Resource transfer improvements

posted on March 8th, 2012, 4:01 am

Problem (minor): When trying to trade resources, it takes too long and it involves a dialog box that takes you "out of the game".

Suggestion: When clicking on an ally's starbase, one's tri/di/supply numbers (top left of screen) would become clickable buttons that would give 100 of di or tri (depending on which was clicked) or 10 of supply (if the supply number/button was clicked).

Alternatively, there could be a small button beside the resources when selecting an ally's starbase.


This way, on teamspeak, this would play out like this.
"I need 500 di"
"What color are you?"
"Red"



done - giver hits spacebar to get back into his action, or clicks on mini-map, or taps number for his/her control group

just a thought

posted on March 8th, 2012, 4:15 am

Agreed that having a faster way to transfer supply would be nice. Maybe have it were all 8 colors are under your supply so that when you wanna do the transfer you could click the color then click which ever supply you want to transfer. 

posted on March 8th, 2012, 8:45 am

My suggestion. Resource transfer should be more realistic.

Convoy of miners from one base to another, trade stations and stuff. If I want to give resources, I will send them with my miners/ships to friendly mining station or main base, or you can come to my station for resources.

The easiest way to do that wld be to build friendly mining station or something near friendly base.

That would give totally different dimension to the game.

posted on March 8th, 2012, 9:31 am

This way, on teamspeak, this would play out like this.
"I need 500 di"
"What color are you?"
"Red"



done - giver hits spacebar to get back into his action, or clicks on mini-map, or taps number for his/her control group

And current steps:
"I need 500 di"
"What color are you?"
"Red"






Problems i see in your suggestion though:
- you can't share ressources to multiple allies easily
- you're forced to move your attention away from the fleet (no hearing anymore)
- you need to look for ally main base / buildings
- especially in large games your ally often has no base left - what now?
> sometimes a rom just needs some ressources for refits, or a borg has some uplinks hidden, with enough CCs for a cube, or one mate wants to rebuild with his lonely constructor, and so on.

Agreed that having a faster way to transfer supply would be nice. Maybe have it were all 8 colors are under your supply so that when you wanna do the transfer you could click the color then click which ever supply you want to transfer. 

So i don't get you wrong: like having the (usually) 1-3 ally colors (names) under each ressource (top left of the screen), and you just directly click on it?

posted on March 8th, 2012, 11:02 am

maybe we could have keyboard shortcuts for this.

push F2 to give dil, F3 for tri, F4 for supply. then the players/allies are listed by number (like in map editor) and you can push their number to give them 100 of the resource. tab would exit give mode.

other than that maybe clicking on your resource counter would quickly open up the comm menu for giving.

posted on March 8th, 2012, 3:35 pm

maybe we could have keyboard shortcuts for this.

push F2 to give dil, F3 for tri, F4 for supply. then the players/allies are listed by number (like in map editor) and you can push their number to give them 100 of the resource. tab would exit give mode.

other than that maybe clicking on your resource counter would quickly open up the comm menu for giving.

This, definitely.  Well, this in addition to the current system so players who don't like hotkeys can still transfer res.

What I would like to see most, though, is the ability to move players around in the lobby and an auto-sort button that moves one team to the top and the other to the bottom, with a secondary sort by position.  Some maps would need their start positions changed to work correctly, but having everybody lined up the way you want would make transferring resources take a few seconds less and that's really the goal, isn't it?

posted on March 8th, 2012, 3:54 pm

This, definitely.  Well, this in addition to the current system so players who don't like hotkeys can still transfer res.

agreed, the current system shouldn't be removed unless necessary.

What I would like to see most, though, is the ability to move players around in the lobby and an auto-sort button that moves one team to the top and the other to the bottom, with a secondary sort by position.  Some maps would need their start positions changed to work correctly, but having everybody lined up the way you want would make transferring resources take a few seconds less and that's really the goal, isn't it?

i like this.

why would maps need starting positions changed if all we are doing is changing the order that the players are listed in the lobby/comm menu. their positions aren't being changed on the actual map. the only thing i can think of as a problem is how the game decides which positions are with which team. but simple grouping based on team number should be problem free.

posted on March 9th, 2012, 12:20 am

So i don't get you wrong: like having the (usually) 1-3 ally colors (names) under each ressource (top left of the screen), and you just directly click on it?
[/quote]

@beserene Yea under your supply hud have allied colors in which you could click the color and it would just highlight is somehow and click which ever supply you would like to transfer. You dont click on your supply any other time so you wouldnt have to worry about accidentally transfering supplies cause you didnt switch it back to yourself or something. Nice easy and right in front of you.

posted on March 11th, 2012, 3:17 am

No offense to op, but...
basically i would (gameplay wise) prefer the solution by Tanner_Rosso.
Easy to handle, and very intuitive, if we get some hotkeys (as mentioned by Myles), maybe even better.

Question is: is it currently (and easily) possibly with the (more or less) hard coded A2 engine?

posted on March 11th, 2012, 3:42 am

Question is: is it currently (and easily) possibly with the (more or less) hard coded A2 engine?

More or less an open statement to all posters on the forums: as I like to say, don't worry about these parts. It's not a question of possibility, but of time, and either way not important for suggesting great ideas

posted on March 11th, 2012, 3:46 am

Understood like you said just throwing my 2cents in. I think this upcoming patch is got everyone in the edge of there seats though 

posted on March 11th, 2012, 5:40 pm

Not that i really dislike the current ressource trading, but Tanners idea would really improve a lot 

posted on March 12th, 2012, 11:45 pm

Totally agree with Tanner on this one, maybe a small portrait of each team members avatar outlined in their color that you click to "activate" the resource giving option, then just click on the resource of yours to give, and just set it into 150-200 per click and maybe 50 per click for supply.