Advanced Engineer-Search-Function

I can only tell from my SupCom experience...
...Finding any non-idle engineer of any tech level can become very cumbersome once the game has been going on for a while. But sometimes you want exactly that. Say, you want to construct some t3 stuff somewhere on the map and want to know where the nearest t3 engie is located. Maybe the nearest one is not idle atm, but doing something of less importance like reclaiming. There is no way for you to find him in a convenient manner. You need to find just some t3 engie, then zoom out, then double click him (and hopefully you don't miss) to select all t3 engies on the map, then scan the map for the one closest to the location you want to build t3 stuff, and then finally you can select that bugger. This is a very time consuming way of doing a pretty simple thing, only because of lack of control over the game. Therefore I propose an advanced engineer-search-function, that lets you highlight any engie, all engies of a certain tech level, all engies of several different tech levels (which in PA would be only two anyway, so the last case is redundant). Idle enginiers should be handles like in SupCom where you get a panel over all idle engies that splits into idle engies of tech 1, 2, 3.

Edit: And while we are on it, a "select all idle engies currently on screen" function would be so helpful at times (very often rather) too.

I thought there was a default key to cycle through all engineers/fabbers? And another one for advanced fabbers?

A cycle through mechanic is way less powerful and imo long outdated. I don't want to cycle through a bazillion engies just to find the best suited one.

Good idea, but this could get complicated pretty quick, and would defeat its own purpose. All those options you listed off lend to a search with an exponentially increasing number of specific cases. There'd have to be a good way of keeping it simple... Creating a dialog with each of those options as check-boxes leaves you clicking just as many times as if you went hunting the "old fashioned" way. Assigning different hotkeys for each specific case would take up half the keyboard.

There are those that would argue hunting for an appropriate engineer is an aspect of the gameplay itself.

Honestly, it sounds like mod territory to me.

UI is far from finished, I think a idle engineer information will some time be displayed.

Sorry, I think you missed my point, Kryo... I was talking first and foremost about non-idle engies.

I beg to differ. I think the cases listed are pretty much exhaustive. There is no need for further differentiation.

They better go and play some of Blizzard's RTSs, as apparently they enjoy artificial limitations to the control mechanics just to make the game harder to master. A game that claims to be focused on macro needs tools to minimize micro. Searching engies is micro.

Highlight all units, press [button] to filter only workers.

EZPZ.

in SupCom you would do CTRL -X and then choose the unit type, and then look where they all are.

wait so you missed this?

You mentioned three "options" above: idle/busy, level, select single (assume closest)/select all. Those alone create 8 different cases (2^3). Any additional options multiply that number further. Again, not a bad idea, just tricky to implement in such a way that it doesn't become more complicated than the problem it was intended to solve.

Matter of opinion I suppose. I again agree with you that, when the game starts spanning multiple planets, the little niggly things like this are going to get REALLY tedious.

You could always use custom keybindings. Doesn't sound too hard to do, even in a modding sense.

I agree. I run into this problem nearly every time I play Supcom.

Just FYI, in Supcom, I'm pretty sure Ctrl + Period is the default keybinding to select all engineers on screen.

No, there is no need for an "automatically select closest idle/any" option imo. You can already do this in SupCom. But I find it inconvenient because it can only apply when you are zoomed in to the location relative to which you want to find the closest engie... So you would have 3 displays for the non idle "any" "t1 only" "t2 only" plus the interface as it is atm in SupCom.

like so:




Engies taht suit the description in their respective field would be selectable by clicking that field. Engies can be selected by clicking any of the fields.

I guess I did. What's that? It's not part of the default UI.

Open up a FA game, it must have been too long since you played ^^.

It's definitely a mod unless FAF has this integrated now.

??? I can't remeber ever not having it and I played on GPG wth?

Not. just checked steam version. not a mod.

I'm getting pretty confused, thought this was a mod but I'm very out of touch with FA these days.

yep this has been there since the begining, but even Pro players neglect it.

I see now that these are 2 screenshots merged in one picture. You had me confused. I thought you had 2 different of those overview UI elements... even so much that I was convinced I once had this enabled but forgot how to get it back, lol^^

Well, now that this is clear, I can say that you missed my point there with your response, as should be clear now, after my other post from today. I clealy said, that this very UI thing that you posted a screenshot of should be kept and extended. Because, as it is, it only provides an overview of your idle engies.