Holodeck UI improvements

Post Reply
modjo
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:28 pm

Holodeck UI improvements

Post by modjo »

Hey,

First I'm new to the forums and I tried searching for something like that to avoid duplicate posts but the search doesn't work on words like squad, etc.. not great. Sorry in advance if this has already be suggested somewhere else.

1. When an infiltration mission hits 100% the time will pause (or rather slow back down to normal) but there is no visual indication that some trigger has happened. It would be good to have a popup or focus on the infiltration mission that prompted the slow.

2. When reviewing a squad for an infiltration mission, there is no indication of which mission each soldier is infilitrating in. Soldiers in the same squad may be infilitrating on different missions, making it impossible to remember how many soldiers are infilitrating a specific mission before launching. It should be possible to identify exactly which soldiers are infiltrating on a specific mission.

3. Sometimes you plan to leave the infiltration run over 100% on purpose but there is no way to stop the clock at specific (125,150) thresholds to launch the mission. It would be nice it the clock paused on those thresholds as well for convenience.

4. When you check an infiltration you can see how long there is until the mission expires but there is no indication of how long the squad has been infiltrating. This means there is not way of retrieve how far the infiltration pct will run until the mission expires. It would be nice to have that information available, either directly or indirectly (by providing squad infiltration time).


My last suggestion is not really UI related but is it possible to make the time completely stop in the holodeck? I find it very stressful that time keeps ticking, also I believe that time will tick when doing squad management from the holodeck but it won't when doing it from the armoury. I might be wrong on that but it seems unfair.
Kharneth
Posts: 37
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 9:28 pm

Re: Holodeck UI improvements

Post by Kharneth »

For 2 you can use the button "see squad" in the mission screen. Any member actually infiltrating and temporary members added for this particular mission appears as an icon with a yellow mark under the squad name
Steve-O
Posts: 124
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2017 8:00 pm

Re: Holodeck UI improvements

Post by Steve-O »

modjo wrote: 1. When an infiltration mission hits 100% the time will pause (or rather slow back down to normal) but there is no visual indication that some trigger has happened. It would be good to have a popup or focus on the infiltration mission that prompted the slow.
I agree, this would be nice. So far, I've been able to deal anyway, but as a QoL it would be neat.
modjo wrote: 3. Sometimes you plan to leave the infiltration run over 100% on purpose but there is no way to stop the clock at specific (125,150) thresholds to launch the mission. It would be nice it the clock paused on those thresholds as well for convenience.

4. When you check an infiltration you can see how long there is until the mission expires but there is no indication of how long the squad has been infiltrating. This means there is not way of retrieve how far the infiltration pct will run until the mission expires. It would be nice to have that information available, either directly or indirectly (by providing squad infiltration time).
I dunno about these ones, though. If I let a mission run past 100% infil, it's usually because I want to get 200% (or as high as possible), so I just wait it out. The time will slow down and a pop up will appear when the mission reaches 0h, and at that point I can see how high the infiltration got. If it's still not high enough, I use Boost Infiltration immediately before launching.

I don't see any reason to Boost before I'm launching the mission - it doesn't cost anything to wait and see.

And, honestly, there are enough interruptions to fast-forwarding time as it is, without adding pauses at every 25% above 100% for every mission I have going.
nmkaplan
Posts: 207
Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2017 5:14 pm

Re: Holodeck UI improvements

Post by nmkaplan »

Yeah I had a similar question. What is it you want to accomplish at a certain infiltration percentage?

You usually either want to run the mission at as high infiltration as possible, or you need the soldiers back for a different mission. Most reasons that you'd have for wanting to infiltrate before max are events that also stop the clock, yes?
seananigans
Posts: 88
Joined: Tue Feb 07, 2017 3:03 pm

Re: Holodeck UI improvements

Post by seananigans »

Er, well, the breakpoints past 100 are 125, 150, and 200. Anything in between does you zero good. I can certainly see why someone might want to be notified when a mission hits those breakpoints. That said, having it be an option would obviously be ideal, whether it's a global toggle or a per-active-mission toggle. Ultimately a very minor QoL issue though, considering all of the other more major QoL issues (like the aforementioned having a notification of WHAT exactly stopped your Geo scanning).
modjo
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:28 pm

Re: Holodeck UI improvements

Post by modjo »

nmkaplan wrote:Yeah I had a similar question. What is it you want to accomplish at a certain infiltration percentage?

You usually either want to run the mission at as high infiltration as possible, or you need the soldiers back for a different mission. Most reasons that you'd have for wanting to infiltrate before max are events that also stop the clock, yes?
Running infiltration to 200% is only useful for missions that have a baseline activity of light-moderate or above
For example there is no point running infiltration past 125% on a baseline very light mission, for more details see this spreadsheet.
If for some reason the best you can do is for example, 137%, anything between 125 and 137 is time wasted for your squad.
The sooner your guys are back home, the sooner their wounds will heal and the sooner they will be available in case of emergency, which becomes very important when you're juggling with a small roster.
Jacke
Posts: 623
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 1:10 am

Re: Holodeck UI improvements

Post by Jacke »

modjo wrote:Running infiltration to 200% is only useful for missions that have a baseline activity of light-moderate or above
For example there is no point running infiltration past 125% on a baseline very light mission, for more details see this spreadsheet.
If for some reason the best you can do is for example, 137%, anything between 125 and 137 is time wasted for your squad.
The sooner your guys are back home, the sooner their wounds will heal and the sooner they will be available in case of emergency, which becomes very important when you're juggling with a small roster.
I believe the infiltration percentages at which enemy activity transitions happen are slightly random. As well, I believe even when at Extremely Light, increasing infiltration will reduce the range at whch ADVENT will spot concealed soldiers.
modjo
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:28 pm

Re: Holodeck UI improvements

Post by modjo »

Jacke wrote:I believe the infiltration percentages at which enemy activity transitions happen are slightly random. As well, I believe even when at Extremely Light, increasing infiltration will reduce the range at whch ADVENT will spot concealed soldiers.
Ha that's good to know thanks
Jacke
Posts: 623
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 1:10 am

Re: Holodeck UI improvements

Post by Jacke »

It's more than just a reduction of spotting range over the infiltration value that gives minimal enemy activity. The range at which ADVENT beasties spot concealed soldiers varies over the whole range of infiltration. Part of what makes things harder at lower infiltration is that it's harder for XCOM to stay concealed.
chrisb
Pavonis Dev
Posts: 364
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2017 8:43 pm

Re: Holodeck UI improvements

Post by chrisb »

Doubling up on what Jacke said, the 'breakpoints' are not discrete. It's very common that I will check the mission every 2-3% after 100% to see if I hit the 125% breakpoint early.

For controlling time on the geoscape you can use the console command `slomo`. Values < 1 will slow down the game clock in the geo. Typically I will slomo 0.1-0.2 when I'm fishing for the 125 breakpoint to get alert status from Normal to Vulnerable which gives basically 1 tile radius reduction in detection range. At least it seems that way most of the time.

The side effect of using slomo < 1 is that when you click on missions, the animation to zoom in and such will also be much slower. And if you leave the geo you'll see lots of stuff animating in slow motion as well, such as the research lab. Kind of interesting to try it out in different areas as you can see almost frame by frame (at slomo 0.05 say).

Also values geater than 1 will speed up the game. This works wonders in tactical. Be careful with values greater than 1.5 as you can easily crash the game. I have this happen at slomo 2+. Slomo 1.4 is good for stealth type missions or missions that have a long alien turn as it speeds them up as well, especially the slow as snot zombies.
dstar3k
Posts: 91
Joined: Sun Jan 15, 2017 4:11 am

Re: Holodeck UI improvements

Post by dstar3k »

chrisb wrote:Doubling up on what Jacke said, the 'breakpoints' are not discrete. It's very common that I will check the mission every 2-3% after 100% to see if I hit the 125% breakpoint early.

For controlling time on the geoscape you can use the console command `slomo`. Values < 1 will slow down the game clock in the geo. Typically I will slomo 0.1-0.2 when I'm fishing for the 125 breakpoint to get alert status from Normal to Vulnerable which gives basically 1 tile radius reduction in detection range. At least it seems that way most of the time.
According to ufopedia, the detection radius scales linearly, rather than having set breakpoints. In fact, the only thing that has a 125% breakpoint is enemy strength; the reduction in evac delay doesn't come until 150%.

I hadn't realized that until just now, but if you've only got three soldiers, enemy strength is already at extremely light, you're playing at anything less than Legendary, and you're at 150% infiltration, the only thing you get from further infiltration is an additional 1/12 reduction in detection radius (200% is 1/6, so 150% is half of that).

I'm playing on rookie, because I don't have my wife to help me out since she's going through chemoradiation at the moment, so there's literally no reason for me to go above 100% except the detection radius if I've only got a three man squad.

Maybe rewards should be modified based on infiltration, with _different_ breakpoints from the enemy strength breakpoints, so that theres always a good reason to infiltrate further.
wobuffet
Posts: 92
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 3:09 am

Re: Holodeck UI improvements

Post by wobuffet »

modjo wrote:1. When an infiltration mission hits 100% the time will pause (or rather slow back down to normal) but there is no visual indication that some trigger has happened. It would be good to have a popup or focus on the infiltration mission that prompted the slow.
It might be easier to code this as "any mission at 100% or over is shown with a yellow border".

Even better,
"any mission with 100%-equivalent (wherever the breakpoint is rolled) vulnerability is yellow;
any mission with 125%-equivalent, orange;
150%, red;
200%, bright red".
modjo
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:28 pm

Re: Holodeck UI improvements

Post by modjo »

Is there a way to see notifications in the geoscape? Stuff like x got recruited somewhere. These notifications usually happen in bunch but only last for a couple of seconds, most of the time by the time I notice them they're already vanishing and I have no way of checking what just happened. Very frustrating.
wobuffet
Posts: 92
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 3:09 am

Re: Holodeck UI improvements

Post by wobuffet »

modjo wrote:Is there a way to see notifications in the geoscape? Stuff like x got recruited somewhere. These notifications usually happen in bunch but only last for a couple of seconds, most of the time by the time I notice them they're already vanishing and I have no way of checking what just happened. Very frustrating.
Maybe someone knows of an *.ini edit to make the messages last longer? and/or to display more of them at once...
Zyxpsilon
Posts: 274
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2017 1:26 am

Re: Holodeck UI improvements

Post by Zyxpsilon »

RE; Notifications help...

I've (at least partially) solved that issue with my qUIck_LW2 mod simply by editing the related message strings straight off the LW_Overhaul.INT file starting on line #495 like this;

----------------------
[LWRebelJob_DefaultJobSet]
strRebelRecruited="<font color='#339900' size='28'>%UNIT <font color='#EFEFEF' size='26'>recruited to Haven in %REGION</font>"
strSoldierRecruited="<font color='#3399FF' size='28'>%UNIT <font color='#EFEFEF' size='26'>contacted in %REGION and is now available for recruitment</font>"
strStaffRecruited="<font color='#BF0000' size='28'>%TITLE <font color='#3399FF'>%UNIT <font color='#EFEFEF' size='26'>recruited from %REGION</font>"
----------------------

The bigger Fonts (28 or White 26) puts the whole notification area in much better focus while different colors give hints on what these messages implicate. Of course my GeoscApps mod and its set of custom Region Logos help even further as they give an easy way to identify the corresponding "Havens" too.

I'd have to agree that a true "Pause On Recruit" option (for the GeoScape context) should be added to the usual LW-Toolbox settings.
Post Reply