Make actions as commander more contextual.
kingmob
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 3650Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 3650Members, Constellation
Comments
The right click (held down) contextual menu would offer different options depending on what was rightclicked, rightclicking a marine would allow for dropping medpacks/ammo on that marine, or select him as a defendee for all the other marines to get a hud marker for etc. Same would apply for structures, say perhaps have all the upgrades/research options available from this context menu, so you rightclick an advanced arms lab and you get all the research options available right there in the menu, just as if you had clicked the structure and selected the research in the lower right corner.
Rather than that, have a radial menu. So it's basically a 'drag and drop' as the original right click was (for a soldier) in NS1. If there're just those four settings, then you could have it N, E, S, W (by the compass); or NE, SE, SW, NW (which I prefer for some reason). More than four and things do start to get cluttered and confusing though.
Of course, if you just click rather than drag, the radial menu will disappear instantly and it'll go with the default.
And yeah, about 0.5sec hold-down to bring up the menu.
Doesn't need any radial stuff.
Yeah I was thinking this too, but for the other things...
When having already selected a unit, and you want to give it an order (with a further click), you could use a radial menu.
Default (click without drag) would be 'move to this location' - or if you've clicked another unit it'd be whatever the default context is: repair this, build this, follow this unit, etc. Basically all the things that the OP was talking about when it came to making the commander actions more contextual.
The radial menu (click and drag) would be for situations where you have a variety of options like 'move to this location', 'guard this location', 'follow this unit' etc. The radial menu is just to make things happen quicker and with less clicks (and a good commander will get faster at it), and works if you've only got a small number of options - which of course would also be contextual.
The only benefit I can see with having a right-click menu for multiple options is that it's more familiar (and thus easier to learn) to a new player.
However, a start-up tutorial screen (upon login) can very quickly convey the way that radial menus should be used and orders are given in this game.
What you could have, though, is a compromise/combination of the two - basically what you started out with in NS1. If you rightclick (and there is more than one option for an action) then it'd pop up a radial menu, then you could click/rightclick your option. But you're also given the option to rightclick-and-drag to make things quicker and more streamlined - and a commander tooltip will notify you of this option if you ever care to use it. The only problem with this is that your default option isn't going to register instantly(as it would with my original radial menu idea) because it'd have brought up a menu. Maybe you could add double-clicks for that default option...
Also, have the cursor change according to the default contextual option (as it does in any RTS), but for situations with more than one option, have a little "+" in the corner of the cursor to indicate this.
Wow, explaining all that in text is a little confusing. Pictures would have been better.