Question: How to enable the "Attack-Alert on Minimap" ?

[mictes]

How to enable the "Attack-Alert on Minimap" in GAE ?
Or is this feature actually not fully implanted ?

[wciow]

There is currently no "flare" feature in GAE that I know of.

If you mean off-screen attack notifications then these have been implemented since the recent 0.2.8 release.

To learn how to use them look here -> https://docs.megaglest.org/GAE/Guide and scroll down to where it say Off Screen Attack Notifications.

[daniel.santos]

Flare is a good idea.

[titi]

yes, I want it too  

[Idanwin]

Flares would be a good addition!

[modman]

How about little red circles that expand from the "epicenter" of the attacker position on the mimimap?  Kind of like submarine spotting sonar.

[daniel.santos]

wow, lots of support for this idea.  Would somebody create an enhancement bug in bugzilla for this please? (http://bugs.codemonger.org).

[Idanwin]

and there could be a hotkey to go to that place immediatly!

[hailstone]

I'm thinking this could be more generally classified as an event. Such as building is completed and so on.

[Idanwin]

Well yes, it has nearly the same effect (you can go there very fast).

[daniel.santos]

Yea, and the "flares" for events like building complete can be green or something.  I think we need lots of events, like harvesters telling you that they can't find any more resources (yellow flare), etc.

[mictes]

Sounds good.
But I think only the attack-flare should have sound.
I can imagine that all other will be very annoying ^^

[daniel.santos]

Sounds good.
But I think only the attack-flare should have sound.
I can imagine that all other will be very annoying ^^

Sound already implemented https://docs.megaglest.org/GAE/Faction_XML (search for "attack-notice").  Also, the trick is to make it useful AND not annoying.

[Idanwin]

Also a flare when a queue is done (you'll want to produce more units)
or maybe if there is only one unit left on queue?

[gameboy]

no, i think the queue should be shown on the ui.

[horusofoz]

How about a red flare or blip on the map for attacks/war events and a smaller green flare for all building completes/Unit production completes?

Oh and of course that single key shortcut to go straight to most recent event is a great idea I think. Another possible suggestion is an idle villager button like in Age of Empires. I don't know if this is possible using the tools Glest was built with but a very helpful feature nonetheless.

[daniel.santos]

Glest & GAE already have an "idle villager" button, it's "I".  That's kinda obscure info, but it works.  I've already discussed green flares for events like production completion, building completion, etc., and yellow for events like running out of resources, etc, as well as a button to go to last event (not sure exactly where that's discussed).  I can't remember what the other "yellow" events were too.

[horusofoz]

Sorry I emant to specify an "on screen" button thats can be clicked with the mouse.

[@kukac@]

Yellow: Maybe signal? It could be quite usable in team based multiplayer games. You just say attack, and give the yellow flash on the map that everyone (maybe only teammates?) can see.

[daniel.santos]

oooooh, good idea @kukac@!  So like an actual "Flare" command that shows a flare to other players on your team eh?  Also, somebody mentioned upping the max players and I'm on board with that too.  Unfortunately, max players is embedded in a few places, but it shouldn't be too hard to change, although it will effect the saved game format (specifically, the binary data of map exploration).

[modman]

Yes I was just about to post extra players as a suggestion!  This would make it so much more fun!  But you'd have to make changes to the map editor too, because no maps would support 5 players+ But that might be hard on a lot of video cards too.

[Omega]

I agree that extra players would be fun, but if how would it fit with the menu screens, maps, and stuff. I'm just not sure it can work without completely revamping the engine and its components.

[daniel.santos]

It wont require "completely revamping the engine", but it will require a significant number of changes. Example:

Code: [Select]

// If this is expanded, maintain SurfaceCell::read() and write()
assert(Tileset::objCount < 256);

// same as above
assert(GameConstants::maxPlayers == 4);My first thought is going to 8, but then I'm thinking 10 too.

[Omega]

I can't imagine a four on four or five on five game! That'd be sweet...

However, what I wonder is how screens like the custom game screen would look. Things would have to be changed to fit that many players.

[daniel.santos]

The whole thing will have to change.  We'll be entirely discarding the current UI and building new ones using some GUI component library (see hailstone's topic on it).  So all of those things will have to be re-written anyway.  After that, especially if well written, it's just a matter of increasing a number and the UI code renders more rows for player slots.