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2021, new steelbeasts version features


Grenny

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39 minutes ago, Marko said:

Thanks for posting.

The new feature is a very useful addition 

Well to be honest you could do it before (and hopefully can still do it) by manually selecting the units that form the "group".

 

This does however make it easier for the user as long as the scenario designer has made the the units part of the one Company to begin with, which in turn is helped by the "templates" feature.

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What wasn't shown is that if you zoom out far enough, icons of units that were grouped before will aggregate into a single icon, and that grouping and removal from group is easier now (simply multi-select platoons and then compose your task force through a context menu command, or select a single unit and disband it from a task force the same way. This streamlines the user interface considerably. You can even have platoon level task forces if you assemble a handful of disparate squads and vehicles for a special task.

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Also:

 

Create a road-bound route with column formation orders, and connect the task force icon to the start point of the route. The units will wait until the previous version has finished crossing throught that point before the next platoon follows, rather than all rushing to the start point at the same time. And after reaching the exit waypoint, they will restore the formation that they originally had without requiring special user input.

With absolute travel speeds set for the road-bound route you also guarantee that the convoy will travel as a whole body without anyone attempting to overtake a prior unit, thus, hopefully, creating fewer headaches in road management for human players.

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The reason why I don't use this feature, or see myself using the improved Ui in the future is because it only works effectively in areas that are WIDE open. 

 

Is there any plan to make group movements ONE path instead of x-amount (x=number of units) of separate paths? It is easier to just create separate routes for each unit. Or even easier, copy and paste routes. 

 

The current feature is not helpful (even with the UI constraints), and I don't see this being used often either. 

 

Edit - I would rather have the ability to use the 'Attach To' feature to consolidate platoons into companies. A 12-vehicle unit is actually easier to manage than 3x4 smaller units when it comes to waypoint/force management. 

Edited by Apocalypse 31
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6 hours ago, Apocalypse 31 said:

The reason why I don't use this feature, or see myself using the improved Ui in the future is because it only works effectively in areas that are WIDE open. 

 

Is there any plan to make group movements ONE path instead of x-amount (x=number of units) of separate paths? It is easier to just create separate routes for each unit. Or even easier, copy and paste routes.

Well, what you're describing is the long-term goal, and what we have here is a step towards it.

 

Besides, what this new UI component does is to automatically copy and paste the lead route, and to put every unit of a taskforce on Stay so you can adapt the individual paths before you give the order to move out.

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How about now.

We decided that the trusty ole green panel with two orange stripes Model 2003 deserved a bit of an overhaul. And while we were at it, why not add a few more. Which quickly got a bit out of hand:

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Before you ask, Bio, Gas and Nuclear are just for atmosphere. But you could use them to mark the edges of penalty zones, I suppose.

 

Each of these panels comes in three possible shapes, Diamond, Square, or Round. Which you can assign per party so that you may give a clue who placed a certain panel. And while we were at that, why not add an option to mark minefields with a fence?

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So, it could look like this:

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Or it could look like that:

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Which one is more dangerous?

Obviously, if you can have a fence around a minefield, you could just as well have a fence around, well, nothing, really. This opens up the possibility for a decoy minefield:

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For the party that owns the decoy minefield, it'll look like this:

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If you are NOT the party owning the decoy minefield, the map graphic will look like any other discovered mine obstacle. So you'll have to spend time to investigate whether this is real or not. And you might want to place additional warning signs at runtime, e.g. as a part of a reconnaissance force:

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Which will take about 30 seconds:

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Computer-controlled units will be affected just like human players. They will report a minefield if they discover the fence. Then someone will need to take a closer look. Until it has been investigated by engineers, everybody will treat it as a real minefield. Except, of course, for the party that owns the decoy. Their AI vehicles can easily drive through, in line formation at top speed, all guns blazing.

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We'll string out the updates a bit, please bear with us. There are a number of features that could potentially make it into the update, but we might just as well have to delay their introduction if they simply aren't mature yet. We only want to show stuff that is guaranteed to make it into the update, and that in part depends a bit on the beta testers' verdict and the ability of programmers to create last minute fixes.

 

We have, of course, an idea about the things that should make it in there, but at the end of the day this update will be free (despite the change in version number from 4.1 to 4.2) and by leaving the feature additions open until they are confirmed by QA allows us to be slightly more reliable with the release date, which should be mid-November...ish.

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