Mod suggestion for developers

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2642 days, 14 hours, 49 minutes ago

Mod suggestion for developers

Hey guys. Don't know if you take requests, but a great mod idea which has been brought up several times is to be able to mark up a map with various warp/graviton circles, as well as being able to add word notes straight to the map and draw simple straight and curved lines. just being able to freehand some stuff on the map would be helpful. With the amazing stuff you all have been putting out I would have to imagine this one is possible. Thoughts?

2642 days, 12 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Mod suggestion for developers

I would really like something like this too. However, I couldn't write it. We are at the mercy of the coders once again...

2641 days, 20 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Mod suggestion for developers

To add to that it would awesome if your ally or the person you want can see your markings... like you can screen shot, draw some stuff, and send it to them via in game message, or just allow them to see your stuff....

probably a tall order I'd say.

2641 days, 0 hours, 55 minutes ago

RE: Mod suggestion for developers

There has been much talk about how people are unhappy with long strings of hidden "alliances" with intel sharing agreements that you can't discern from the information given by the game since it only reports full alliances. there is really very little incentive on setting a ful alliance since it provides very little additional information to you over an intel sharing agreement aside from planet fcodes. if this sharing of map markings would only be available to full alliance members, it would be more of an insentive for people to set full alliances over intel sharing when they are working together, and would perhaps serve to differentiate the two settings a bit more. i don't know if this is asking too much of a browser greasemonkey addon, but it would be an interesting idea to suggest to the game makers.

2640 days, 23 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: Mod suggestion for developers

If nothing comes from this idea, I suppose you could screenshot to MS Paint, freehand notes in that program, then email to your ally. That's a bit of work, but doable now. As I write this it occurs to me: would it be difficult to add an "attach file" option to in game messaging?

2639 days, 23 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Mod suggestion for developers

Marking the map up should be possible, but I don't see sharing working. That said... Don't expect anything like that from me for a long while... :)

2639 days, 20 hours, 21 minutes ago

RE: Mod suggestion for developers

I've been thinking about this one on and off for a bit. I think that the following could be done with moderate effort:

- marking up the map (lines, circles, text, points).
- saving it.
- sending the data via in-game messaging (assuming both players have add-on installed)

What I think would be a big pain is giving you the ability to click drawn objects on the map and edit/delete them. I don't really want to write that.

So if I could come up with a script that would let you mark up the map and save it as an overlay that you could display or send to others, with the only possible editing being to add more items or delete the last one added, would that be sufficient to be useful? Could hopefully be able to show multiple overlays at once, but that might come later.

What do you think?

2639 days, 19 hours, 34 minutes ago

RE: Mod suggestion for developers

Sounds Great! Did you develop the mine sweep utility? I can't play without it now, thanks much! Wonder if we could also have it visualize the effect on an enemy minefield of MY minefield that I might lay next turn?? That would be awesome!

2639 days, 11 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: Mod suggestion for developers

Hey big,

Making an overlay is actually a great idea, especially if it is possible to create several different ones and choose which ones you may want to display. for example, one related to your economy may not be that interesting or useful to your ally, while the battle plan overlay would. sending it by message would be a nice way to share so you can control who gets what and when.

As for the editing, you mentioned the only option being to delete the last one. is that some kind of programming limitation that only the last one can be deleted? I am not a programmer, so I don't know what is involved in making such a mod. only having the last item be editable would be a limitation on usability. what if you need to modify something which was one of the early things you added to the map? borders shift, enemies move, minerals get exhausted, etc.... is it possible to make the overlay be editable where any individual object can be deleted as needed?

In either case, some marking ability is better than nothing and your effort is greatly appreciated.

V

2638 days, 17 hours, 13 minutes ago

RE: Mod suggestion for developers

Vepr, as far as editing goes, I can probably come up with something where you can cycle through the map objects and delete (or maybe edit) just the ones you want. I think especially if there are multiple layers, that should be sufficient since you wouldn't have that many per layer hopefully. What I was saying is that I don't want to try and make objects clickable, where I would have to look at where you clicked and all the objects and try to figure out what you were trying to get to. It's just a pain I think, though I'm open to thoughts on the matter if anyone has a good idea on how to do it.

Anyways, I put together a little interface for this if anyone wants to take a look and see if it makes sense to them. It's very limited in functionality (you can only draw white circles, and there is no saving of objects between game loads), but I'd like feedback on the flow of things if you heave the time to take a look.

To use, select "Draw" from the Map Tools drop down. It should show 4 options, of which only "circle" has been implemented. You are now in "draw mode". When you click on the map, it should draw a circle, with a default radius of 81ly. You can edit the radius (and tweak the center coords if you want). You should be able to save it and draw another, or cancel. Clicking "Starmap" should take you out of draw mode, and bring back the map tools drop down.

Try it out on a FINISHED game (where no harm can be done) and see what you think. Adding the other object types shouldn't be too much work, and saving between turns is pretty trivial I think. Multiple layers, editing/deleting, and sharing will take a bit though. And I guess I should add some sort of color control too.

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/133919

2638 days, 12 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: Mod suggestion for developers

tried it out and it looks really promising. the circle drawing is pretty much what we need. having different colors would be a plus, as well as adding layers so that you can delete the circles without deleting everything else. now for the other functions. the line would be useful for delineating borders and attack vectors. ability to draw curved lines such as with freehand would make that feature even more useful.

the point marking is likely not going to be too useful, unless you can snap to it with your cursors when you click in the vicinity like we do with paypoints now. that way you can come up with waypoints.

it would also be helpful to be able to access the draw feature with a keyboard shortcut. additionally, shifting the edit box towards the middle top of the screen would avoid the strange overlap error that happened a few times when the map tool bar was back but the draw mode toolbar didnt disappear and was partially obscured.

also, i don't see any delete option for the circle once it is placed.

GREAT WORK! I am very glad you took on this project! I am sure the community will thank you when it is all completed.

2638 days, 11 hours, 6 minutes ago

RE: Mod suggestion for developers

Yeah, that map tools thing is a common problem. I see a lot when using the battle simulator, but hadn't noticed it with this. I'll look into it (or as you suggest, just shift everything over).

I've posted an updated version (0.3) that has more of the interface stuff fleshed out. Colors are in (using basically the same code for setting colors for notes, so a little limited). All object types should work. Snapping waypoints to drawn points (and only points) seems to work (note also, it will override snapping to another ship's waypoint if the spot you click is near both). I'm going to make this a setting for points, whether to snap to them or not, but for now it always does.

The line tool adds a new segment with each click (similar to the measure tool), so I think will be easy enough to approximate curves.

Deleting objects still not written, so saving hasn't been enabled yet either. And all the other good stuff still to do... but not a bad start I'd say.

2638 days, 2 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Mod suggestion for developers

Beefer,
v0.3 is not up on the script dl website yet. hoping to try it out soon.
V

2638 days, 0 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Mod suggestion for developers

Forgot to change the version number. Should be good now.

2635 days, 14 hours, 38 minutes ago

RE: Mod suggestion for developers

Worked on this a little more today (ver 0.4). Added ability to create/delete/name layers and save objects on them separately. Also, added the control for setting a point to have waypoints snap to it. Saving is enabled now, since there is a method to delete in place (though only by the layer, still not individual objects). Still need to add a filter so you can choose to see (or not) layers individually, but then this should be fairly usable I think. Still have to look at sharing between players at some point.

I also made a change to try to keep the map tools suppressed, so let me know if you keep seeing it. You should be able to clear it by selecting "Draw" again if it does come up.

2635 days, 14 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Mod suggestion for developers

Great job, It works fine!!! I love it

2635 days, 11 hours, 48 minutes ago

RE: Mod suggestion for developers

+1

2635 days, 7 hours, 59 minutes ago

RE: Mod suggestion for developers

getting better and better. strong work!

2634 days, 23 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Mod suggestion for developers

The layer filtering is in now (ver 0.5). And I started another thread about this to better keep track of updates and things, now that I think it has reached a "usable" state:

http://planets.nu/discussion/utility-script-draw-objects-on-map