Housekeeping Suggestions

[JJeffreyDonahue]

1) When naval units are stopping in a sea area, the deployment screen does not display the sea area. It should, to help prevent dropping units in the wrong sea area by accident.

2) I suggest that there be a way to disable the selectable air units screen that pops up as well as the map views list. I don't like popups generally and almost never use the map views list. I will use the selectable air units screen sometimes but I prefer to find selectable units by using the units in game screen and checking selectable.

3) Units in the selectable air units screen should display the map location of each unit.

4) Selectable units that appear in the units in game screen should be selectable from that screen.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: JJeffreyDonahue

1) When naval units are stopping in a sea area, the deployment screen does not display the sea area. It should, to help prevent dropping units in the wrong sea area by accident.

2) I suggest that there be a way to disable the selectable air units screen that pops up as well as the map views list. I don't like popups generally and almost never use the map views list. I will use the selectable air units screen sometimes but I prefer to find selectable units by using the units in game screen and checking selectable.

3) Units in the selectable air units screen should display the map location of each unit.

4) Selectable units that appear in the units in game screen should be selectable from that screen.

1 - It does - at the top of the form.

2 - You have control over that. See Players Manual vol 2, page 205ff.

3 - See Players Manual vol 2, page 102ff. It doesn't show the hex location for the unit in text, but left clicking to the right of the unit does center the map on the unit's hex. The unit should be on the top of the stack since it is selectable.

4 - They are. See Players Manual vol 1, page 250ff

[JJeffreyDonahue]

1 - It does - at the top of the form.

At the top of my screens is says "Choose Sea Section Box" and nothing more.

2 - You have control over that. See Players Manual vol 2, page 205ff.

I am not sure what you mean here. The reference you gave is for a part of the manual that requires manual, detailed programming of game functions. I don't know how to do that and even if I did would not be comfortable with it. What I am looking for here is a toggle on/off menu selection item. In other words you do the game programming, just let the players decide whether or not they want to use the function by selecting it through a menu item.

3 - See Players Manual vol 2, page 102ff. It doesn't show the hex location for the unit in text, but left clicking to the right of the unit does center the map on the unit's hex. The unit should be on the top of the stack since it is selectable.

It should show the unit location automatically. This would be easy enough to program since the game has to know where the unit is in order to display it. Having to toggle something to find out were a unit is located requires an extra step which wastes time. This game is barely playable to begin with, largely due to the amount of time I have to waste on convoy routing. I will have a discussion about that in a future post. All I am trying to do here is speed things up. The Unit Review Screen has this function; I don't see why the selectable aircraft screen doesn't.

4 - They are. See Players Manual vol 1, page 250ff

I read this. The Unit Review Screen allows me to select a unit to examine, but not to move. Sorry I was not more clear about what I was requesting.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: JJeffreyDonahue

1 - It does - at the top of the form.

At the top of my screens is says "Choose Sea Section Box" and nothing more.

2 - You have control over that. See Players Manual vol 2, page 205ff.

I am not sure what you mean here. The reference you gave is for a part of the manual that requires manual, detailed programming of game functions. I don't know how to do that and even if I did would not be comfortable with it. What I am looking for here is a toggle on/off menu selection item. In other words you do the game programming, just let the players decide whether or not they want to use the function by selecting it through a menu item.

3 - See Players Manual vol 2, page 102ff. It doesn't show the hex location for the unit in text, but left clicking to the right of the unit does center the map on the unit's hex. The unit should be on the top of the stack since it is selectable.

It should show the unit location automatically. This would be easy enough to program since the game has to know where the unit is in order to display it. Having to toggle something to find out were a unit is located requires an extra step which wastes time. This game is barely playable to begin with, largely due to the amount of time I have to waste on convoy routing. I will have a discussion about that in a future post. All I am trying to do here is speed things up. The Unit Review Screen has this function; I don't see why the selectable aircraft screen doesn't.

4 - They are. See Players Manual vol 1, page 250ff

I read this. The Unit Review Screen allows me to select a unit to examine, but not to move. Sorry I was not more clear about what I was requesting.

1 - You are correct. Somewhere along the way the sea area name was lost. It worked before, as shown in the Players Manual. It was obviously easy to fix.

2 - You can remove the Screen Layouts list and the Map Views list using the small x in the upper right corner of those forms. To make the removal 'permanent', you need to Redefine the Screen Layouts list. A drop down menu appears when you right click on either of those lists, which lets you Save/Restore/Rename/Redefine them.

The reference I made to the Players Manual details that the Screen Layouts list file (SLY file) contains a lot of information about where you want various forms to appear on the screen. Or not appear at all. The Screen Layouts List and Map Views list are just a couple of the dozen or so that you can reposition and then have appear where you want them every time you fire up the game.

3 - Yes of course, it is easy to code. But that would require more space. The form would double (or more) in width to show that additional information. Many players are using monitors that are 1024 pixels wide by 768 pixels high. Making the Selectable Units form wider would eat into the the players ability to view the Detailed Map. For all the forms in the game I had to decide how big they could be without overwhelming the Detailed Map. To find the location of a unit just left click to the right of the unit (in the white space), and the Detailed Map centers on that unit. Most of the time that is better information as to where the unit is located, since, for example, USSR (54, 56) can be rather thin information on the unit's location.

4 - The Unit Review screen is not intended to be used for selecting units to move. It has the more general purpose of finding out where units are. In fact, it is used primarily to check on unit positions, rather than to then immediately move a unit. If you double click on the unit in this form, the Detailed Map will (after closing the form) center on the unit. You can then click on it to select it for movement. This form (like most forms) is maximum size 1024 by 768. For players using a single small monitor, using it to select units to move would mean having the Detailed Map completely hidden from view. The Selectable Units form was created expressly to avoid this problem.

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Finding which naval units to move can be difficult, since there are a ton of them and they tend to be scattered all over the world map. The Naval Units Review Summary and Naval Units Review Details were created to make that task easier.