Tweet
Here are some interface options I'd like to see in RoN (a number of this ideas come from my experience with EE). Hopefully they wouldn't be hard to add to RoN before it ships (or better yet, they are already in there!) I am eagerly looking forward to RoN in any case, but the following would be some "extra nice" features.
1. A button to select the first half/second half of the currently selected group. As well as the parts of the group in thirds. This way a larger army could be easily split up into smaller armies. Ideally, each unit type would be split up equally among each of these groups. So if I had an army of three unit types assigned to my '1' key. I could assign the last third to the '3' key, the middle third to the '2' key and the first third to the '1' key. With each of those three unit types equally split among those groups. Even more ideally, each 'third' would be a an even split of the army formation (imagine 2 lines through the army in formation splitting the army into thirds). I think this would be quite handy.
2. Custom formations would be nice, perhaps even an editor to make your own custom formations (not entirely an interface issue). As well as hot-keys for formations. I read in one of the previews that the mouse weel can be use to move between formations, something about changed how the echelons are positioned, I think. This is a nice feature, but it would be nice to have this customizable to some extent as well (or perhaps pressing the shift/control/alt keys would allow you to cycle through different formation schemes). It was somewhat unclear as to wether the army selected would immediately adopt the new formation without you needed to click a spot on the map. (I'd like this since you could have the sides of your army close in and surround the enemy as it was winning without needing to do extra clicking).
3. Customizable hotkeys for *everything* including unit groups and the like.
4. Hotkey for scrolling through all units of the currently selected type, depending on wether it is idle, not idle, or just all of them combination of the above.
5. Hotkey for finding military units not currently assigned to a group.
6. Ability to tell a building to keep building a particular unit or sequence of units as long as it can get the necessary resources.
7. A "scout borders" order for units, as well as an order to patrol between two or more waypoints (think Dark Reign where you setup a waypoint system and then could assign units to it).
8. Not quite an interface hope, but I 'd like my medics and anti-aircraft guns to stay with the body of my army. So if I give an order that says "everyone go here and attack anyone along the way" then they won't just go to that spot, but will stop with everyone else if land resistance is met. (I am not sure if there will be medics since supply wagons seem to play some role in unit healing, but basically this applies to the entire army...I want them to stay together as a cohesive force if any of them get engaged...including, now that I think of it, if those anti-aircraft start attacking some aircraft...I don't want my ground to ground forces moving on without them).
9. Ability to set default AI on units. In EE I found I didn't like the aggressive behavior at all. having my units hold their ground worked much better, since they'd stay together and no one would wander of and die, hence the enemy had to face everyone. It was annoying having to get constantly be changing the AI for newly produced units. Ideally you could set the unit prefs for each unit-type, not for each building as some past systems have done. Perhaps this could be an option you can tweak before games that automatically loads when you play?
10. Hopefully there will be an alert or other (at least optional) warning when an foreign civilization moves any military troops into your territory. Likewise, I hope the normal unit AI avoids going into foreign territory unless you are at war (this might be especially true with planes that circle around a spot).. It would be nice to have an optional warning/cofirmation screen if you order your troops into another's territory with whom you are not at war with.
11. Will you be able to make a treaty delcaring a part of land as a no-fly/no military unit zone?
Hmm, that's all I can think of now, but other can feel free to add their own thoughts to this.
1. A button to select the first half/second half of the currently selected group. As well as the parts of the group in thirds. This way a larger army could be easily split up into smaller armies. Ideally, each unit type would be split up equally among each of these groups. So if I had an army of three unit types assigned to my '1' key. I could assign the last third to the '3' key, the middle third to the '2' key and the first third to the '1' key. With each of those three unit types equally split among those groups. Even more ideally, each 'third' would be a an even split of the army formation (imagine 2 lines through the army in formation splitting the army into thirds). I think this would be quite handy.
2. Custom formations would be nice, perhaps even an editor to make your own custom formations (not entirely an interface issue). As well as hot-keys for formations. I read in one of the previews that the mouse weel can be use to move between formations, something about changed how the echelons are positioned, I think. This is a nice feature, but it would be nice to have this customizable to some extent as well (or perhaps pressing the shift/control/alt keys would allow you to cycle through different formation schemes). It was somewhat unclear as to wether the army selected would immediately adopt the new formation without you needed to click a spot on the map. (I'd like this since you could have the sides of your army close in and surround the enemy as it was winning without needing to do extra clicking).
3. Customizable hotkeys for *everything* including unit groups and the like.
4. Hotkey for scrolling through all units of the currently selected type, depending on wether it is idle, not idle, or just all of them combination of the above.
5. Hotkey for finding military units not currently assigned to a group.
6. Ability to tell a building to keep building a particular unit or sequence of units as long as it can get the necessary resources.
7. A "scout borders" order for units, as well as an order to patrol between two or more waypoints (think Dark Reign where you setup a waypoint system and then could assign units to it).
8. Not quite an interface hope, but I 'd like my medics and anti-aircraft guns to stay with the body of my army. So if I give an order that says "everyone go here and attack anyone along the way" then they won't just go to that spot, but will stop with everyone else if land resistance is met. (I am not sure if there will be medics since supply wagons seem to play some role in unit healing, but basically this applies to the entire army...I want them to stay together as a cohesive force if any of them get engaged...including, now that I think of it, if those anti-aircraft start attacking some aircraft...I don't want my ground to ground forces moving on without them).
9. Ability to set default AI on units. In EE I found I didn't like the aggressive behavior at all. having my units hold their ground worked much better, since they'd stay together and no one would wander of and die, hence the enemy had to face everyone. It was annoying having to get constantly be changing the AI for newly produced units. Ideally you could set the unit prefs for each unit-type, not for each building as some past systems have done. Perhaps this could be an option you can tweak before games that automatically loads when you play?
10. Hopefully there will be an alert or other (at least optional) warning when an foreign civilization moves any military troops into your territory. Likewise, I hope the normal unit AI avoids going into foreign territory unless you are at war (this might be especially true with planes that circle around a spot).. It would be nice to have an optional warning/cofirmation screen if you order your troops into another's territory with whom you are not at war with.
11. Will you be able to make a treaty delcaring a part of land as a no-fly/no military unit zone?
Hmm, that's all I can think of now, but other can feel free to add their own thoughts to this.
Comment