[killface]

I was wondering if anyone knows a way to bump up the number of squadrons tracked in the upper righthand corner of the HUD.  The limit seems to be 5, but I'm sure there was a mission in the main Freespace 2 campaign where there were maybe a dozen or so squadrons being tracked, and then a bunch of them blew up due to sabotage.  I searched for this topic, didn't see any posts on it.

Thanks all,

KILLFACE!!

[Dark Hunter]

Can the "Custom Wing Names" option do this?

Under the Mission Specs Editor is an area for custom wing names. It's there so you can put in wing names other than Alpha, Beta, etc. and still have them displayed in the Wingmates area. It *might* increase the number of visible wings, but I don't know.

Like, if you already had Alpha - Epsilon up there (which I believe is the max by default), and added Zeta as a custom, would it display Zeta as well?

[killface]

I'm familiar with renaming wings, but there's still only five available spots for tracking them regardless of the names used.  Once Alpha-Epsilon are up, no other wings placed in the mission show up on the tracking bar.  But I can't shake the feeling that there MUST be a way to track more than five wings, based on that mission I remember from the original game.

[Cobra]

Not if you can code. I don't think there's any other way besides screwing with the code to increase the number of displayed wings.

[Backslash]

Cobra is right, as far as I can see from the code it's hard-coded to 5.  Not promising anything here, but I'm messing with a bunch of related code at the moment... so how would you suggest it be done?  Just a straight bump?  What should be the (reasonable!) maximum number of wings displayed?

I don't remember the mission you mention... only one with sabotaging fighters I can think of is in the SOC loop where Snipes uses buggy detonators, and there weren't that many wings.

[karajorma]

Yep. He's thinking of Love the treason.... but here were only 5 wings in that mission.

[killface]

Only five wings in that mission, eh?  It must have just SEEMED like more, what with every rebel ship that survived instantly jumping on my ass  .  Thanks for the input, everybody.

[Arkangel]

5 wings is plenty to view.
Mayb they should have priorities though? Say you had 6 wings in a mission and Rho wing was just a lowly cadet wing it would therefore not be displayed in the HUD. But of Beta got destroyed then Rho replaces its spot.
I know that would be a hell of a ***** to code.

[karajorma]

Maybe, Maybe not.

It's not a bad idea actually but I think it's useful to know that Beta are dead.

[Mustang19]

That's what radio messages are for.

[Arkangel]

it would be self explanitory if they were no longer on the HUD

[karajorma]

True but the HUD display is meant to be used for very quick glances at who is alive. I know I rarely even bother to read the wing names when I do look at it.

[jr2]

Would it be possible to add an option for the mission designer to FRED in a second row of wings?
EDIT: And have the player able to toggle it on/off?

[Turey]

Would it be possible to add an option for the mission designer to FRED in a second row of wings?
EDIT: And have the player able to toggle it on/off?

Not enough room. The FS2 hud is packed.

[haloboy100]

Why would you want any mroe then 5 friendly squadrons?

Any more sounds like a BOE mission to me...

[jr2]

*snort*

[Arkangel]

Why would you want any mroe then 5 friendly squadrons?

Any more sounds like a BOE mission to me...

A massive strike against a Huge Capship? Without friendly capships of course.
But i agree, there are not many scenarios where more than 5 wings are necessary so would it really be worth the effort?

[haloboy100]

then again he could be using the BOE strategy used in SWXWA.

That is, split the mission into seperate "parts" or missions

[NGTM-1R]

Why would you want any mroe then 5 friendly squadrons?

'sports and frieghters can go into wings too. So can cruisers or corvettes even.

[WMCoolmon]

Rather than adding another wing, why not allow wings to be organized into squadrons and display the overall strength of those on the HUD? That would be good for aforementioned capship assault situations, as you could have a bomber squadron, fighter squadron, and intercept squadron (12+ wings!) but still only take up 3 wings' worth of space on the HUD.

Personally I think once you ask the player to pay attention to 20 different status indicators, you're not going to be getting his/her full and undivided attention anyway.