Pre-beta news

from Stardock Forums
Later this week we plan to put up the final pre-beta build. It should have trade in along with governors and I hope an updated AI. After that, we'll be really focusing on trying to get things ready for the first beta.

Now, for those of you not in the alpha program, please bear in mind that our beta is purposely far more primitive than most games when they go into beta. This is intentional. The earlier you have the beta, the more input from beta testers you can put in. I want to avoid the experience many of you (and us) have had in betas where you see some thing in the gmae that you feel needs fixing only to be told that it's "too late" to fix.

For example, the United Planets will not be in the beta. The end game scoring will not be in the beta (except in a primitive way). The metaverse will only be listing top players, the accounts won't be tied to your Drengin.net accounts until August. The good/evil morality features won't be in yet and a lot of UI and interface conventions won't be in until we figure out the best solution for players on some of these things.

Let me give you one example:
Right now, you can use the left mouse button to grab the map and move it around. But how then do you select multiple ships? That's something we're going to wait and hear from beta testers before deciding on.

We hope to have the library opened up by the beta so that new ships, technologies, improvements, etc. can be submitted there.
591 views 18 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Brad,

I assume you mean the UP and end game scoring will not be in the first beta builds
but will come along in one of the later beta builds. True?

Cheers,
Jack
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Brad,
what's wrong with shift+left click to select individual ships or drag a box around them? This is a fairly common use. Failing that ctrl+left click.

Paul.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Paul,
Don't forget that it has to work both ways, one way to add units, the other to
remove units.

So: how about shift-left click to add, and ctrl-left click to remove?

Cheers,
Jack
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
you can use either as a toggle.. shift + Left click to add or subtract an item to a group. (standard)
:)
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
But using it as a toggle does not allow you to use drag to add or subtract multiple
items. It only allows one at a time to be added or subtracted. And if a lot of them
are stacked, ....

Cheers,
Jack
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Fredrik,
If you did a shift-drag to toggle select/deselect and some of them were already
selected how would the program know which you wanted to do? The only way
to avoid program confusion is to have one combination for select and another for
deselect.

Cheers,
Jack
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
you don't use drag to deselect only to select..
the shift is used to deselect one at a time.
there will not be any GOOD answer to this.. NO game has ever answered this issue well.. it can't be done to please everyone.
IE if you click on a unit it is added if you click on NO unit it will enable drag mode.
when the shift is enabled you MUST select a unit to deselect it.. maybe it could be done the same way as select with if you don't select a unit it enables drag mode as well.. but that is not the norm.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
The more I look at this the more I realize that the games I have played did not do this
very well, even those that allow adding or deleting units in groups. For the most part,
as I remember those that allowed assigning units to groups, they did not allow units to
occupy such destinctly defined areas as Galciv does (tiles). War Craft II, for instance,
allowed units to flow almost to a pel, but units did not truly overlap (as in GalCiv). So,
it looks like adding units to a group will be easy on GalCiv (simply select a group then
drag around the other units to be added).

But removing units from a group looks like it could get very messy, mostly because
the top ship is about all you can see (which I do sometimes find problematic with the
current level of the game). Some other games have ways of dealing with this (e.g.,
in MOOII a right mouse click gave you a list of the ships in the same spot).

So, how about this idea:
To remove a unit from a group you have to be able to see the unit. Since it may
not be visible (another unit is displayed on top of it), perhaps some use of the "ship
list" code and display could be initialed by some action (a right mouse click on a tile
with ships?, or a shift-RMB on a ship in a group?) to activate the ship list code with the
appropriate list of ships. Then with the list of units displayed you have access to the ship
(or ships) you want to select for movement or removal from a group. Some key/mouse
action on the unit in the list would have to be designated as the instruction to the code
to remove the unit. A left mouse click currently selects the unit for movement, so that
part of it already works.

My idea of what has to go into solving this problem is continuing to change as I hear
more comments and arguments. I don't know if Brad has worked out something for this
or not, but his comments in the first post on this thread sounded like he was asking
for ideas. Nor am I particularly enamored of what I described above. I think it would
work better than what I have seen in other games, but there may be a better way still
waiting to be discovered.

Cheers,
Jack
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
How about Shift key being held down while dragging selects and holding down the Ctrl key to add or subtract individual ships from a group?
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
Works for me. Altho I've never used drag-deselect in any game before, I tend to select using drag and if need to deselect, doing just clicks. Anyway - it could be good, personally Im quite happy with things today - I dont see any benifit of selecting multiple ships. But things would probably change as the game evolves.

The big question is how to deal with selecting/deselecting ships on the same tile.

And perhaps adding so non-military ships aint selected if the selection contains military ships?



Ive tried to use the "new" space-grab'n'move feature, but dont like it - yet anyway. Im too locked in old habits of scrolling. It would be easier tho if it disabled the old type of scrolling when grabbing. As Ive said before - when one reaches the end of the screen using the grab-scrolling it starts to scroll back using the old scrolling.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
Trying to build a fleet from the one screen is too complicated. It's too confusing even trying to see which ship is the one on top of the pile as it is.

How about when building a group, the fleet listing comes up on the side bar and as you add ships to the list you can drop ships from the list by clicking on them from the side bar list? You should also be able to name the fleet/group so you can easily find it again.

This way you don't get into the issue of which ship is on top of the pile etc.

Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
Generally I've found that drag-select will only select one distinct set of units. By that I mean that if you already have some units selected, they will be de-selected, and the new group selected.

Using the shift-left click is a generally acceptable method to do the mass selection, with a ctrl-left click to be a select state toggle (selects if de-selected, de-selects is selected).

As to the use of selecting a group.. wouldn't it be much easier to select a few ships and only give the attack command once?

Would it be beneficial to have all the ships form up into a "fleet unit" if they are grouped together? ie. removed the individual ships, replacing them with one replacement unit.
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
The only reason that I don't like selecting units from the ship list is that the ship names are meaningless to me and I can't remember where in the galaxy they are. I would be comfortable adding ships to a group from the ship list if the sector map in the upper right of the screen was zoomable and when you are on ship view and you select a ship from the ship list, the dot blinks to let you know where it is. This way, I can tell where the ship is and whether or not I've got the right one. Then maybe just a button or something to the ship list to add it to a group.
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
Shadowgopher
"the dot blinks to let you know where it is."

I LIKE IT!! I will bring it up at the next meeting.. I think it's a great idea and could become VERY usefull.
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
have to agree.. countless times I have wondered where in the galaxy the ship was.. hehe.. GREAT suggestion Shadowgopher!
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
Even if it is in orbit? That would be great.

Cheers,
Jack
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
Agreed. That should be a painless addition to the sector map, and greatly add to the usefulness of the ship list.

I'll get AlexG right on it! LOL