ORIGINAL: hakon
On a related topic:
What happened to the discussion about task forces? Is that discussion closed?
It seems to me, that in practice, most naval movment will be done by using task forces, and that most of the time spent performing naval movement will in fact actually be spent moving task force markers instead of individual ships. Assuming that the user is not limited in the number of task forces that he can create, and assuming that he can name them freely, I would for instance want to set up an escort system as follows:
Consider the escort situation in the Mid Atlantic. I would starty by defining 3 task forces, as follows:
Mid Atl 1
Mid Atl 2
Mid Atl 3
To each of these I would assign 1-3 (1 ship in a task force should be ok) cruisers capable of reaching the 4 box of the sea zone. . Initially, I would send 1 task force to each of the 0, 1 and 4 boxes. At the start of every turn, I would send the one that had to return to base out to the 4 section again, while sliding the 3 section down to the 1 section.
Now, while moving, it would be great if I could right-click on a section of a sea zone, and get a menu option called "Move ships here". If selecting this command, I would get a list of task forces and ships that can reach the section I am right clicking. (Task forces on top, if sorting alphabetically). This would speed things up quite a bit, especially for people with relatively small screens. For even faster play, it should be possible in the task force management screen, to define at least one, possibly several sea areas where the task force responsibility lies. The units with responsibility for a sea zone would always show up first when using the command "Move ships here".
When right clicking on a ship or task force in port, one should get a "Move to sea zone" command if the ship is in port, or "Move to port" and "Slide down" commands when already at sea. "Move to sea zone" should also give the possiblity to specify section. "Slide down" should have a keyboard shortcut, too, I guess. Other context sensitive commands, could be "Remove from task force", "Move to task force X", "Reorganize unit".
When manipulating task forces, I wonder if it wouldn't be more appropriate to organize units side by side in rows, instead of in columns. For instance, a report could read someting like this:
-- Western Medetteranian, section 3 (friendly)----------------
Ships No 28 LBA No 3 Surf 72 ATS 12 AA 51 SB 31
CV 5 BB 7 CA 12 CL 2 TRS 2 Corps 1 Divs 3
-- Task forces ---------------------------------------------
MED CV fleet, Med BB battle group (use icons)
-- Land Based Air ------------------------------------------
LBA1, LBA2, LBA3
-- Transports ---------------------------------------------
AMPH1 INF 1 TRS1 DIV1 DIV2 SCS 1 DIV3
-- Carriers ------------------------------------------------
CV1 cvp1 cvp2, CV2 cvp3, and so on (The ones in task forces should be partly transparant, to show this)
-- Battleships ---------------------------------------------
BB1, BB2 and so on
-- Heavy Cruisers ------------------------------------------
CA1, CA2, CA3,....
-- Light Cruisers ------------------------------------------
CL1, CL2 .....
Doing it horisontally like this, would allow for lots more information, at the cost of having to use a scroll bar to scroll down a bit once in a while. Howering over task forces would display aggregate information, while double clicking on them would expand the task force as separate lines in the report. It would also make it easy to move ships between task forces, either by drag and drop, or by right clicking and selecting the "Move to task force X" command.
Cheers
Hakon
Task Forces are next on my to-do list for form development, once I get NRD and NRS done..
Hakon, I really like and respect your ideas on game strategy, but for design of a player interface? Well[8|]. The horizontal presentation would be disaster in my opinion.
But keep giving me ideas, some of the best features in the game so far have come from forum members - not me. Although, of course, I do reserve the right to choose which ones to use.[:)]
For Task Forces I have already started building the Task Force Details and Task Force Summary forms to mimic the NRD and NRS forms closely. The big advantage in doing so is that once the player gets comfortable with one of these two sets of forms the other set will be understood easily.
The general idea is that you bring up a port/sea area section box/setup tray using the NRD form and a Task Force Form next to it. That is why I have gone to great lengths to make all 4 of these forms no larger than 1/2 a screen, so 2 of them can be displayed side by side. The player can then select units from the port/sea/area/setup tray to define a new task force, or select units from one or the other and then click on the Transfer Units button to move them from one to other. Note that the task force has to be in same the port/sea area section box/setup tray for the transfer to take place. This is purely an administrative mechanism and has zero to do with the rules of the game for moving units.
When you look at the map or review a port/sea area/sea area section, each task force will appear as a single counter - there is a separate bitmapped image for task force 'units'.
Then the player can "pick up" a task force and move it about the map. Task force definitions will remain in effect until the player disbands them, or unit losses reduce it to a single unit. They last from impulse to impulse and from turn to turn. That way moving TFs out to patrol and back to port should be easy.
TFs can have notes (plain text) attached to them by the player for his reference as to what the TF is suppose to do each turn. In that regard they are like any other unit in the game.
I do not intend to 'automate' the moving of units on the map based on 'instructions' stored with a unit. That falls into what I call "playing the game", rather than watching the computer move all your units around for you.
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But the way, I am avoiding drag and drop if possible. In my expereice it is hard to code so it is 'bullet-proof', and has great potential for bugs.
