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Author Topic: [Question] Craft equipment icons  (Read 1469 times)

Offline Juku121

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[Question] Craft equipment icons
« on: December 29, 2023, 10:26:57 am »
Is anybody else bothered that the equipment icons on the craft equip screen are relatively useless now that the 80-item limit is largely gone? And do said hypothetical bothered individuals have any idea what to do about that?

The obvious thing would be to scale the icons to 'maxItems' and 'maxStorageSpace' (the maximum of used via both if applicable, probably). But these interact badly with the 'Alternate loadout system' (Apoc-style soldier equipment), so not everyone is going to want those. If not, these indicators are mostly useful for showing HWPs. And given how HWPs have been migrating to becoming 4x4 soldiers, there might not be many or even any of those.

The only other idea I had would be to have more than one icon, and use it to indicate the corresponding soldier's encumbrance. E.g. a tiny icon for <25% weight limit/non-null item slots occupied; bigger ones for <50% and <75%, the full pile for 100%, an even bigger one for overload. But that's not too useful, either, and quite a bit of effort for not much payoff.



Should sleeping equipment piles just be left to lie, after all?
« Last Edit: December 29, 2023, 10:28:43 am by Juku121 »

Online Meridian

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Re: [Question] Craft equipment icons
« Reply #1 on: December 29, 2023, 10:50:59 am »
Yes, it is completely useless, but it also doesn't hurt.

If we want to replace it with something else, it should not be just another kind of useless.

- most mods don't use maxItems or maxStorageSpace, scaling against infinity would be quite useless
- even the mods, which use them, e.g. XCF, have a rather high limit, 999 I believe? scaling against that is also relatively useless, because many people (like me) never take anywhere close to that number... so instead of vanilla "always full", I would just see "always almost empty"

The most reasonable option could be "don't show anything at all" ? :)

Offline psavola

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Re: [Question] Craft equipment icons
« Reply #2 on: December 29, 2023, 11:08:47 am »
What could be marginally useful is displaying the total storage space of the equipment on board the craft somehow. There is currently no way to find out this information (AFAIK). This could be useful in particular when figuring out whether you can transfer a craft to another base and how much storage space is would be needed or used there.

One way to designate this would be displaying one equipment (or some other) symbol per 10 storage space, for example 9 symbols for total space of 80<x<=90 even if the GUI is not changed to show the numerical total storage space. (An alternative would a symbol for each 5 storage space.)

Offline Juku121

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Re: [Question] Craft equipment icons
« Reply #3 on: December 29, 2023, 12:46:33 pm »
XCF no longer uses 'maxItems' due to the Apoc-style inventory issue.

Otherwise, good points.

Psavola's idea seems somewhat useful, at least. Personally, I'd display one equipment icon at most, and craft storage/ used base storage / total base storage numbers.

One could also just do away with the equipment icons altogether and extend the soldier display, so that crafts with more than 22 soldiers can display everyone on board. Perhaps separating out large soldiers, 'soldier' HWPs and non-soldier HWPs on the 'equipment' and 'armour' lines.

Offline Alpha Centauri Bear

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Re: [Question] Craft equipment icons
« Reply #4 on: December 29, 2023, 02:45:20 pm »
Keep in mind that tank icons are also shown there and they are of different size than regular equipment. Thus shifting the bar and eating equipment icons.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: [Question] Craft equipment icons
« Reply #5 on: December 29, 2023, 02:54:50 pm »
The only relevant information which interests me is whether there are HWPs on board.

For mods with no HWPs, I'd be happy never seeing it again.

Offline Alpha Centauri Bear

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Re: [Question] Craft equipment icons
« Reply #6 on: December 29, 2023, 03:39:25 pm »
Agree.
Even crew icons are kind of redundant. Both crew and tanks are shown on the craft list.

Offline Juku121

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Re: [Question] Craft equipment icons
« Reply #7 on: December 29, 2023, 03:55:06 pm »
Yeah, my last idea was all about presenting only crew and HWPs, in a (hopefully) more concise manner. That is, removing all equipment icons except HWPs, and putting those and special soldiers/small HWPs on their own lines.

Vanilla crew icons are pretty reduntant, true. Mods that have a multitude of armours and use different icons for those armours do impart some important at-a-glance information, including who is going first and in what armour.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: [Question] Craft equipment icons
« Reply #8 on: December 29, 2023, 04:50:05 pm »
Agree.
Even crew icons are kind of redundant. Both crew and tanks are shown on the craft list.

Yeah, let's get rid of the UI, why don't we. :/