound to different units or C) the unit dies
Because NS2 uses real people for units I suggest that the following tweak is needed to the traditional way hotkeys work. Bonus, my idea will reuse the principles of the older "blob" squad code. Hopefully much of the original code will be useful/adaptable to my idea if it gets tested/implemented.
Tweak
When a marine in a hotkeyed squad dies, they are not completely removed from the squad, but changed to "inactive". This is so that when the commander selects the squad via hotkey, only the current members get selected. this is so respawned marines don't get way points and messages for things on the other side of the map. If the respawned marine regroups with their squad, they automatically get re-added (activated) to the hotkey (HINT: this is where that blob code would be useful). Ofcourse, if the marine gets hotkeyed to a new squad, or the hotkey get reassigned, they are removed from the hotkey.
The goal of this idea/tweak is to come up with and intuitive and useful way to create and maintain squads. I like the flexible nature of this idea.
Lose one marine during a push? Respawn and hop in a PG or hoof it and join your squad. No work required by the comm to reselect everyone and rebind the key. comm only selects/interacts with the remaining squad until respawner rejoins.
Lose a few marines? maybe let em head back to thier squad(s), maybe take the respawners and make a new squad. the respawners are automatically removed from thier old squads.
Sorry if this is lousilly typed, I gone done and dislocated my elbow.