Suggestions for CW-next

[TrickyDragon]

Just use said key to show Tue collective ranges of the selected weapons.    Now that we have a hot key for selecting all units of this type if we want it would save some lag to only show what we select.   

[Grauniad]

Back to topic:
I wish for a button that displays the firing range of all weapons.

Could you expand on this? What would it do? Would it show the range of all weapons on a map simultaneously - a-lathe range of SAMs in CW1?

I'm pretty sure he just wants a hotkey that shows all unit ranges so that full weapons coverage can be shown.

Bingo. I want to press a button and see the white circles around units that you usually only see when relocating them.

What I was hoping for was a statement of why this would improve game play, or solve a particular problem. Something to justify Virgil doing the work. Something that makes the game better.

[Chawe800]

So if your weapons are spread thin you can stop a crack in your defenses and adjust your weapons to protect from any creeper/digitalis slipping through (very similar to what happened with the SAMS. You could spot the hole and cover it up saving yourself from a potentially fatal spore.)

[4xC]

Another thing: If you could have the ranges of a type of unit displayed and they overlapped, I would suggest that they do something that they did in either Starcraft 1 or the whole series (I have yet to play "Wings of Liberty"). When you play as the protoss in the game and you select any one of your pylons, the range of influence is shown for every pylon you already built.

And every range that overlapped was a different shade/brightness, so the more pylons that were overlapping a spot, the deeper their combined ranges' color was. The ranges would also show if you were trying to place a new pylon on the map.

My point is if you can see the range of every one of a certain unit, their overlapping ranges will be clearly indicated by a deeper shade. I think CW1 has that for the SAMs.

Lurkily has already summed up the rest of what I have in mind. Other than that, maybe the weapon type ranges should appear when you try to build a new one too.

[lurkily]

What I was hoping for was a statement of why this would improve game play, or solve a particular problem. Something to justify Virgil doing the work. Something that makes the game better.

. . . so that full weapons coverage can be shown. 

Honestly, if it is a challenge, it probably isn't influential enough to make the cut.  One of those small things that may be non-challenging and may (or may not) be helpful, for things like showing the gaps in weapon coverage.

[Ronini]

What I was hoping for was a statement of why this would improve game play, or solve a particular problem. Something to justify Virgil doing the work. Something that makes the game better.

I cannot really elaborate on that one, since I probably won't be playing any CW3 until January.
Based on my CW1 and CW2 experience, I would like PCs to show their potential targeting range vs where they can actually fire (which is not necessarily the same due to elevation). CW2-Blasters do that. But then only one by one. I think it would be beneficial to see a group's firing range.

[lurkily]

What I was hoping for was a statement of why this would improve game play, or solve a particular problem. Something to justify Virgil doing the work. Something that makes the game better.

I cannot really elaborate on that one, since I probably won't be playing any CW3 until January.
Based on my CW1 and CW2 experience, I would like PCs to show their potential targeting range vs where they can actually fire (which is not necessarily the same due to elevation). CW2-Blasters do that. But then only one by one. I think it would be beneficial to see a group's firing range.

So . . . basically, white where ANY PC can fire, and red where EVERY PC in range has blocked LOS?  That might . . . be deceptive.  It might lead you to believe an area is adequately covered by many PC's, when in fact only one actually has LOS on a region.

[4xC]

That's why, in my last reply on this thread, I said that overlapping ranges would be shown in deeper shades like what I referenced in the last reply too. Basically, I already solved the problem.

And Ronini, you can elaborate on it more before it is released. Try to give ideas for what to do in CW3 before it gets sold so that they can possibly be implemented before release and it becomes too late to make any changes.

[Ronini]

That's why, in my last reply on this thread, I said that overlapping ranges would be shown in deeper shades like what I referenced in the last reply too. Basically, I already solved the problem.

And Ronini, you can elaborate on it more before it is released. Try to give ideas for what to do in CW3 before it gets sold so that they can possibly be implemented before release and it becomes too late to make any changes.

And I'm busily doing just that. But there are somethings that you can talk about and discuss and reiterate for hours, weeks and months, and then you try it out for real, and it is completely different.
More specifically, CW3 might look a lot like CW1. But does it play the same? I don't and I won't know. Any point I make, any idea I offer might be absolutely redundant, inappropriate or just not getting it properly, because of CW3's uniqueness.

[lurkily]

That's why, in my last reply on this thread, I said that overlapping ranges would be shown in deeper shades like what I referenced in the last reply too. Basically, I already solved the problem.

I would expect that to be an overlapping mess that obscures terrain and gives little indication which units are clear to fire and which are blocked - necessary to solve problems with firing lanes.  In order to figure out which units are blocked in a tight group, you're back to individual selection.  Obscuring terrain wouldn't be an issue in some applications, but here it's necessary to see terrain, so that you can effectively plan solutions to blocked firing lanes.

The problem is, while that may work decently for a few unit spread thin, when you have dense groups of units - particularly like sams, with long ranges that overlap more - you get a LOT of overlap, and more overlapped ranges turns into more opacity.

You could use color variance exclusively, eliminating opacity changes, but there are a lot of reds, (and whites/greys for that matter,) in terrain that it might blend with.

[4xC]

Then hopefully, the terrain colors will not be so various and far apart in colors. Or there could be numbers for each weapon that covers a certain spot. The numbers would not blot the terrain and the higher the number, the more weapons of that type would cover it. Although I would prefer the shading thing mentioned earlier.

Better yet, theshading would likely not completely blot out terrain and there would be a limited amount of shading regardless of how many more weapons covered it. That limit was implemented in Starcraft for sure, but in it, terrain was blotted out by too many pylons. Still, the bit about not completely blotting out the ground would be an upgraded version of that limit, or the colors of the terrain will be less various.

[Ronini]

What have you done to my idea?
There is no need to make it that complicated. The application for my wish would mostly be on a very local level. The only global use would be to see what large amount of space is covered, which has pretty little use gameplay/strategy wise. Unless there will be random new emitters on a map.
On a local level it would completely suffice to show the LOF as it was done in CW2, but with one more color/shade. So you have one color (e.g. red) where a weapon could fire if it weren't blocked, one for areas that are covered by just one (e.g. 33% opaque), and one (e.g. 66% opaque) for areas covered by more than one. That should be possible without blurring too much of the terrain.
I realize just as I'm typing this, that this is not exactly what I asked for in the first place. After reflection I'd like to edit my request to having a button to display all selected PC's LOF in the manner described above.

[4xC]

What has be done to your idea is discussion and potential expansion. In other words, it was a good one and had a lot of possibilities. Not all of them can be accepted, but if they are written out on these posts, they can be better expanded upon. There is a lot more to implementing things into CW3 than you seem to realize.

The disscussion is about what would happen if unit ranges were shown. Everything there is has to be considered for serious implementation consideration. It really was a good idea that you had. The thing about the range field's colors is the ground had a large blend of colors that could accidentaly be mistaken for the range fields. If you want to make your request more clear yourself, explain it in greater detail to us so we know where to go and show us from your perspective why it is a good idea.

[Grauniad]

I realize just as I'm typing this, that this is not exactly what I asked for in the first place. After reflection I'd like to edit my request to having a button to display all selected PC's LOF in the manner described above.

This is the kind of evolution of a suggestion that makes sense.  Ask for something, discuss it and figure out whether it will work.  This might be achievable by simply presenting the LOF on selected units.

[lurkily]

My worry is that without precision, the benefit is mitigated, because in some cases the display could mislead a player . . . and the benefit has to be worth the time to code.