Home » MODDING HQ 1.13 » v1.13 General Development Talk » MANUAL Mobile Militia Restrictions
MANUAL Mobile Militia Restrictions[message #246500]
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Tue, 09 March 2010 03:45
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Headrock |
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Messages:1760
Registered:March 2006 Location: Jerusalem |
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After a couple of years of messing with Mobile Militia, it became apparent that a large majority of players simply weren't content even with the Dynamic Roaming Restrictions system I had set up. What bothers most players about Mobile Militia is that they never seem to be where they're supposed to. In fact, the original restrictions have probably put off players so much that they don't even bother trying to recruit Mobile Militia anymore, so HAM's many related features have gone unnoticed and unused.
To solve this problem once and for all, I have made one final addition to the Mobile Restrictions system:
Manual Mobile Militia Restrictions.
The idea behind this is to allow players to adjust the restrictions system IN-GAME, telling Mobiles where they can and cannot go. In fact, the idea is so simple that I really don't have much to explain beyond that, except how it actually works.
When Mobile Militia are allowed (with the appropriate INI setting, "ALLOW_MOBILE_MILITIA"), a new button appears within the row at the bottom of the Strategic Map. When this button is clicked, it functions sort of like the "Airspace" view button. It colors the Strategy Map in green and red tiles, showing where Militia can and cannot go.
Here's an example:
Here you can see that I'm using the Dynamic Restrictions system, and have taken over Drassen. The system immediately allows Mobile Militia to move through any of the green tiles.
While this allows militia to protect the outlying areas, it does have some setbacks - particularly that militia are generally stupid and they don't know where to be at any given time - they just roam more-or-less randomly throughout the entire green area. In previous HAM versions I made it so that they will try to block any enemy units from entering the green area, but that only happens if they are close enough. The player can basically only hope that Militia will be at the right place at the right time.
Also please note the button at the bottom. It's next to the Militia View button, and looks like a small picture of a flag.
Now comes the fun part. While this mode is turned on, the right mouse button can be used to flag sectors as "restricted". When one of the green sectors is right-clicked, it will change color to YELLOW.
Here's a screenshot of that:
HEre I've flagged some random sectors as restricted. Once I create some mobile militia, they will avoid entering the yellow areas at all costs. In fact, they will only enter a yellow sector if there's at least one merc there.
Note of course that red sectors are ALWAYS restricted, and you can't change their color. I'll get to that in a moment though.
What's good about this?
Lots of things!
Firstly, if you don't want militia roaming near the north side of Drassen, just turn all those sectors yellow!
You can use Yellow sectors to fence Militia groups in specific areas to make sure they guard them.
Secondly, this makes a huge difference with one of HAM's other features - Town/SAM reinforcements. If a Town/SAM sector is flagged yellow, the mobiles won't try to reinforce it. This allows the player to keep Mobiles and Garrisons separate until he decides that a sector should be reinforced. Then just flag it green to let the Mobiles move inside.
A great effect of that second benefit is that by manually deciding if reinforcements are allowed during play, it is now possible to train Mobile Militia FIRST. There should be plenty of situations where something like that is preferable to training Garrison Militia, and now you can do it. Flag the whole city yellow (to prevent them moving back in once trained) and let 'em rip. The mobiles will patrol the city as allowed, and will not enter it. You can then train a garrison whenever you feel it is necessary.
Combining this with Exploration restrictions
When the Exploration-based restriction system is turned on ("ALLOW_MILITIA_MOVEMENT_THROUGH_EXPLORED_SECTORS"), Mobiles can move into any sector that has already been visited by mercs. This sounds great at first, it allows Mobiles to patrol any areas which are, or at least WERE, under your control in the past. Effectively, patrolling your liberated territory. However, this quickly degenerates if you like your mercs to explore the wilderness, as Mobiles might end up patrolling the wrong areas.
With the Manual Restrictions System, you can now flag all unnecessary sectors YELLOW, thereby making sure that the Mobiles don't go to remove sectors just because they've been previously visited.
This combination is great for players who want their Mobiles to travel further out into the countryside, based on how far their mercs have gone, but not have the mobiles waste their strength patrolling strategically insignificant areas.
Combining this with NO Restrictions
Of course, this system also works when NO RESTRICTIONS are set ("RESTRICT_ROAMING = FALSE"). When restrictions are turned off, militia can go wherever they want (the whole map will be green). Then, the player has a completely free hand in deciding where and when Mobiles can travel. While this system requires some micromanagement (turning sectors green to let mobiles pass in some direction, then yellow to prevent them moving back), it allows players to send Militia to any part of the map as they desire. Great for players who want to coordinate assaults on enemy cities!
Future additions
I'm hoping to improve this system by tweaking the decision-making process that mobiles go through when they try to move. In particular, I want Mobiles to be able to move into Yellow sectors to attack enemies.
However, one major thing I want to do is to add a THIRD level to these manual restrictions.
This third level is called "No-Leave". When a sector is flagged as No-Leave, mobiles can enter it but cannot move out.
Why is this useful? Well, to create ROADBLOCKS, or to use Militia as static defenses in wilderness areas. Militia will reinforce the sector if they pass nearby, but the group in the sector will not attempt to leave it. They will stay there until allowed to leave, if at all!
I do need feedback on this particular point though, because I can't decide which COLOR to use for these no-leave sectors. Unfortunately, there are only two options: Cyan, or White. Let's have a poll about which one you guys think would be best.
Release date?
Unless you're completely clueless, you probably realize that this feature marks the beginning of a project I like to call "HAM 4" (temporary name).
HAM 4 is going to go to the next level - no longer will we have zipped releases. HAM is going to SVN, baby. For every few features I make, I will do a "RELEASE" version similar to what we have with 1.13. Users can log on to the SVN and download this release, update it automatically (just like 1.13), and stay updated with fixes as soon as they become available. This should, theoretically, make installation and update of HAM 4 a total breeze.
Of course, I'm still working on making that happen, so you're going to need to stay tuned. In the meanwhile, give feedback on the above, give more ideas, and keep breathing!
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Re: MANUAL Mobile Militia Restrictions[message #246580]
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Wed, 10 March 2010 02:21
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Headrock |
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Messages:1760
Registered:March 2006 Location: Jerusalem |
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I've gone and made a few screenshots. I'm afraid the colors are harder to work out when viewed on a white background, which is the case with most browsers, so please adjust your eyes to compensate.
Here are is the No-Leave sector layout (using CYAN color for No-Leave zones):
On the left it's a bit more cyan, on the right a bit more blue.
You can also see the system as it is being used:
- The yellow areas are forbidden for mobile militia, keeping them away from the rear wilderness sectors. The sectors of Drassen itself are also flagged Yellow to prevent mobiles from reinforcing the city. If we do get to a situation where the city's defenses are weakened, the appropriate sector can be set to green temporarily to allow mobile units to reinforce.
- The green areas show normal patrol routes. Militia will more freely back and forth between these sectors. This includes the SAM site, which we want reinforced whenever it has room for more militia.
- The blue areas are no-leave zones. Mobiles venturing into these areas will stay put. Passing mobile units can reinforce these sectors, but the unit in the sector cannot leave. This is similar to a garrison, except it's in the wilderness! I've flagged the Omerta Crossroads and the road to Alma this way. Also, Omerta itself is flagged this way, to keep Militia there at all times. However, you might notice that to get Mobiles into sector A9 it would first be necessary to flag A10 or B9 to green to allow Militia to enter the area.
P.S., the Militia Movement system now prefers moving into Blue zones if possible, to get them filled sooner. This is still based on a randomal role though, just more chance to move to an adjacent BLUE sector than an adjacent GREEN sector.
Right, now let's look at the GREY color scheme.
This looks a little bizarre, but it did give me a nice idea (see below).
In the meanwhile, with the GREY sectors it's actually much nicer when NO-ENTER zones are grey and NO-LEAVE zones are yellow, so let's see it in reverse:
This looks good to me, a little less colorful than the blue version but it has its own charm.
So please let me know which set-up you like the most, now that you've seen them.
FUN WITH COLORS
Once I saw what grey sectors look like in the game, I had an interesting idea for playing with the color scheme. This is unrelated to the Mobile Militia restrictions, but I guess it belongs here anyway.
The idea is to change the way the map looks in NORMAL viewing mode.
In vanilla JA2 and 1.13, unvisited sectors are colored darker than visited sectors. This is done by reducing their brightness, basically. There are several issues with this method, as it can be a little difficult to tell a visited sector that's naturally dark (like a Forest sector) from an unvisited sector.
And once I saw those grey sectors I thought "hey, they look a little like those aerial recon photographs". So I thought, why not use it for the map of arulco?
Here is the result of that experiment, in three different flavours:
As you can see, the map starts out completely devoid of color (instead of just darkened). It's a bit like viewing an aerial recon.
As we explore sectors, they become colorful, making it easier to recognize what's in them.
I like how this adds information (in the form of color) to the map as you explore. Also you can see that it's very easy to distinguish the visited sectors from the unvisited ones.
Personally, I like the last (brightest) option because it looks to me more like a photograph. Of course, the entire point is to get your opinions on the matter, so please let me know what you think of this idea.
P.S. this can be governed by an INI setting, or even an in-game options menu setting. Do you think either is required? And if so, which one is best?
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Re: MANUAL Mobile Militia Restrictions[message #246583]
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Wed, 10 March 2010 02:43
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Minty |
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Messages:110
Registered:July 2009 Location: UK |
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Looks like it's coming along very nicely so far, Headrock.
While I do agree with you that no-enter zones actually look better white/grey as opposed to yellow, I'm still of two minds as to having no-leave/garrison zones as yellow. Maybe it's because my own concept of BlueFor zones has become entrenched in my head, I don't know. But you've asked for opinions, and there it is.
As to the unexplored photo-recon map, I really like it. One of my must-have mods for STALKER is the recon-minimap mod, for the same reason. It's immediately obvious where you've explored, no matter how bright/dark the sector is.
The only possible issue I can see with that is that it's *possible* that some may become confused between grey no-go zones on the manual-militia overlay, and unexplored sectors in the normal overlay. But, as both overlays aren't going to be shown at the same time (Right?), it's just going to be a case of adjusting your brain for each overlay. One way to differentiate might be to use the darker recon-map option, as it contrasts more with the white/grey in the mobile militia overlay.
For your last request for feedback, externalisation is always good! Though it'd probably be better to throw it into the .ini, rather than have it as a menu-toggle?
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Sergeant
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Re: MANUAL Mobile Militia Restrictions[message #246588]
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Wed, 10 March 2010 06:49
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Headrock |
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Messages:1760
Registered:March 2006 Location: Jerusalem |
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Here's a set of screenies from later in the game (ok, with GABBI, but still ). With more area for militia to roam through, you can see how this system would be very useful.
Three color flavours again:
Also for Minty, here's a comparison between using Grey areas for NO-ENTER zones in Militia mode, and using Grey for the Normal View unexplored sectors:
Very different, I don't think the two can be confused easily.
Quote:the white color should be reserved perhaps for sectors that cannot be passed or garrisoned by militia alltogether. like sectors that are in control not by the enemy but by another neutral faction.
At the moment, unless the player hasn't set one (NO_ENTER zone), areas where Militia aren't allowed to go are governed by whichever restriction system is activated. In either case, they appear as RED on the map. As to restricting sectors based on factional control - you need to remember that the Strategic game doesn't track which sector belongs to whom. That's only known when a sector is loaded in TACTICAL mode. So what I THINK you're asking for is probably not possible at all, regardless of whether this visual cue system even exists.
Quote:maybe an increased contrast rework of the map would do the trick?
I'm afraid I don't know the palette system well enough to be able to control contrast. I could mock-up some images with photoshop... but unless I know how to make them happen, it's kind of a moot point.
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Re: MANUAL Mobile Militia Restrictions[message #246652]
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Wed, 10 March 2010 18:45
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Headrock |
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Messages:1760
Registered:March 2006 Location: Jerusalem |
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Quote:I like the grey version rather than the red version. Use ungreyed for known sectors, and yellow for no-go's in those areas which you have set.
I think you're confusing two things. The grey version above is showing the NORMAL VIEW MODE. Here's the real comparison. Vanilla JA2 on the left, new version on the right:
The only difference is the color of unvisited tiles.
However, I've also created a similar comparison between the use of RED and GREY for the Manual Mobile Restrictions View:
Unfortunately, it would not be a good idea to use grey for both types of displays, as that may end up confusing players. Or maybe not? They are mutually exclusive of course (pressing one button turns off the other button).
Quote:Is there a way to add one which attracts militia?
Yellow zones (NO_LEAVE) attract militia from adjacent sectors. Simply causing militia to gravitate toward a sector (from whereever they are) IS possible, the game currently does this with the queen's palace. However, I can't think of a good interface to control this. Currently, right-click is used to cycle between zone colors, but I can't use that because only one "magnet zone" should exist at any given time, and that's not compatible with a cycling system. I could do it if I had more buttons, but there's no space for them in 640x480 mode.
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Re: MANUAL Mobile Militia Restrictions[message #248166]
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Tue, 30 March 2010 17:46
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Horatio |
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Messages:8
Registered:March 2010 |
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One ini setting I'd love to see with this is to restrict training to just mobile troops.
I'd go with blue for no-leave, green for patrols, orange for merc-only, yellow for explored but restricted, and red for unexplored. I'd prefer green for no-leave and yellow for patrols, but since we can't distinguish between "friendly" and "hostile" explored sectors, I think yellow suits their uncertain status and higher risk. The idea here is for colours to be consistent with threat/presence, rather than a traffic light colour scheme (though it makes sense here from an "orders" perspective).
How about this? Green = no leave, yellow = patrol, orange = no enter, red = unexplored, desaturated blue = explored but restricted.
[Updated on: Tue, 30 March 2010 18:37] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Private
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Re: MANUAL Mobile Militia Restrictions[message #248412]
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Fri, 02 April 2010 22:59
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Headrock |
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Messages:1760
Registered:March 2006 Location: Jerusalem |
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There are a few problems with your above post:
A) Explored/unexplored sectors are largely irrelevant to Mobile Movement - except when Exploration-Based restrictions are in use, in which case there are no explored but non-patrolable sectors anyway. So displaying which sectors have been explored is not necessary, and may be confusing (esp. with all those colors...).
B) The screenshot above doesn't match what your color suggestion says. The orange sectors in the screenshot are supposed to be the no-leave zones, while the green ones are no-enter.
Quote:One ini setting I'd love to see with this is to restrict training to just mobile troops.
That is actually quite possible now that militia and mobile training have been fully separated.
And, even if an INI setting for this does become available in the future, there's a way to emulate it right now:
- Back up the file \Data-1.13\TableData\Map\FacilityTypes.xml
- Open the file in notepad
- Remove the tag whereever it appears, including the value and the closing tag .
If you're using the HAM 3.6 Settings Package, it's likely that the file you need to edit would be in DATA-HAM\TableData\Map\, so keep that in mind.
This will prevent training Town Militia completely, while still allowing mobile training.
If you want to keep those mobiles out of your cities, go into the INI file and change ALLOW_MOBILE_MILITIA_REINFORCE_TOWN_GARRISONS to FALSE. You can do the same with ALLOW_MOBILE_MILITIA_REINFORCE_SAM_GARRISONS, too.
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Re: MANUAL Mobile Militia Restrictions[message #315786]
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Thu, 28 February 2013 04:33
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Lord Leperman |
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Messages:31
Registered:February 2006 |
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Sadly, no dice. When I set RESTRICT_ROAMING to FALSE, all I get is a green map. Right clicking on any sector doesn't change the color.
When I set it to RESTRICT_ROAMING to TRUE, I also set ALLOW_MILITIA_MOVEMENT_THROUGH_EXPLORED_SECTORS to TRUE as well. All areas I've been to turned green, but still no way to change the color of those areas. Mobile militia behave as expected, traversing through green sectors, avoiding grey ones, and reinforcing towns under my control.
Anyway, my problem is right clicking on the map while the Mobile Militia Restrictions tab is up does nothing. The sector I right click won't change color at all. If I close the Militia Tab and keep the Restrictions tab up, only the inventory window pops up, and I don't know what's the cause of this .
EDIT: I'll try the latest SVN instead of the SCI right now, I'll report what happens.
EDIT 2: There we go, finally worked when using updated SVN.
[Updated on: Thu, 28 February 2013 06:35] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Private 1st Class
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