[Goober5000]

Oh.  Yeah, that's correct.

[Dragon]

I don't think so, it's the other way around. IIRC, you can't have a "scanned-unscanned" type of scanning, you have to set cargo to "scanned". I didn't checked that in a long time though.

[Goober5000]

Well, I guess I don't remember then.

[karajorma]

What the... That's seriously messed up.

Not really. What you're suggesting makes no sense. You want the ship and the subsystems to be scannable at the same time. Suppose I decide to target an unscanned destroyer when I am in range of one of its subsystems, which one should get scanned? Which result should be displayed?

[CaptJosh]

Kara, that's easy. The subsystem has to be targeted to be scanned. Thus, if you have no subsystems targeted at all, you scan the whole ship. If you have the subsystem in range targeted, you scan it.

[karajorma]

You do realise that makes no logical sense at all, right?

But nonetheless, this isn't going to ever stop being a tickbox.

[Goober5000]

^ Can we get a tooltip in FRED with that information in it? 

I've put it in the wiki.  Does that suffice?
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Minor_FRED_Features

[zookeeper]

What the... That's seriously messed up.

Not really. What you're suggesting makes no sense. You want the ship and the subsystems to be scannable at the same time. Suppose I decide to target an unscanned destroyer when I am in range of one of its subsystems, which one should get scanned? Which result should be displayed?

Ok, fine, it needs a checkbox to determine whether the ship or subsystems should be scannable, because otherwise you couldn't scan the ship if you have any subsystem targeted, and that would be annoying.

Still, the problem isn't so much the existence of a checkbox or two than a yet another case of stuff being hardcoded based on ship size and it being explained nowhere in the UI. All that's really needed is a single checkbox to determine whether to scan the ship or subsystems, and possibly another checkbox to disable scanning altogether (so that you can make unscannable cargo). The current way of reversing what the checkbox does based on ship size is very confusing and doesn't seem to really serve any useful purpose. If a sane default is wanted then it's the checkbox itself which should default to being on or off based on ship size, although even that seems unnecessary and prone to cause light confusion considering how rare subsystem scanning is.

[zookeeper]

^ Can we get a tooltip in FRED with that information in it? 

I've put it in the wiki.  Does that suffice?
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Minor_FRED_Features

Well, how does one get to that page when they have a problem with setting up scanning-related stuff? It's on a wiki page for "minor features" linked to only from Portal:FRED, so to me it seems pretty... undiscoverable.

Anyway, if my checkbox suggestion in the previous post is acceptable, then the box should be named something like "scan ship (on) or subsystems (off)" instead of "toggle subsystem scanning". Then all the information you need in order to understand the feature is right there.

[karajorma]

Again, doing that would break existing missions. Do you really want to field every single question from every single newbie who tells you that they've scanned the ship in question but the mission didn't continue?

[Trivial Psychic]

All I was asking about was A), allowing non-standard subsystem to be scannable, and B), allow scanned subsystems to display the cargo content when scanned (though admittedly I haven't tried this out on a transport class ship with subsystem scanning toggled on) using a checkbox next to the subsystem in the "initial status" menu to "display content when scanned" or something like that.

[Goober5000]

Still, the problem isn't so much the existence of a checkbox or two than a yet another case of stuff being hardcoded based on ship size and it being explained nowhere in the UI.

The problem is, that is dictated by FS2.  In the main FS2 campaign, you scan the Iceni (as a whole ship) and the Sathanas (as subsystems).  The cutoff threshold is defined as ship class size, and it just so happens that corvette classes and below use the scan-at-once behavior.  The UI has nothing to do with this.

The only thing that FRED does is add a checkbox to switch this behavior.  That's it.  And that's the simplest way this problem can be solved, because if we had a series of four option buttons to properly represent all four combinations (capital-at-once, capital-subsystems, corvette-at-once, corvette-subsystems) it would get very confusing very quickly.

You should also consider that you are the only person who has found this concept difficult to understand in the seven years since the feature was added.

All that's really needed is a single checkbox to determine whether to scan the ship or subsystems

Which is what we have...

and possibly another checkbox to disable scanning altogether (so that you can make unscannable cargo)

That's easy.  Just set the cargo to known and the cargo name to something like "Unable to Scan".  Or even set the cargo to unknown.  That's how it works in sm1-02 in FS2.

Well, how does one get to that page when they have a problem with setting up scanning-related stuff? It's on a wiki page for "minor features" linked to only from Portal:FRED, so to me it seems pretty... undiscoverable.

And this is a minor FRED feature.  Tell me, just where on the wiki is there a page specifically devoted to "setting up scanning-related stuff"?

All I was asking about was A), allowing non-standard subsystem to be scannable, and B), allow scanned subsystems to display the cargo content when scanned (though admittedly I haven't tried this out on a transport class ship with subsystem scanning toggled on) using a checkbox next to the subsystem in the "initial status" menu to "display content when scanned" or something like that.

a) I think this can be done pretty easily.  I've looked through the code and restricting the subsystems may simply be arbitrary.
b) This would require more work, although it can probably be tied to the existing "scannable" flag.

[zookeeper]

Still, the problem isn't so much the existence of a checkbox or two than a yet another case of stuff being hardcoded based on ship size and it being explained nowhere in the UI.

The problem is, that is dictated by FS2.  In the main FS2 campaign, you scan the Iceni (as a whole ship) and the Sathanas (as subsystems).  The cutoff threshold is defined as ship class size, and it just so happens that corvette classes and below use the scan-at-once behavior.  The UI has nothing to do with this.

The only thing that FRED does is add a checkbox to switch this behavior.  That's it.  And that's the simplest way this problem can be solved, because if we had a series of four option buttons to properly represent all four combinations (capital-at-once, capital-subsystems, corvette-at-once, corvette-subsystems) it would get very confusing very quickly.

Well, FRED could present a "scan ship or subsystems" checkbox to the user and still use the current behaviour behind the scenes by checking the size of the ship. If the user tells it to "scan ship" on a fighter, then it wouldn't set the "switch scanning behaviour flag" on that ship; if the user tells it to "scan ship" on a big ship, then it would.

Sure there might be a pitfall in there somewhere (like what happens if you change the ship class), but doesn't sound too utopistic to me.

Well, how does one get to that page when they have a problem with setting up scanning-related stuff? It's on a wiki page for "minor features" linked to only from Portal:FRED, so to me it seems pretty... undiscoverable.

And this is a minor FRED feature.  Tell me, just where on the wiki is there a page specifically devoted to "setting up scanning-related stuff"? [/quote]

Yes, precisely. What IMO warrants rolleyes is exactly the fact that something like how to set up scanning-related stuff with a GUI even warrants external explanation as opposed to being entirely self-evident. Note that I'm not blaming anyone in particular.

[karajorma]

Well, FRED could present a "scan ship or subsystems" checkbox to the user and still use the current behaviour behind the scenes by checking the size of the ship. If the user tells it to "scan ship" on a fighter, then it wouldn't set the "switch scanning behaviour flag" on that ship; if the user tells it to "scan ship" on a big ship, then it would.

Now that, is a good idea. Not certain how possible it might be to code (probably not too hard) but it does make sense from a GUI point of view at least.