Nice game! Some suggestions

[ojasper]

I played your game a bunch and i liked it was looking for this sort of game..

Before giving comments i checked

2.3 todo, and this thread i suprised there aren't any stickies on this thread! Now for the suggestions:

• The interface is good, but can be improved:
  
  • Left button for selecting people, and same left button for moving is bound to and does annoy people when unit is accidentally moved wrong. Same effect of misclicking buttons. Many games have left as selection, right as giving orders, but not sure where rotating the units is better.
  • Moving the screen in battle-mode is cumbersome.. Going to the edge of the screen. Why not let shift+right or middlebutton down be able to shift position with the mouse, just as in world-mode? Also useful is to zoom in/out towards the mouse. Similar to the spring rts.
  • Equipping soldiers takes a bunch of time, perhaps allow users to make some (possibly partial)outfits and be able to alter later. Then also allow buying/building(/tranferring?)-per-outfit. Perhaps having squads and ships separate a good idea, pretty much a matter of adding a 'Squads' button. Then you can either assign squads to airplanes, or assign it when you launch off.(Added bonus that you can name the squads by function.)
  • It can be a little hard finding an item in a list, perhaps add a text-search feature, or use icons.(or both)
  • A way to get to the ufopedia page on an object and back.

• All those little reports of aliens going in radar range, perhaps the reports should show with an icon giving their type. I like the (implied, haven't actually have it happen) threat of your base being attacked, though.
• Is the picture of the base an actual map? Perhaps being able to walk around in the base(you are at) with other people also around doing their thing would be fun. Do not load time though.(A walk round base function) Also, multiple levels of base. (Up to surface, perhaps)
• Smarter civilians? Perhaps better, civilians you can control if you get near enough. (Except they keep moving multiple turns with move orders.) Saves them getting in the way. There should be a benefit of saving civvies, like standing with the population, governments.
• Interaction with environment? Burning/exploding things, like fuel station/fuel tanks that are dangerous, chairs&stuff falling over, stuff breaking, like cars, glass. At windows it might be handy to drop something straight down on the other side, or to open them.
• More description of battle zone when the humans would logically have access to information.(And so that people can choose squads.) Like if there is a duststorm and lasers won't work.
• Allowing objects to also be maps, on which one can step, for instance a ship, that way, you can put ships at any angle, and you can make them fly away.
• I love many of those emails.
• Trying to catch live aliens with sleeping gas, as possibly part of the story. And failing, of course. (Make clear that it doesn't work after player has tried it/they autopsy one.)
• Add a 'Frequently Suggested' page so people like me don't bug you so much :p
  Wall crawling critters? Traps?(also perhaps by aliens, but aliens don't seem to have reaction-shots already, prolly easily annoying.) (those bombs with lasers attached as trap?) Autoguns? More aspects to nations? Randomly generated maps? Can aliens detect subs? If not they'd be important? Escorted aircraft?

Again, awesome game! Hope i haven't annoyed you too much I am a couch critic!

PS i had to enter incorrect code into this forum thing to get the correct result, weird..

[Destructavator]

Hi, welcome to the forum,

Before any of us respond to your points, which version of the game did you try?  Some of your suggestions are already implemented in 2.3 (such as randomly generated maps, base attacks, etc.).

The last official build on the sourceforge download is the old 2.2.1, which is over a year old.  It hasn't been replaced by 2.3 because 2.3 isn't fully finished yet.  Edit: ...But you can download a test installer for 2.3 if you'd like, just be prepared for bugs here and there.

[Duke]

ojasper,
you seem to be rather creative. Some of your proposals are really good imho, so there is a chance...

Are you willing to change your 'couch critic'-status to 'active member' of the community ?
The minimum requirements would be to elaborate your proposals, discuss them with the devs, consider the amount of work and maybe think of a second best solution and so on.

Depending on your skills, you might even be able to do more. You don't need to be a coder to contribute.

[ojasper]

Thanks for the positive reply. In the spring rts' forum they get annoyed by people giving suggestions/promises sometimes. (I haven't done anything for them. Well, an unfinished(~10%) ak model, some suggestions in modeling threads.)

I have looked at your C source code a little, i like it so far. I am willing to try help with something. But i have to know better what the code looks like first. How do you get/look at the doxygen documentation?

I could try making the better list improvement first. The buy/sell and produce lists in particular. Was thinking on the line of buttons to sort after each property, with default by class first, and then by alphabetic. That setting will then have a little headers. (Human equipment, Alien equipment) Control-f starts for text search, all the nonmatching entries disappearing.(Should be clear that you're searching.)

Improved (alternative) interface should be fairly easy if one knew how stuff works. I suggest left button for all selecting, right button for moving, and left button either very near the unit(with an indicator appearing if you try.) to change it's direction, or have an 'eye' button to do it by clicking further. Shift+right down shifts view according to mouse. Either 'grabbing the ground'; mousepos changes but worldpos not, or keeping mousepos constant, and changing the position of the map at the same rate the mouse would move. And zooming into the mouse position. I can give you the math, if you want. Is there any resistance to this idea for people used to the old interface? Edit: shift+right button again prone to people forgetting to press the shift, perhaps control+leftbutton and change the geoview to the same?

I have done pathfinding once(Dijkstras algorithm + estimate, aka A*), but i am not sure if i can help much.. Does current pathfinding allow for risk assessment for AI?

Squads and pre-made equipment layouts can't be that hard if you know the code either, just adapting what is already there, and make an soldier_equip_add function. Suggest that soldier equipments are stored for globally, also available in multiplayer and other campaigns, but only if the necessary equipment is available.

I also wrote up a little on the sleeping gas scenario, not sure yet were to find those text files. Btw, it requires logic behind the emails.(to be applied properly.)

Sleeping gas alien capturing idea
Initiation(Not after alien breathing apparatus): "Proposal: Using sleeping gass to capture aliens
Commander,

I know we have done a(/some) autopsie(s) on dead aliens, but there is so much more to be learned from alive species. I have taken the liberty of putting some of our researchers time on figuring out a sleeping gas agent with maximum probability of effectiveness. Although this is still a long shot, i believe it is worth it. We have modified some smoking gas grenades for field deployment.

Sincerely,

Dr.Connor" (The grenade can just look like a differenly colored smoke grenade.

Endings:
*Alien breathing apparatus:
 * In the third paragraph. "It is some kind of respirator allowing the aliens to survive in our atmosphere, and possibly other atmospheres aswel. It is unlikely that sleeping gas will work, we should discontinue using it."
*Sleeping gas successfully applied: "Commander,

The reports of previous missions show that the sleeping gas is ineffective, despite being properly being applied. I also spoke to the crew, who confirmed what they wrote in the reports.(Some of them are rather terse about it.) Although I still think it was a good decision to try, I recommend discontinuing the idea, at least until we know more about alien physiology.

Sincerely,

Dr.Connor"

I hope that is in-character for Dr.Connor, of course, feel free to modify.

[shevegen]

Thanks for the positive reply. In the spring rts' forum they get annoyed by people giving suggestions/promises sometimes.

It happens with other projects as well. Coding, Artwork, graphics, organizing a project ... it all takes some effort, and motivation and especially time.

Sometimes people get a bit disgruntled or grumpy, but in general the friendly guys dominate a community.

What I would suggest for you is to become very active on the forum, and invest enough time over the next some days to help work on your ideas.

Personally, but this is just my tiny opinion, I think it would be better if you split up your suggestions into smaller parts.

A good idea with a lot of detail is a lot easier to implement than a good idea without any detail and the guy who suggested it not having any time available. So the most important aspect would be TIME.

(PS: I would help out more as well, but I am engaged in another game project right now, and it would be unfair for them to leave them right now, since they need help too. But this is why I say time is very very important)

[Kildor]

Hello!

Doxigen is placed here: http://ufoai.killfile.pl/doxygen/

And some about your proposals (all from 2.3-dev):

> Left button for selecting people, and same left button for moving is bound to and does annoy people when unit is accidentally moved wrong. Same effect of misclicking buttons. Many games have left as selection, right as giving orders, but not sure where rotating the units is better.
you can enable action`s confirmations in options. And AFAIK all ufo|x-com series use the same scheme of mousebuttons.

> Moving the screen in battle-mode is cumbersome.. Going to the edge of the screen. Why not let shift+right or middlebutton down be able to shift position with the mouse, just as in world-mode? Also useful is to zoom in/out towards the mouse. Similar to the spring rts.
That`s very nice proposal, and I totally agree with you. Now you can use numpad keys, with NumLock is swithced off.

> Equipping soldiers takes a bunch of time, perhaps allow users to make some (possibly partial)outfits and be able to alter later. Then also allow buying/building(/tranferring?)-per-outfit. Perhaps having squads and ships separate a good idea, pretty much a matter of adding a 'Squads' button. Then you can either assign squads to airplanes, or assign it when you launch off.(Added bonus that you can name the squads by function.)
It will be remade someday, we know about it and have some ideas.

> It can be a little hard finding an item in a list, perhaps add a text-search feature, or use icons.(or both)
icons?
> A way to get to the ufopedia page on an object and back.
some have been made for it, bu I don`t remember the current state of the feature.

> All those little reports of aliens going in radar range, perhaps the reports should show with an icon giving their type. I like the (implied, haven't actually have it happen) threat of your base being attacked, though.
Done in 2.3

> Is the picture of the base an actual map? Perhaps being able to walk around in the base(you are at) with other people also around doing their thing would be fun. Do not load time though.(A walk round base function) Also, multiple levels of base. (Up to surface, perhaps)
Yes, the pictures is screenshot from actual maps.

> Smarter civilians? Perhaps better, civilians you can control if you get near enough. (Except they keep moving multiple turns with move orders.) Saves them getting in the way. There should be a benefit of saving civvies, like standing with the population, governments.
We have LUA AI, and all is possible (if someone want to help and contribute :-) )

> Interaction with environment? Burning/exploding things, like fuel station/fuel tanks that are dangerous, chairs&stuff falling over, stuff breaking, like cars, glass. At windows it might be handy to drop something straight down on the other side, or to open them.
Again about destructible terrain? :-D There are some destructible enviroments in 2.3, but not so much for sme reasons.

> More description of battle zone when the humans would logically have access to information.(And so that people can choose squads.) Like if there is a duststorm and lasers won't work.
afaik there is some plans to do it.
> Allowing objects to also be maps, on which one can step, for instance a ship, that way, you can put ships at any angle, and you can make them fly away.
pardon?

> Add a 'Frequently Suggested' page so people like me don't bug you so much :p
nice idea, but I~m not sure that most of  "great-advicers" will be read it.

[ojasper]

Sorry i was ill informed on 2.3.. I compiled (what svn got for me defaultly, revision 27191, trunk)2.3 now, but the texts seem to be missing, and i don't seem to be able to start a mission. (But geoscape and base views etc seem to work fine)

> Left button for selecting people, and same left button for moving is bound to and does annoy people when unit is accidentally moved wrong. Same effect of misclicking buttons. Many games have left as selection, right as giving orders, but not sure where rotating the units is better.
you can enable action`s confirmations in options. And AFAIK all ufo|x-com series use the same scheme of mousebuttons.

Just because others use it doesn't mean it is actually good/cannot be improved. Still, i tried 'confirm move actions only' and it is more effective then i thought. Perhaps it should be default; many people won't use it and still get annoyed. But with this confirm i agree that the interface currently is just good, so nevermind my suggestion.

> Allowing objects to also be maps, on which one can step, for instance a ship, that way, you can put ships at any angle, and you can make them fly away.
pardon?

I mean having movable objects on which units can walk that can hook onto the world in different ways. It is likely something that is hard to implement, though, maybe if there are 'teleports' in the pathfinder, then you can try connect the positions on the different-angled maps and link them to eachother. (But then, still, you have to animate how the units move through them.

> It can be a little hard finding an item in a list, perhaps add a text-search feature, or use icons.(or both)
icons?

Well, just little pictures of the weapon in question. Not sure if a good idea. 2.3 already seems to have improved the buying/selling lists a lot, splitting heavy and primary weapons should make the list to search a bunch shorter. I hope the 'transfer' list similarly ordered?(I had most of my searching list annoyance there)

[geever]

Sorry i was ill informed on 2.3.. I compiled (what svn got for me defaultly, revision 27191, trunk)2.3 now, but the texts seem to be missing, and i don't seem to be able to start a mission.

Compile language files and maps.

-geever