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Make transport (air, surfboat) UI easier to use.

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12 years ago
There are two ways to use the transport:
* The transport is ordered to transport units
* The units are ordered to use a transport

For transports, there should be a drawing-button. Once you click it, you can draw a circle(pickup-zone) and (maybe trough the circle or along the edge) draw a line apart from it (ferry route) to another circle(drop-zone).
* The transport has to watch out for weird-shaped pickup zones
* The transport should fly along the ferry route (and only take shortcuts if there are either intersections, or the shurtcut is only at a max distance of 100 from the real route).

For units, they should have a drawing-button which let you draw a move-style order.
For this route, they prefer to be transported.

Allow players to draw easy-removable preferred ferry routes:
* Get the enter and exit points + direction along the route
* Distance = get diagonal shortcut between (100% distance to transport/destiantion along the route) and position - accumulated for enter-transport and exit-destination?
* Length = distance along the ferry route
* If Distance+Length < 135% of distance, prefer ferry routes.

This way, players could avoid AA, fly along secure paths and use the transportation independent from order assignments.

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Would you like it?
Do you like to implement a part of it or want to suggest another way?
Have you any clarification or better way to describe something?
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12 years ago
I think your solution is unnecessarily complex.

A system similar to the current retreat system would work much better. Allow the player to designate zones, and assign transports to routes between zones. Any units waiting in a zone are eligible to be picked up by a transport picking up from that zone. Transports will pick up units there, fly to the specified destination zone, and drop units.
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12 years ago
Already exists in the game.

Please read wiki article about Transport AI and Ferry Routes.

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12 years ago
I always set transports on repeat, pickup units in this area (click hold drag) and drop off in that area.

I can also put move commands inbetween, it's common to add 1 or 2 bends, as well as tell the transports to return to the pickup zone once they drop their load.


I recently discovered that they automatically transport units frmo factories to their rally points, transporterAI
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12 years ago
Ther eis also ferry points which you can guard with transprots - basicalyl what ledarsi wants exists exactly in the game.
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12 years ago
But to use drop and load zones, you have to 1. a direct route between both spots and 2. you need to click 2 buttons instead of only draw a lasso.

At least the ferry-route network doesn't exist (it could be used for fighter patrols and bomber pathes too!)

Why can a transport with no unit loaded (but with a queued load) not queue a drop of this queued unit without any special keys (CRTL, ALT, etc)?
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I think the Embark button might be a little overcomplicated with the manual "disembark" button. To me, the logical system would have "embark" be a waypoint-based command where I click "embark" and, holding shift, click a bunch of waypoints. The final waypoint in that list is assumed to be the disembark point, instead of manually requiring a disembark command. Just release and re-press shift and give a move/fight/whatever waypoint and the transport assumes the unit expects to go to that future spot on-foot.

Basically, I think embarking shouldn't be a static action like a morph (it just happens where the unit is standing) but rather should be a waypoint-based action like a construction (and, like a construction, holding shift and clicking more points continues the existing construction order).

This is slightly less versatile, but seems more natural to me.
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12 years ago
Pxtl thats how it works..

Sigh .. people keep suggesting feature that exist here :)

You queue waypoints for units and click embark.
Transport then moves along move waypoints of unit and drops it at destination!
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12 years ago
Oh? I kept looking around for the "disembark" command documented in the Transport UI guide and gave up and stuck to doing it the conventional "load/unload" way.
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Oh, there is the most obvious method for making transports more useful:

Make them capable of carrying more units than one!

(also, somehow make clear and visible what valkyrie can lift and what it cannot)

I believe someone on #moddev once mentioned making a flying CarrierMuthaShip capable of transporting units. That would be nice to have, especially instead of ugly krow. Even if such replacement is unlikely.

(by the way, since licho missiles now track better, does it mean i can finally nuke krows?)
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12 years ago
Licho's nuke will dance around a dancing Krow ( v10.5.3 )

Back to topic:
The main transport issues for the existing Transports to me are:
* You can't alter the size of your pickup zone.
* If you use the embark and disembark buttons, the disembark can't be queued with a simple left-mouse-click, if there is nothing on this particular transport unit.
* Transports are faster than Banshees? WTF - build 2 Glaives and 2 Valkyries or a warrior and a Valkyrie! But that is pro-stuff, because control ally transports which transport your own units is impossible, but would be nice for the gunship player (toggle-button allow ally to enter/use transport?)!
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