Spring RTS Engine

http://trac.caspring.org/wiki/Manual

Incl. unit guide, economy guide, newbie guide, etc.

Licho wrote:

CarRepairer wrote:It's still the #2 mod. Once in a while there's a day where NOTA grabs the #2 spot but that's just once in a while. Not that it's a competition (more power to NOTA for staying in the game, all of spring benefits from variety), but from the stats you can see CA is still #2.

This is sooo wrong car..
NOTA is second for long time. Just stats you are checking also count specs and empty autohosts so it does not look like it.
Check bibim stats instead..

If so then remove your stats or fix them. I had no idea it's so wrong.

I'm surprised to hear so many people arguing that their work is #2. I think we've all had enough #2 in Spring.

momfreeek wrote: Once S44 settles on a stable version with a few reliable autohosts I think it will be on the way.

We were third with boosts up to second regularly, and we could easily be so again with little effort. All that means is less development and more play from from the developers.

We have stable versions, our stables are released every few months, but most of the regulars play test versions leading to the next stable. As for the autohosts, of course, we need more.

I would like to see a new building menu, the current is very bloated and I need ages to find the building I am looking for.

Idea:
Make a bar showing different buttons... clicking on the buttons will popup a new little window just above the bar (perhaps sth. like we have for factories on the right side)

###########################################
[factories] [defense] [underwater] [economy] [other]
###########################################

This would save a lot of space, it makes the game more clear and nubs wouldn't have such a problem with navigating through this huge variety of buildings.


Units menu could be placed right in the bar, when selecting a factory the units could be listed in that way:

##################################################
[stumpy] [buldozer] [foo] [bar] [battle tank] [construction_bot]
##################################################
(text will be - no question - pics in game)


What do you think?

A nice hierarchical build-menu already exists in the new marking build menu. However, the context-menu is still kind of buggy to spawn - the only consistent way it works is to select one (and only one) builder and then hold alt+right-click.

In latest test revision, it's tap the alt key to turn the menu on/off. Left click to select a building, right click turns off the menu. This method is still not final because it has its flaws. We're still trying to find the best solution. I'm thinking of using mouse4-drag (as in, your 4th mouse button) in addition to some keyboard button so those with mouse4 get the benefit and those without mouse4 have to use the keyboard.

CarRepairer wrote:In latest test revision, it's tap the alt key to turn the menu on/off. Left click to select a building, right click turns off the menu. This method is still not final because it has its flaws. We're still trying to find the best solution. I'm thinking of using mouse4-drag (as in, your 4th mouse button) in addition to some keyboard button so those with mouse4 get the benefit and those without mouse4 have to use the keyboard.

Nuuuuu

Not everybody has 4+ buttons on their mouse. (namely, me) but even if I did I would still be wary because I don't think that the majority of people *do* have 4 mouse buttons.

To be honest i like the hold right click and drag method the best. I don't care that it messes up custom formations, as constructors don't need to be in a custom formations line. And since constructors are already different than normal units, the discrepancy isn't as great as you make it out to be.

Another idea to test out would be left+right click and drag. I'm not too keen on using keys in addition to the mouse for such a basic and commonly used interaction. Although tapping ALT isn't too cumbersome as it is now, it is still not ideal.

maackey wrote:Not everybody has 4+ buttons on their mouse. (namely, me) but even if I did I would still be wary because I don't think that the majority of people *do* have 4 mouse buttons.

I must type very poorly because everytime I say this idea I state clearly that mouse4 AND a keyboard solution would both be alternatives to the gesture menu. It boggles my mind how every time I say it I get the same reply "not everyone has mouse4." For the love of peet open your ears.

maackey wrote:To be honest i like the hold right click and drag method the best. I don't care that it messes up custom formations, as constructors don't need to be in a custom formations line.

I will fight you to the death on this one. Custom formations should work always the same, no matter what units I have selected. I move all my units in custom formations, spiders, cons, tanks, dogs, cats, mice, mechs, crawling bombs and cows. I shouldn't have to analyze my selected units before doing a right drag to know what that right drag will do, the game is too fast paced. I want to move these units over there, NAO (as they say).

The discrepancy IS as great as I make it out to be.

maackey wrote:Another idea to test out would be left+right click and drag.

I tried implementing this and I couldn't get it to work for reasons I won't get into. It's very difficult. Perhaps a lua guru could help out.

Just bind the "B" key to show the menu.

Question: can the mouse cursor be relocated in Lua? THat is, if players click on the "build" button on the menu, can it jump the mouse over to the middle of the screen before showing the menu?

It should be hold something + move mouse
and select item on release.

Anything else makes it too slow, thats the way it was designed..

I guess you're right, I'll put it back to hold alt to show menu, and if another key is pressed turn menu off. Perhaps if alt is pressed and let go and the mouse hasn't moved, then leave menu on.

Well, Spring already uses the ~ key for drawing lines, so the "hold a key and draw with the mouse" form-factor is already in-place.

Hence, I like the "B" key.

CarRepairer wrote:I guess you're right, I'll put it back to hold alt to show menu, and if another key is pressed turn menu off. Perhaps if alt is pressed and let go and the mouse hasn't moved, then leave menu on.

Yes and in such case you can even switch it to that "left click to confirm" mode..

I must type very poorly because everytime I say this idea I state clearly that mouse4 AND a keyboard solution would both be alternatives to the gesture menu. It boggles my mind how every time I say it I get the same reply "not everyone has mouse4." For the love of peet open your ears.

my bad... i didn't have too much time between classes to read it all, i just saw mouse4 and thought i would interject.

Anyway, the "B" key would work, we'd probably need to change the debug keybind though. I would eventually like to re-map the entire keyboard to something more intuitive and easy to use for CA specifically including pro-level keybinds but also being considerate of newbies.

maackey wrote:

I must type very poorly because everytime I say this idea I state clearly that mouse4 AND a keyboard solution would both be alternatives to the gesture menu. It boggles my mind how every time I say it I get the same reply "not everyone has mouse4." For the love of peet open your ears.

my bad... i didn't have too much time between classes to read it all, i just saw mouse4 and thought i would interject.

Well my harshness was directed to multiple people, you're not the only one. Mouse4 is also mapped to some default spring stuff (increase distance between buildings and this is also done with Z). My point is, mouse4 would be awesome for this job and there's no reason to not have it, in addition to a kb binding. Anyway I'll work on it some more as per my above post.

maackey wrote: Anyway, the "B" key would work, we'd probably need to change the debug keybind though. I would eventually like to re-map the entire keyboard to something more intuitive and easy to use for CA specifically including pro-level keybinds but also being considerate of newbies.

I don't agree with B key but I do agree with the statement that we need to remap most of default spring bindings. Debug command obviously something to remove. I always hated ctrl+D for self-d because it's way too easy. We will not need spring's share dialog (H key) when our UI will perform its functions (technically it does now if you use advplayerlist but not everyone does yet). We don't need that "I key" crap. We've got quite a few things we can go over.

maackey wrote:I would eventually like to re-map the entire keyboard to something more intuitive and easy to use for CA specifically including pro-level keybinds but also being considerate of newbies.

If it's done that way, make it optional.
Not all CA players are CA only. Learning new key binds for each mod is not optimal (I'm talking about general commands, not CA special stuff).

CA has nearly no players except for its devs.
Its only chance is to move out from spring and for new players, it's best to have tweaked settings that best fit the mod.

Many spring defaults are just crazy... F3 to go to last alert? Space is default in games...

So I think its better to annoy slightly dozen of regulars who can rebind easily than to scare away potential new players.

Imho, most of the base keybinds are fine - the only default keybinds that really bug me is the C bind - C is for Capture, and the FPS camera should be somewhere on the far side of the board (I think I use P, I don't remember).

That, and firestate binds are missing - I use ctrl+F and ctrl+M for fire and movestate.

But otherwise, most of the binds are fine. Ctrl-D is unfortunately easy to do accidentally, but I wouldn't want it moved to another command - it would be hard to remember. And it needs to be easily accessible because of the goddamned crawling-bombs, otherwise I'd actually support a GUI pop-up of "confirm self-D for X units?"

Pxtl wrote:And it needs to be easily accessible because of the goddamned crawling-bombs, otherwise I'd actually support a GUI pop-up of "confirm self-D for X units?"

Its potentially useful for any unit that leaves a wreck without selfd but not with it. Or, has bigger self d explosion than death explosion.