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Author Topic: Status of "Equip Soldiers - Equipment templates - ID: 1535248"?  (Read 4342 times)

Offline dp

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The idea of allowing users to create equipment templates was first proposed in 2006, according to the Sourceforge tracker. It's an excellent idea that would greatly reduce the tedium of re-equipping soldiers, one item at a time, every time a soldier must be replaced due to injury. (For me, this is necessary before almost every mission. I rarely send injured soldiers on missions or am able to Medikit everyone to 100% before the end of each mission.)

But the tracker shows it's assigned to "Nobody/Anonymous." Is this simply because no one has volunteered to take it on? I can understand that it's not as important as fixing bugs, or perhaps as fun as adding other planned features, but it would improve the game's playability a lot, in my opinion.


Offline bayo

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Re: Status of "Equip Soldiers - Equipment templates - ID: 1535248"?
« Reply #1 on: April 13, 2012, 09:31:27 pm »
I think it is quite complex, that why no body work on it.

Offline dp

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Re: Status of "Equip Soldiers - Equipment templates - ID: 1535248"?
« Reply #2 on: April 14, 2012, 12:06:01 am »
The data-structure design seems simple enough (offhand, I think a hybrid linked lists + trees structure would be the way to go), but I can see how getting the GUI right would require careful thought.

Ideally, it would be possible to create multiple left-belt and right-belt templates, combine them in differing ways to create multiple belts, create multiple backpacks and combine those with belts to create multiple "wearables," etc. A poorly thought-out GUI could make all of this more trouble for the user than the current approach.

Offline ShipIt

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Re: Status of "Equip Soldiers - Equipment templates - ID: 1535248"?
« Reply #3 on: April 14, 2012, 08:28:04 am »
Everything that removes some micro management would be good imo. Just somebody needs to do it.

Offline homunculus

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Re: Status of "Equip Soldiers - Equipment templates - ID: 1535248"?
« Reply #4 on: April 18, 2012, 06:58:12 pm »
if people are serious about attempting it, i would like to ask if we are fans of belt and holster slots having a grid.

i think it is weird to put both grenades and handgun in a holster.
i would expect a knife to be hanging from belt, rather than being "inside" the belt somehow.

maybe the belt slots could behave more like the weapon hand slots, except that they would hold grenade/ammo/holster/medkit?

hitch-22

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Re: Status of "Equip Soldiers - Equipment templates - ID: 1535248"?
« Reply #5 on: August 11, 2012, 10:46:55 pm »
The data-structure design seems simple enough (offhand, I think a hybrid linked lists + trees structure would be the way to go), but I can see how getting the GUI right would require careful thought.

How do you mean? I would think, besides the code needed to add such templates, it could be a simple drop menu above the soldier inventory, with buttons to "save", "save as" and "delete" custom templates.

I guess there could be further functionality, but this would remove roughly 80-90% of the current routine twiddling.

I 100% support this suggestion, as I was about to make it myself if no one else had. Should've guessed it's and old idea since it seems like a no-brainer.

Offline dp

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Re: Status of "Equip Soldiers - Equipment templates - ID: 1535248"?
« Reply #6 on: August 11, 2012, 11:43:37 pm »
Quote
it could be a simple drop menu above the soldier inventory, with buttons to "save", "save as" and "delete" custom templates.
If the only supported type of template was a complete set of equipment, it could be as simple as what you describe.

I was thinking of something more versatile that would allow the creation of subsets (e.g., left belt 1, left belt 2, right belt 1, etc.) that can be combined to create other subsets (belt 1, belt 2, etc.) that, in turn, could be combined with various backpack and headgear templates to create complete equipment templates. Creating an easy-to-use GUI for that would require careful thought and might be onerous to code.

But your simpler proposal would be a good starting point and would certainly be better than what we have now.

hitch-22

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Re: Status of "Equip Soldiers - Equipment templates - ID: 1535248"?
« Reply #7 on: August 12, 2012, 01:03:25 am »
I was thinking of something more versatile that would allow the creation of subsets (e.g., left belt 1, left belt 2, right belt 1, etc.) that can be combined to create other subsets (belt 1, belt 2, etc.) that, in turn, could be combined with various backpack and headgear templates to create complete equipment templates. Creating an easy-to-use GUI for that would require careful thought and might be onerous to code.
All respect, how often do you envision using such a detailed procedure, and what for?

As the game is now, I personally have pretty much a handful of "templates": sniper, assault, heavy, grenadier. With, say, three variations of each, I suspect I could cover 99% of the missions likely to ever occur in this game, and that's still only 12 templates, very easily created and managed. Heck, I could probably easily manage most of the game with those four.

For the other possible "special" missions, I imagine first creating and then mixing & matching the detailed templates you describe would require equal effort to just doing it by hand like in the current system, as a little customization before missions is fine even now - it's the constant loading of the same equipment on all soldiers that really gets old for me.

I'm thinking the returns beyond what I described would very quickly diminish, while in my experience practically everybody would love to be rid of the micromanaging that's traditionally plagued this aspect of the entire genre.

BTW, IIRC Jagged Alliance 2 was modded to do in essence something similar to what you describe and while it had advantages and tinkering with my paper doll loadouts is often fun, I really think a simpler system would fit the flow of this game better.

Offline dp

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Re: Status of "Equip Soldiers - Equipment templates - ID: 1535248"?
« Reply #8 on: August 12, 2012, 04:17:21 am »
You may be right. As I said, what you proposed would be better than what we have now.