Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Mongoose on September 09, 2011, 06:12:37 pm

Title: Returning to Tech Room?
Post by: Mongoose on September 09, 2011, 06:12:37 pm
Playing through the fan-made missions included with Silent Threat the other day got me thinking about the menu behavior when one plays a single mission through the Tech Room, which goes all the way back to retail FS1.  When you go in to play a single mission, you have to click on the Tech Room, then click on the Missions button and wait for everything to load.  That's all well and good, but after you're finished the mission, you get booted back to the main menu, so you have to go through the same sequence of clicks to get to another mission.  As you can imagine, that gets pretty annoying if you're trying to play through several missions in a row.  I feel like it'd make much more sense for the game to return you to the Missions list after completing a mission, since odds are you're not going to be playing a single one in a sitting.  Is this behavior that could be altered code-side, or would it be a royal mess to do so?
Title: Re: Returning to Tech Room?
Post by: mjn.mixael on September 09, 2011, 06:35:16 pm
If it's possible, I support this.
Title: Re: Returning to Tech Room?
Post by: Goober5000 on September 11, 2011, 02:22:39 pm
Even if the game bumped you back to the tech room, you'd still have to wait for the mission list to load again.
Title: Re: Returning to Tech Room?
Post by: mjn.mixael on September 11, 2011, 02:27:42 pm
Hmmm, well I would expect that. I'd still prefer to be bumped back to the mission list.
Title: Re: Returning to Tech Room?
Post by: headdie on September 11, 2011, 03:05:19 pm
It would save navigating back as well as waiting to load the missions. 

Would an acceptable compromise be some sort of option when ending the mission to choose to go back to the main menu or the mission selection screen?
Title: Re: Returning to Tech Room?
Post by: sigtau on September 11, 2011, 03:08:16 pm
headdie, if we were to do that, where would we put that in the interface art since there isn't already a button for it?  At this stage, it's probably best picking whether or not you'd rather be dumped at the main menu or the techroom mission list.
Title: Re: Returning to Tech Room?
Post by: Dragon on September 11, 2011, 03:23:20 pm
Perhaps a launcher flag could be used for that.
Title: Re: Returning to Tech Room?
Post by: sigtau on September 11, 2011, 03:27:31 pm
I'd be for that, Dragon, except I remember one of the SCP guys saying they're trying to avoid launcher flags and focus more on table-based solutions for most problems (however, I don't see why a table would be more practical than a launcher flag).

I could be wrong, though, since I don't speak for them  :nervous:
Title: Re: Returning to Tech Room?
Post by: Mongoose on September 11, 2011, 03:38:07 pm
Even if the game bumped you back to the tech room, you'd still have to wait for the mission list to load again.
Yes, but waiting for one list to load is still better than clicking twice and waiting for the same list to load. :p
Title: Re: Returning to Tech Room?
Post by: Dragon on September 11, 2011, 03:43:32 pm
Table-based solutions are good in case of things that mods may depend on, like all the stuff under "gameplay" tab (though 3D radar should be left as flag, since IMHO, it's simply useless).
This is something that launcher flag would be adequate for, as it doesn't influence gameplay.
Title: Re: Returning to Tech Room?
Post by: mjn.mixael on September 11, 2011, 03:59:39 pm
Um.. more specifically, this whole idea doesn't affect gameplay. If there is someone who really prefers to be dumped back the the mainhall rather than the mission list.. then we can really talk commandline or table flag.

But really?.. Really? This should not be something that people seriously want the option to turn on or turn off. It's a streamline fix. One that makes sense and doesn't really impact anything. Also, going back to the mainhall from the mission list is much easier than going the other way. Just press ESC.

I'm trying to stress that this does not need the coding-work of 'modability'. More commandlines is generally a bad idea, IMO, anyway. Table based would work, but do we honestly need that for this little change?
Title: Re: Returning to Tech Room?
Post by: Nighteyes on September 11, 2011, 05:51:42 pm
"It's a streamline fix. One that makes sense and doesn't really impact anything."

this is exactly it, I'm all for this fix  :yes:
Title: Re: Returning to Tech Room?
Post by: chief1983 on September 11, 2011, 06:08:26 pm
Absolutely no to a command line option for this, sorry but that's kind of absurd.  I'm confused though, did anyone actually say they would rather be returned to the main hall after a single mission?  I mean it's not much either way, but it does seem more efficient using the proposed method and I can't really see why anyone wouldn't want it.  Someone would just have to make the code change is all.
Title: Re: Returning to Tech Room?
Post by: NeoKnight on September 11, 2011, 09:22:49 pm
Any volunteers?  :nervous:
Title: Re: Returning to Tech Room?
Post by: mjn.mixael on September 11, 2011, 09:56:33 pm
No one said they would want the option to return to the mainhall... but it seemed certain members were assuming that'd be the case by suggesting a commandline or table option to control this. Which is just obviously unnecessary overkill.
Title: Re: Returning to Tech Room?
Post by: Goober5000 on September 11, 2011, 11:15:51 pm
I believe all that needs to be done is to search for locations in the code where the GS_EVENT_MAIN_MENU is posted, and if they happen in non-campaign mission mode, change them to GS_EVENT_LOAD_MISSION_MENU.  But there are dozens of locations in the code where this appears, and not all of them have to do with loading, playing, or accepting missions, AND of the ones that do, not all of them should be changed.  Additionally, each change would need to be tested.

EDIT: I take that partially back -- it looks like you'd have to untangle GS_EVENT_END_GAME as well...