Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The FRED Workshop => Topic started by: Ziame on December 14, 2008, 01:22:44 pm

Title: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: Ziame on December 14, 2008, 01:22:44 pm
Would it be possible to implement such thing as "Global Flag" (I mean, you click once and yawheeeee) for changing EVERY SHIP of for example GTF Hercules to MRF Hercules?

catch my drift? I was thinking about it, cause I change the names a lot, and when you have to rename 15 ships to something it's pretty nerving.
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: Mobius on December 14, 2008, 01:26:13 pm
I renamed countless ships in Sol: A History(FSCRP version) without any problems. :p

When you write a new Alt Name it's instantly stored in a list so that you won't have to rewrite it. This makes things a lot easier... :)
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: Black Wolf on December 14, 2008, 01:40:51 pm
It's a good idea, and probably could be done relatively easily, but the SCP's in a code freeze atm as I understand it, so little convenience stuff like this probably isn't going to get in (bugfixes only I believe).

You might have a better chance after the 3.6.10 release. Or kara or someone could come along and remind me that I don't really know what I'm talking about and do it anyway ;)
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: Mobius on December 14, 2008, 01:43:13 pm
How would you manage that, though? There usually are various ship classes and eventually factions to deal with...how would you properly set a global flag or something like that for it?
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: Black Wolf on December 14, 2008, 01:50:35 pm
It wouldn't need to be particularly clever like that. You would lay down 12 NTF Herc 1s in FRED, change the Alt name to NTF Hercules on one of them and then press a button. All Herc 1s in the mission then get the Alt Name NTF Hercules. If there are GTVA Hercs in the mission, then the FREDder can go manually change them back to GTF Hercules.
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: Ziame on December 14, 2008, 02:05:42 pm
Well the second option is that you can select a group of ships and change the alt name (now only one at a time) for example to Unknown
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: karajorma on December 14, 2008, 02:13:35 pm
Yeah. Axem just pointed out that you can't do that at the moment. I told him to stick it in Mantis since I'm fixing FRED bugs at the moment anyway.
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: Ziame on December 14, 2008, 02:33:28 pm
Sorry if it sounded like "Do it. NOW!"

I mean, I just thought about it so I posted, and I hope this idea shan't be forgotten
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: karajorma on December 14, 2008, 02:41:45 pm
I didn't take it as an order to do it now. I'm actually in a FRED fixing mood at the moment. If you check the nightly builds forum almost every single commit I've made in the last month has been FRED related.

If you can only alt_name one ship at a time that's either a design flaw (which might be hard to fix) or a silly error. If it's Mantis'd I'll look at it very soon and if it's the latter I can probably fix it very quickly. :)
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: Zacam on December 14, 2008, 02:45:12 pm
Make it adhere to a by-wing please.

Say you have a mission with Hercs and you have both GTwhatever and NTF, do you want them ALL to be NTF, or just the NTF ones?

It can parse the name from the "who is in this wing" list that is provided and Alt only those ships accordingly. Allow it to muti-select multiple wings, and just as good without as much mess.
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: Droid803 on December 14, 2008, 02:48:32 pm
Being able to change them in batch by selecting all of the ships that need to be changed is good enough for me. :nod:
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: karajorma on December 14, 2008, 02:48:50 pm
To be honest I'd rather just fix multi-selection. The ship/wing selection box should be enough to allow the FREDder to easily pick the ships he wants to rename. I see no reason to make complex formulas to decide who is in what wing when I can simply have the FREDder do that manually in seconds anyway. :)
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: karajorma on December 15, 2008, 10:11:14 am
I took a look at this and while it should be possible to do it the work involved definitely moves this from bug to feature. I'll make it a priority once 3.6.10 is out though as long as someone reminds me a few days after it is out. :)
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: Ziame on December 15, 2008, 01:11:53 pm
Well, now I am really happy. Thanks, sensei :)
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: shiv on December 15, 2008, 02:33:05 pm
Cool option. :yes: :yes: I suggest moving discussion about that to Source Code project board BTW ;)
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: Snail on December 15, 2008, 02:54:23 pm
Hmm. I had an idea.

Lots of mods such as FOW, are using the Alt Name feature for wingman callsigns (to keep track of who's who). In multiplayer, callsigns are displayed on the line underneath the distance and speed thing (where Cargo or Not Scanned/Scanned is sometimes shown). Could this also be done, in single player, through FRED? It would allow us to tell the player who his wingmen are without having to delete the ship class line.
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: karajorma on December 15, 2008, 02:58:38 pm
So how much did Goober pay you to say that. :p
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: shiv on December 15, 2008, 03:11:06 pm
Hmm. I had an idea.

Lots of mods such as FOW, are using the Alt Name feature for wingman callsigns (to keep track of who's who). In multiplayer, callsigns are displayed on the line underneath the distance and speed thing (where Cargo or Not Scanned/Scanned is sometimes shown). Could this also be done, in single player, through FRED? It would allow us to tell the player who his wingmen are without having to delete the ship class line.
I thought it is already implemented... :nervous:
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: karajorma on December 15, 2008, 03:23:44 pm
It is. And quite a few people aren't happy about it (http://scp.indiegames.us/mantis/view.php?id=1785).
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: Droid803 on December 15, 2008, 07:09:52 pm
Ugh, these Mantis links.
I can't ever look at them because it keeps telling me to log in, but I singed up for an account, and I never got a confirmation letter.
Is there anyway to make it so that you can at least browse the issues without logging in (like with a guest account or something)?
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: Black Wolf on December 16, 2008, 01:49:04 am
For the record, I love the new callsign feature and have already started integrating it into TI. Please don't take it out :)
Title: Re: Alt-Name Feature Proposal
Post by: Goober5000 on December 17, 2008, 07:24:12 pm
It won't be taken out. :)  I was trying to find a happy medium between the needs of WCS, Diaspora, BWO, and TI.  It's nearly there, and Tolwyn and I agreed on one more patch that should make everybody happy.