[Bug?] After a Load, Restart Mission will just reload, not restart

[prk]

As reported by Th3ch053n0n3 in the "Unified typo thread":

"When you open a save and then select restart mission, it reloads the save, not the entire mission."

http://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=21550.msg148686#msg148686

I was certainly surprised by the above.  I decided to start another thread for this topic, because there was no comment in the "Unified typo thread" as to whether or not Restart Mission is supposed to reload instead of restarting.

I am also surprised that, after I load a save, I am presented with the mission briefing screen and need to click on "Launch Mission".  I would rather go straight to the paused gameplay screen, at least when I am loading from the in-game menu (as opposed to loading from the main/carousel menus).

Several days ago (before I discovered the above method of viewing the mission briefing screen) I was also surprised that there was no obvious, direct way to review the mission briefing screen from the in-game menu.

Tangentially, if there is dialogue at time 0.0, and if you clear the dialog and then save the game, when you load, you will see the dialogue again and need to clear it again.  In other words, there is no way to save a game immediately after the dialogue but before any time has passed.  I recognize that there might not be an easy way to "fix" this.  Ideally, if I save after clearing the intro dialogue, then when I load I would not see the mission briefing screen, and not see the dialogue.

Relatedly, if at time 0.0 I place the Corporate HQ, but then decide I would rather place it somewhere else, I have to restart the mission even if no time has passed.  If I destroy the Corporate HQ, I have to wait 20 seconds before replacing it.  This is not necessarily a bug, but it is mildly inconvenient.

[knucracker]

Addressing just the first and mostly blatant issues, the restart does indeed currently restart from the last save.  That's mostly because the game doesn't 'know' what a mission is other than what it previously loaded.  To address this (like I did in CW3) I have to add logic to recognize what a mission is, and then load the origin mission.  This is not always possible, so it gets complex.  For instance, when you load a story mission I can know you are playing a story mission and the restart that specific story mission.  Imagine you take a save for a story mission and then load it from the main menu's "Load From File" feature.  Should the restart reload from the file you loaded from or from the actual story mission? 

I can address all of the use cases, it will just likely have to show up in a beta build first (with other more significant changes) so it can have a few days testing.  It's tricky enough that the odds of there being a problem are higher than for some other features/fixes.

[strigvir]

Addressing just the first and mostly blatant issues, the restart does indeed currently restart from the last save.  That's mostly because the game doesn't 'know' what a mission is other than what it previously loaded.  To address this (like I did in CW3) I have to add logic to recognize what a mission is, and then load the origin mission.  This is not always possible, so it gets complex.  For instance, when you load a story mission I can know you are playing a story mission and the restart that specific story mission.  Imagine you take a save for a story mission and then load it from the main menu's "Load From File" feature.  Should the restart reload from the file you loaded from or from the actual story mission? 

I can address all of the use cases, it will just likely have to show up in a beta build first (with other more significant changes) so it can have a few days testing.  It's tricky enough that the odds of there being a problem are higher than for some other features/fixes.

Speaking of reloads, can you bring autosave on exit to PF, a la CW3?

[prk]

For instance, when you load a story mission I can know you are playing a story mission and the restart that specific story mission.  Imagine you take a save for a story mission and then load it from the main menu's "Load From File" feature.  Should the restart reload from the file you loaded from or from the actual story mission? 

I was not aware of, and have never used, the "Load From File" feature.  I have only loaded games via the carousel menus (Story, Inception, Exchange, etc.).

I would suggest that, in order to create a consistent user experience, Restart should always restart a mission at time equals zero.  If technical reasons make this difficult or impossible, then I would suggest that in those cases, the button should be renamed to "Reload Saved Mission".