The #1 item on my wishlist

[Caydr]

Since I now know of a workaround to the hugely-exploding EMP bug, my number one most-needed-feature is definitely rotatable structures. I think this is more important than even AI development - the ability to rotate structures will influence the entire game, whille even the greatest AI will only be played against when there's nobody online.

The way it should work is like this:

You select a building from a menu, move your mouse to where you want it built, and then click and hold the mouse button down to rotate it. Moving the mouse left and right turns the structure at a reasonably quick rate, snapping in 45 or 90 degree increments (whatever's easiest, but I'd prefer 45 if possible). Then, you release the button, and it's built in place, rotated to the degree you wanted.

If you're holding down shift at the time, though, anything else in the queue following your rotated structure will also begin at that angle.

Imagine the possibilities of this. You could, for instance, have stationary turrets that can be built which are especially powerful facing one direction but which can be flanked if you're a careful attacker and hit them from the side. Factories where units don't spend 10 seconds spinning in place to exit a certain direction, slowing down your factory's build speed considerably (if it's being guarded, at least).

[Maelstrom]

there has been a topic on this.
http://taspring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=1925

I came up with an idea for how the rotating could work:

Well how I think it should be done:

For a Single Building
Click once and relese quickly, with no mouse movment : Building points towards camera
Click and drag the mouse (no shift or anything down), building points towards mouse.


For a Line
Make lines like usual, but the Buildings align pendipicular (at a right angle) to the direction of the line.

One of the points raised in the thread was that it would be very difficult to rotate buildings to anything but 90 degree increments. But even this would be a very big bonus.

Hope this can be implemented, as it has been bugging me for ages! It is not absolutley neccecary, but I would really like to see it happen.

[zwzsg]

Personnaly I'd like a compass in some corner of the guis that you'd set once for all and all buildings will then follow this orientation. It should be pointing in the commander -> center of the map direction when the game starts, and be freely changeable at any time.

[Caydr]

I was reading that other thread. Seems everyone wants it, but nobody can agree on a key for it

Well, I came up with a solution. Tab. It doesn't seem to be used for anything, and if it is... well it'd be better used for my idea (all things associated with building placement in one spot on the keyboard, accesible with left hand, makes sense)

Here's how it goes. You click the button for the building. Move mouse to where you want it to be. Hold down TAB, and while it's held down, the building rotates as you move your mouse left/right. Then, for the rest of time that constructor is selected, that is the orientation of all the buildings it produces. Or maybe it is set as the default for ALL builings from then on. Dunno. Anyway, this system would allow all the current functions to still work, like boxes, rows, blocks, etc.

Just one request. Buildings should rotate in increments of 45 degrees, not just ANY measurement. This will make it a lot easier to regulate... I can make a longer explanation for that later, but in the meantime I'll just say it's a good idea. Helps keep things looking neat and tidy too. You can always build parallel or perpindicular sets of buildings, etc. AND I would imagine it'd be easier to code.

Oh, I like the idea of a compass too, but not for the purpose of building alignment. Just to help you keep your bearings when in first person or other camera modes.

[NOiZE]

well go program it

[Torrasque]

Spring could "easly" make rotatable building, but only for 0,90,180 and 270 degres because building are build on a gird.

But, even 90° rotatable building would be good, and for me, enough.
45° would be better, but don't really add something.

[SwiftSpear]

Agreed, I'd be happy with a 90degree turnability. To be honest however, this is one of my "it would be nice" changes, not something I veiw as the most lacking feature in spring. Structure rotation could easily be hacked in by modders if the mod script was more powerful.

Do I think structure rotation is one of the things that should be put in before there is workaround via modscript? I think it probably should. But at the same time I really can't say it's my #1 wishlist item.

[IMSabbel]

i really think its more than a "nice" feature, as long as units continue to randomly get stuck when leaving factories to rally points not having a clear line of travel...
Whenever its north vs south, i can BET that every 3rd unit that should go north after being build gets stuck and halts production, while going south is never a problem...

[Min3mat]

click and drag C&C generals styley would rock but 45/90 degree rotation would be good too

[Pxtl]

Imho, I always liked the original AA method where clicking on the arrow on the unit pic determined rotation.

Still, there is one point: why does Spring need perpendicularity? I mean, why should units even have a default orientation wrt the map instead of the camera? Why does the engine even care which way's "North"?

Imho, the best approach would be to completely destroy the absolutist "north" concept. Make the minimap rotate as you rotate view, and make the default orientation of the doorways of factories be "facing the camera". Maybe add keys to rotate (imho, a dragging system is the best - maybe just a very-short-drag that isn't long enough to create a line would be ideal).

[SinbadEV]

If I remember correctly it had to do with pathing calculations assuming square buildings or something... otherwise you can't use yardmaps...

[AF]

Buildings cna go at any rotation but pathfinding goes haywire if it isnt at 90* intervals.

So the most you could do is a N S NE W SE SW system

[zwzsg]

Make the minimap rotate as you rotate view, and make the default orientation of the doorways of factories be "facing the camera".

That is an interesting idea!

Imho, the best approach would be to completely destroy the absolutist "north" concept.

Having a well defined north make it easier for me not to get lost on the map. On RTS that let me turn the camera, I always leave it north-up or else I'm confused and can't find back places.

[Caydr]

Nah, you don't always want to rotate your camera just because you need a building facing a certain direction. What's wrong with my tab idea?

[Min3mat]

good but i'd really prefer 360 degrees of choice C&C Generals styley

[Caydr]

Well, ideally...

[AF]

In time the pathfinding improovements gabba put forward will be implemented and full 360* rotation will be viable again.

However I am mroe worried about the UI for rotating buildings.

The suggestion put forward in the picture makes a mockery of dragging, afterral am I draggign to hange the rotation or to drag a row of buildings? and if so what fi I want all those buildings in that row toface a particular direction? Otherwise I'm forced to ahev them faced at a tangent to the row or place each one manually

[Aun]

Tab probably would work, unless you hold Alt at the same time... You drag a row of buildings out, then hold Alt and drag to rotate each of the buildings in the row on the spot.

[SinbadEV]

the only reason not to use TAB that it's not a Modifier Key which makes it unsuitable for this type of control.

I'm not sure how windows works now, but it used to be that SHIFT and 'a' would send the keyboard scan code for "SHIFT+A" which was a different code then just "SHIFT" or just 'a' alone.

Holding tab and pressing 'a' would basically send
TAB,TAB,TAB,TAB,TAB,TAB,TAB,TAB,TAB,TAB,TAB,TAB,TAB,TAB,TAB,a,TAB,TAB,TAB,TAB,TAB,TAB,TAB,TAB,TAB,TAB,


You only have 3 standard modifier keys.

Other options that WOULD work would be "tapping" a key (possible the tab key) and then pressing an arrow key, or tapping the tab key after you have dragged out the buildings you want before releasing the mouse to then be able to rotate the building.

Another option would be CAPSLOCK, SCROLL LOCK, NUM LOCK, INSERT, or WINDOWS KEY... which are all "technically" Modifiers, just not in the classical sense... you could turn scoll lock on if you wanted the blobk of buildings you want to build to be rotated for example, then leave it on if you always want them to come out that way, or turn it off if you don't.

(edit: in theory we could use the Left and Right Modifiers as different effects... this might cause confusion but is easier then pressing scroll lock probably... it would be impossible to phisically use the left and right keys at the same time so it would have to be... left side keys are used to make normal building, right side keys are used for rotated buildings (rshift click and drag rotate building, rshift+ralt+click drag line of drag alligned buildings, rSHIFT+rALT+rCTRL drag box of rotated buildings, drawing the diagonal)



just had another idea how to differentiate, right clicking currently cancels a build order which could be replaced by a keystroke, makeing right click allow rotatable building...

[Doomweaver]

Personally i'd prefer if you could just tap a key and set a default orientation... I mean, when do you not want your units to exit towards the enemy?