This is getting off topic. Created a new thread. https://forums.uberent.com/threads/scaling-strategic-icons.57659/
Smarter Selections Offer class (land/air/etc) based icons in the selection bar. See if it's possible to examine box selections and automatically refine to the most common type in a similar manner to the game's existing fabber/combat selection. Discussion: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/smarter-selection.57652/ EDIT: also https://forums.uberent.com/threads/rel-advanced-unit-selection.57875/
I promise, I did search the forum for this idea, and wasnt able to find it. Commander Tracker: Lets you know the location of the last time you saw an enemy commander. This would have been particularly useful last build when the Commander Strategic Icon wasnt working. Some will probably consider this too OP, but while getting focused on a build set, and suddenly I have no idea where their commander is. And there are 6+ planets in the system, or the planet is HUGE, and tracking their commander down while my radar is searching the planet just gets frustrating. I wouldnt want to know where their commander IS, just where I LAST SAW them.
I'd like that really much, but I think the current APIs don't make it possible - I think all the selection logic is done in the C++ code. I'd like to have operations to toggle that what the next select operation will select, with the following options: - fabbers (any type) - land and naval (not fabbers) - air (not fabbers) - orbital (not fabbers) - factories and other buildins (e.g. nukes) - auto (default, the same way as it works now) For improved moddability, the underlying API could even take a list of unit spec IDs to determine what to select. It would give the modders more leverage for experimenting with different ways of selecting things.
Currently not possible for mods. But if there was a way for mods to know more about the game's state - the locations of all known units and what they are doing - it would enable a huge number of new kinds of mods.
Oh, it would be a total hack - watch for a new selection and then use the selection editing methods to refine. Probably cause some visual flicker in the interface before the rejected units got deselected.
In-game Team Voice Just saw http://www.talk.gg/ Kicking myself for not thinking of WebRTC earlier, but iframing it doesn't work. I think Uber needs to add some code to support media capture. https://forums.coherent-labs.com/index.php/topic,71.0.html
this mod idea will not beable to me made untill PA is done probly but here we go... Orbital fabber-build orbital HQ Orbital HQ-Builds Space Fabber Space Fabber-builds Refinery, Light shipyard, Blickes lab, and Laser turret all but the Laser turret, the Blistics lab can fire a silo of missiles at a target but it needss to be fired manuly haves to be built in orbit around the planet and they take ui relly big space like 4 light shipyards can fit on one planet (size 1000 if its like 200 or somthin only a shipyard can fit same with HQ) lightshipyards builds Starship corvetta Starship Missile cruiser Starship scout Starship troopship (can hold 100 units perpod and haves 6 pods it dies when it launches the pods* Space advance fabber space fabber can build Heavy shipyard SQ Hanger Space station and the Ion cannon Heavy shipyard builds Space battleship Space Fleet carrier (launches fighters that swarms the hostile fleets/planets) Space Lancer Cruiser (fires a huge bolt of lighting that damages hostile in a conected blast) Space Dreagnought (have 3 heavy laser cannons that can bombard any ship or planet) Ion Cannon (can not move but the Ion blast from it can destroy any ship in one hit.....or disable eveything on planet for 10 minets) Space Station (launches 3 wings of heavy Bombers to destroy the target) SQ Hanger (built in orbit launches 6 wings of fighters) welp thats my mod idea for when PA is fully moddable
Layer Filter Hide (or fade) icons in the icon atlas to show only land, sea, air, or orbital. Possibly add other filters like fabbers, combat, structures, anti-x. For extra points, hook into selections and remove anything not currently visible. https://forums.uberent.com/threads/rel-strategic-filters-2-0-0.67954/
Select Unit By ID - Hack Framework Intercept unit create events and add the unit to a control group (There is a max of 10,000,000,000). That should allow us to select unit by id.
That is fine as a hack for something that is done minimally, but if you constantly want to change something it can cause glitches (the select commands can be interfered with by unfortunately timed user input). Perhaps worth making a framework if enough mods are itching to be made that select rarely.
It would need to buffer create alerts and wait until a good time to go through and index them into control groups, so players with high APM might experience more problems.
Conditional Build Menu Instead of covering up part of the screen any time a fabber is selected, show a full screen build selection when key is pressed or held. Optional: for structures, place every building in a known position so you can muscle-memory the spot no matter what engineers are selected. Not sure fixed positioning is worth doing for mobile units.
Weight of Metal Similar to Build Power, shows the total metal represented by the current selection. I was watching the spectator livestream video, which pointed out that the commander represented the 25k you start with. I got to thinking you'd probably need a similar weight of metal to take down a commander.
Did You Know? A mod that shows one-line tips, which the user can click to cycle to the next tip. The tips could be useful tidbits of info or advice like: Fabricators can assist factories The commander is the most efficient mobile fabricator in the game Being fast, bots are good for quick raids, flanking opponents and reactionary play It's advisable to build only one t2 factory at a time Space out your base to mitigate the threat of nukes Never stop expanding Analysing your games using the mod 'PA Stats' can help to improve your skills The tips could be shown wherever, but particularly useful to kill time when generating planets.
Mod Message Bus A webservice (and corresponding mod) that creates a medium for mods attached to the same game to communicate settings to each other. I've mostly been contemplating hijacking chat, but that would be kind of disrupting to the players. Might possibly be able to use an existing service like Pusher, but somebody would have to pay for it. I guess at some level you have to pay for own server as well.
Couldn't they just use a localstorage variable? Edit: reading your other post in the PA Client API requests thread, I think you mean transferring settings between different players, which obviously can't be done with localstorage
Expensive Icons Overlay the metal cost on strategic icons. Remains to be seen if it would be legible. Probably too distracting for regular use, but could be a nice training aid to get a better sense of what is being traded.