Missile pylon management

pmw57 · Post by **pmw57** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 6:10 am

It has been suggested that the missile pylons can be more acceptably managed if the items stay in their position.

There is already a placeholder called NONE that is compatible with 1.65, which will help with save games.

When adding equipment to the pylons, it is suggested that the arrow keys can be used to indicate the placement position.

Post by **Kaks** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:44 am

What do you mean exactly?

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:51 am

Kaks wrote:
What do you mean exactly?

I think he wants

1) that fired missiles/mines are replaced by a "NONE" entry, thus keeping the load order after saving and reloading the game
2) to be able to select to which free pylon a weapon should be mounted

Screet

pmw57 · Post by **pmw57** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:57 am

Assume there are 6 pylon slots available.

. . . . . .

When you have a full rack (minds back on topic, gentlemen) it looks like this:

oOooOo

Currently when using one of them, the 4th item, the eqipment afterwards shifts to the left

oOoOo.

It has been posited that it may be more useful when the equipment stays in position without moving left, like this:

oOo.Oo

Then arrangements of missiles can be more usefully and reliably positioned.

Post by **Kaks** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 8:22 am

Forgive me, but this is still confusing me... how exactly does 'using arrow keys' actually help?

They are the keys used to fly the ship. In my mind this all translates to 'select missiles using your car's steering wheel' = uh?

pmw57 · Post by **pmw57** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 8:36 am

Kaks wrote:
Forgive me, but this is still confusing me... how exactly does 'using arrow keys' actually help?

They are the keys used to fly the ship. In my mind this all translates to 'select missiles using your car's steering wheel' = uh?

The arrow keys only come into play when adding new equipment, and may not be necessary. The idea being to be able to decide where the equipment will be positioned.

Screet · Post by **Screet** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 8:38 am

pmw57 wrote:
The arrow keys only come into play when adding new equipment, and may not be necessary. The idea being to be able to decide where the equipment will be positioned.

I think if used pylon equipment would be replaced by "none" this would already help very much:

The player then would have to buy new pylon equipment in the same order in which he wants to fill the slots. The only difficulty might be to find a station that has all the required equipment for refitting the pylons.

Screet

Post by **Kaks** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 8:53 am

It sounds a bit too much like playing charades to me, so I'll try and fill the gaps here. Do tell me if I misunderstood anything.

I buy a weapon, the weapon doesn't fill the first available slot?
You want a sub-screen to buy missiles?

Something a bit like what's happening in trunk with the weapon buying thing?

Do let me know if it's anything like what you have in mind. If not, please describe the thing in a bit more detail.

PS: pmw57, to frame what you said above in web developer terms (I believe that's your background) what you said above sounded scarily like 'I want a website, you know, one of those you can navigate using a mouse'.

pmw57 · Post by **pmw57** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 8:58 am

Kaks wrote:
It sounds a bit too much like playing charades to me, so I'll try and fill the gaps here. Do tell me if I misunderstood anything.

I buy a weapon, the weapon doesn't fill the first available slot?
You want a sub-screen to buy missiles?

Not a sub-screen as such, but the ability to decide where the pylon-mounted objects are placed. I image a flashing image in the missile rack, which you can move to where you desire it to be placed.

Kaks wrote:
Something a bit like what's happening in trunk with the weapon buying thing?

You're talking to a man who only knows 1.73.4

Where is information about the "weapon buying thing" that's different in trunk? It sounds interesting.

Post by **Kaks** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 9:17 am

Do load Diziet Sma's installer & take it for a spin, it doesn't override your 1.73.4 installation.

As for flashing pylon slots, it might be too subtle, and will definitely require a lot more coding to implement than an analogue to the weapon selection sub screen - which is a cleaned up development of what you already get in 1.73.4

To me, you're describing an extra step in the buying process, so the main screen needs changing anyway, as a minimum it needs to replace the equipemnt list with some written instructions - something like: use arrow keys to choose an empty slot, enter to purchase. (we need to be vague, since not all missiles are missiles or bombs - Apart from Frame's external fuel tank, Thargon has added quite a few non-missiles missiles to Oolite in the past year or so...)

However, it seems I'm having trouble visualising the concept clearly, so very clear guidance/mock screenshots of the changed buying process would be very much appreciated!

ClymAngus · Post by **ClymAngus** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 3:25 pm

This is interesting. Admitedly it would be useful to have a slots menu where you could buy, sell and identify weapon payloads depending on the number of sockets you have in your ship. But I can see that being some thing of a "tall order"

As a side note, I find that with the proliferation of weapon types, identification whilst flying (and fighting) is becoming more and more of a pain. Maybe a "whatever" missile armed. Would be helpful when your deciding what to let loose?

There is nothing more embarrassing than fully intending to put a hard head up a pirates tail pipe and accidentally firing off recovery drone instead. I really does make one look like a bit of a numpty.

Wiki pages · Post by **Thargoid** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 4:18 pm

Kaks wrote:
Apart from Frame's external fuel tank, Thargon has added quite a few non-missiles missiles to Oolite in the past year or so...)

Oi young whippersnapper, who you calling a Thargon?

The main reason I wanted it was the one I cited on the original discussion. If we can specify where (which pylon) we add/remove equipment (missiles, bombs, whatever) from then something like the missile rack will work properly. At the moment because it is essentially removed on use and then re-added (in a slightly different format here) it will go back onto the first available slot, which might not necessarily be the one it was originally on. Hence it tends to wander about the pylons depending how/when you fire it and what you add to your stocks in the meantime.

Also being able to do it would allow for "permanent" pylon mounted equipment items to be done (or at least simulated) with a bit of care, along the same lines.

And I would agree about exposing the selected missile/bomb/whatever's name to the HUD. I have the similar problem of remembering what's what, especially embarassing in my case as I wrote a fair chunk of them!

Post by **Micha** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 6:25 pm

Thargoid wrote:

And I would agree about exposing the selected missile/bomb/whatever's name to the HUD. I have the similar problem of remembering what's what, especially embarassing in my case as I wrote a fair chunk of them!

Ah.. yes... the missile-name thing was on my TODO list for when I added the 'missile select' functionality. I remember now. Will take another look at it. IIRC, the idea was to have an optional key specifying the name in the shipdata for missiles and display that, if present, otherwise use the current generic message.

As for the whole pylon thing - that goes against my personal imagination of the Ooniverse. I consider all missiles/mines to be internal equipment. At least on the medium and large ships. I'd hate for a rock splinter or laser blast to hit an external missile while it was still mounted..!!

However, having said that, you could still have several missile / equipment 'bays' which lead to the launchtubes, so having permanently assigned missile slots still makes sense. In fact, iirc, the current code goes to some length to clean up your missile inventory on purchase / reload, so it'd probably be almost easier to keep the missile inventory 'messy'.

Selecting a slot on purchase rather than filling the first available would take some extra GUI work (so not sure about that), but the not-reordering shouldn't be hard.

As for your Missile Rack, I guess a way to do that would be to allow an OXP to add equipment-bay equipment into a specific bay (ie, JS modification). This way you could retrieve your MR bay number before firing, remove the MR, modify it, and re-add it to the bay you saved. Specifying a bay which already contains an item could either fail, or automatically select the next empty one. This should be a new method, the old one would continue to just fill the first free bay.

Wiki pages · Post by **Thargoid** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 6:51 pm

Micha wrote:
As for your Missile Rack, I guess a way to do that would be to allow an OXP to add equipment-bay equipment into a specific bay (ie, JS modification). This way you could retrieve your MR bay number before firing, remove the MR, modify it, and re-add it to the bay you saved. Specifying a bay which already contains an item could either fail, or automatically select the next empty one. This should be a new method, the old one would continue to just fill the first free bay.

Yes, that was also my original thinking, or very much along similar lines.

Post by **Micha** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:01 pm

Just using the existing 'name' entry in shipdata.plist:

ECM Hardened Missile armed
Quirium Cascade Mine armed
Dredger Salvage Drone armed

<edit>
Should the missile name be used whenever a missile-related display is shown, or only when first armed? Could get a bit spammy, especially when toggling through with 'y' or the Multi-targeting requipment.
</edit>