Area vs Line commands

I've some discussion about area commands vs line commands, especially with regard to energy plants out of concern they become nuke targets. So I asked AwesomeNick about it, and he said:

If they change their json for those units by setting "area_build_type" to "Line" or even just getting rid of that flag entirely (it defaults to line) they can change econ units to line build. The plan is to have a hot-key switch between the area build types at run time and that's one of the first things I'll be doing in January.​

So you can wait, or mod it yourself!

Thanks for this, Meta

Hurray! That's awesome!

Great! A few of us had already seen that json option, but we also noticed that changing the spacing option for circle mode doesn't actually do anything. It changes the spacing of the green circles, but the server is still in control of where the actual building wireframes get placed.

This is very informative. It is hard to deliver information when you guys present this so spontaneously.

I like it nonetheless, and plan to follow those steps to mod it myself, I hate pp fields and often times feel like I am putting mine two close when I put mine within 2 pps of each other.

Does AwesomeNick also have plans for draw-A-line commands and area-build-spacing (scroll up and build structures more spaced out, scroll down and build structures touching at the edges)?

Don't tell him I am bugging about it, it is all in good time, but those are points of interest as well if he is interested in discussions of this sort. Thank you.

Wouldn't scrolling to change the spacing prevent you from zooming when you are building things?

Yes. I am not sure if there is a better way, plus or minus keys perhaps, but if you are zoomed in before clicking to build then you are fine. I never personally zoom much once I zoom to where I wanted to, so I didn't consider that. Do most players usually click and then zoom afterwards to drag?

I'm not actually sure if I do or not. Camera control so quickly becomes an extension of yourself that it can get hard to notice when you do little things like that. The problem I have with overloading camera controls is that I generally need them to work exactly as I expect 100% of the time. As long as there is a way to turn off scroll spacing, I wouldn't mind this feature at all. I personally don't really plan on using scroll spacing much as long as I can set defaults before the game, because I don't really see a need to change the spacing throughout a game.

Sometimes, but I use the mouse wheel.

But as long as we can rebind it to our will.

Rebinding is best. I like rebinding.

I just double-checked, and I can't even use the mouse wheel while clicking. I usually use the same finger for both. Then again, I use the arrow keys for moving the camera when actively clicking, and the mouse wheel click for glimpses.

I could probably get used to zoom being shut off once you start an area build command, but I would still hope for it to be optional (either opt-in or opt-out).

I'm still hoping that long term it could be something we can set on a structure-by-structure basis in the settings without the need for a mod honestly.

Mike

We thought about using the wheel to change spacing but though it might be kinda confusing. If we make it bindable that may solve the problem.

As for as other types of commands we still have plans for more. For example I want a free-form drawing mode where it's like a line and when you make loops they get filled in. Another one is having a line move for lining units up along a drawn curve. As usual no ETA.

Not sure when my handle became AwesomeNick but cool, at least it has a consistent pronunciation, haha.

I haven't posted anything before so I thought I should introduce myself here, I'm LiNiKe and I've been coding here for close to 5 months now, one of the things I've been working on is the new area commands. I've been following most of the discussions about the area commands and I really like everything you've all been saying.

Most of what I have to say has already been said by neutrino: I'm trying to stay away from making camera controls contextual (i.e. stealing the mouse wheel), I'm going to be working on draw-a-command (free-form drawing) modes, and tying that in with move and build commands. I have some plans for specifying your own separation and patterns and such that I think are going to be way better than using the mouse wheel, but these are going to take some time. I am working on removing the server side separation though so you'll be able to tinker with those values once that gets in.

Awesome, keep up the good work

Extract the attached straight in to your PA dir, it will overwrite the json files for:
energy_plant
energy_plant_adv
energy_storage
metal_storage

To make them line build. (Probably will break stuff after a patch)

Whoops looks like danzel beat me to it. Posted it on mod forums anyway. I can't think of any times I would ever choose a circle over a line build except perhaps on a planet that can't be nuked.

Or for metal extractors.

I don't mind building my pgens in a 3x3 box formation, but it's not that easy since there's very little room between the 'I'm just orienting, not area building' tolerance and the 'build them in a 2-radius circle' threshold.

Line orders would probably be optimal for every building type besides metal extractors.

I like area for pgens. One tower can cover them while a line would be harder to cover. Just don't build them in one big clump. I usually build 3 or 4 small clumps instead.