Matrix Games Forums

Borders - I would like to be able to see borders better. I'm using black and red (the most prominent) and it's still difficult to see - especially when the occasional hex or two is overrun behind me...

Map zoom - someone else mentioned it - my index finger is going mental with the zooming. 3 or 4 preset settings would be nice - one zoomed right in, another zoomed out to local area, a third zoomed out to a larger area, a fourth showing the entire front and a final one showing a much larger area.

Place names - very difficult to see - especially zoomed out. I'd like to see prominent towns and cities (key ones) with larger text when zoomed out. I'd also like to be able to press a hotkey (or a switchable mode) to put a background on them for easier viewing...and a final option to change the colour of the text (and the background if that was added). Also it's be nice if towns and cities with PP/VP were to be highlighted in zoomed out mode.

Apart from those things (so far) - great game

I have a Mod that increase the size of the text for units and reduces the clutter in the names.

Give me time to get it out of the archive, if I can.

@JD, Most of those things are possible to do with modding the files responsible for the map skin.

It would be difficult and can become messy if that would be possible to change from the game level, because what is very good for one skin might look awful for other skin.

The mouse wheel zooming issue is already on our plate to check.

True.

I'll look into modding then (unless Razz gets there first)

The most interesting for you are csv files within the skins folders.
Let me know if you will have specific questions

This came from Bleck during a 'wrath' discussion.
...from the appearance.csv file.

---

Line from appearance.csv describing text:
-177 ; 108 ; 0 ; 0 ; Arial ; 24 ; 50 ; 255 ; 255 ; 0 ; 0 ; 255 ; 0 ; Name Text Dst and Font
Meaning:
Left ; Top ; Width; Height ; FontName ; FontSize ; FontWeight ; TextColorR ; TextColorG ; TextColorB ; ShadowColorR ; ShadowColorG ; ShadowColorB ; Description of this line

Also this was better discussed in this thread, where 'cbelva' created a mod that changed units and text size when zoomed out.
With a good description of how he did it.

In the appearance.csv file, there is are 3 text lines. The 1st one relates to city names.(i'd better check this statement)
eg.
....
....
30;85;30;30; VP Icon Dst;;;;;;;;;
-77;35;320;20;Times New Roman;36;100;30;30;30;175;175;175;Name Text Dst and Font
50;106;30;30;Times New Roman;20;100;30;30;30;175;175;175;PP Amount Text Dst and Font
89;106;30;30;Times New Roman;20;100;180;0;0;175;175;175;VP Amount Text Dst and Font
0;0;0;0;Flag Rect;;;;;;;;;
18;18;130;130;Sprite Dst;Src is 166x166

I'll edit more to explain how you can change map text size as you zoom out. ie; as graphic zooms out, city text and sea zones can remain static.

On borders.
Yellow and black or white and black, are higher contrasts than red-black. Also in Road to Victory (from memory) you could adjust the border widths? Perhaps a code tweak into a .csv file, or a slider next to the colour choices could be put back in.

Hope this helps.

You'll also need to tweak the zoom level number.
#2;
70;Zoom level;;;;;;;;;;;;
starts at 200, then use smaller values to 0.
each preceeds the paragraph of code defined for that zoom level.

I know it would probably be easier just to post up an appearance.csv file with increasing text size, but customising on your own is more satisfying.

@doom.
Please leave mouse wheel zoom as is.
One of the strengths of this game is the playability at a wide range of zoom levels.
Fixed zoom points are very limiting. eg. Schwerpunkt's games have fixed zoom levels, and the shift between zooms is extreme, and not modifiable.

Agent, I'm not planning to implement the fixed zoom levels. What I wanted to do is to reduce the rounds of the mouse wheel.

pity. I think 4 or 5 hotkeys or buttons to zoom to certain levels would cover most required by a player (have a look (as someone suggested) at Distant Worlds) [:(]

But I agree that mouse wheel zoom should stay

Judge, D.W. has zoomable play at any level, exactly like Fury et.al.
Am I missing something here?
What Doom is saying is the number of middle button rolls may be reduced to achieve the same zoom effects. (I think?)

It does - but it also has buttons for "set" zoom.

I like the fidelity of the scrollable zoom - it's just a concern that adjusting the zoom on the wheel will either be not enough or take some of the fidelity away...it could be pulled off to be fine...it's a concern - that's all.

As I like the fidelity of the scroll wheel for zooming, I just think a better way would be to give set zooms and allow fine zooming (as now) with the scroll wheel.

I look forward to seeing it being implemented, pulled off and me being proved wrong though

lol - I thought you would be more worried by his statement as you asked for it to stay "as is" but it's going to be tweaked [:D]

Maybe a little ease in zooming in and out will be the knowledge that you can bind certain locations to the numbers on your keyboard.
press CTRL + number when any hex is selected, and the you can just get back to that location by simple pressing the number.
So you can easily jump over the whole front, or move from one to another in few seconds.

Not really because that only helps with jumping...and I'm fine with scrolling and using the jump map. That's not my issue. My main issue is the zoom just now.

Your suggestion will help with using it for locating places - but it's not ideal really.

I need to zoom out - get the big picture, zoom in some to see units and places, then zoom right in for attacks. There's at least 4 zoom levels I would like to have...all of which I find extremely useful to use when planning and executing.

I kind of feel I'm going round in circles here - so I'm dropping it now. The request was made.

The request has been accepted. We will see what can be done.

BTW, what kind of mouse you are using, I have got Logitech with Microgear, and if I will turn it off (in other words, change the wheel to slide), the map zooms in and out just with one move.

Dootrader, Agent S

Any chance that post with the information could be made as a sticky - it's very helpful with understanding what the values are in the CSV files

I've already got it, but perhaps it could be in a sticky in Mods sub forumfor others to access?

Oh - and thank you very much Agent S for the explanation.

Can I ask, were you part of the team?

ORIGINAL: Agent S

This came from Bleck during a 'wrath' discussion.
...from the appearance.csv file.

---

Line from appearance.csv describing text:
-177 ; 108 ; 0 ; 0 ; Arial ; 24 ; 50 ; 255 ; 255 ; 0 ; 0 ; 255 ; 0 ; Name Text Dst and Font
Meaning:
Left ; Top ; Width; Height ; FontName ; FontSize ; FontWeight ; TextColorR ; TextColorG ; TextColorB ; ShadowColorR ; ShadowColorG ; ShadowColorB ; Description of this line

Thank you Anget S. How do I decipher color numbers into actual colors? I would like the city names to be in yellow. What numbers should I use? [&:]

Basically you can create any colour from a combination of Red, Green, and Blue (hence the abbreviation RGB)

0 means a lack of that colour, and 255 is the strongest intensity. so 255,0,0 will be pure Red.

For Black...you have 0,0,0

for White, you combine all the colours equally strong 255,255,255

for dark Grey to light Grey, you use the same number for each.... 128,128,128 being mid grey.

There are some standard numbers for common colours...for example type RGB yellow in google and many sites will pop up.

Increase the height size of the battle reports window.

It is currently about 350 pixels in height; an increase of 100 to 125 pixels in height should reduce the requirement to scroll down to see all the battle information from about 95% of the time to less than 10%.

For example, in this simple attack on one unit versus one unit, you have to scroll down to see the rest of the defender's report: