Automatically enter vehicle orders

[Dickrich]

Hello,

and at first a very big THANKS for improving that game over and over again!

I had the following situation in the game, which lead to my current idea:

On the one end of the map is a oil refinery, on the other end a lot of oil rigs. Now, all ships go around half of the map to deliver the oil. I know that ships can share orders (great idea!), but what annoyed me is that for every new oil rig that appeared, I had to click every single buoy on the long way again and again. And on a large map, this can be a lot. And the same on the way back for the ships.

My suggestion: If I order a vehicle to go to a specific buoy (or waypoint for trains, e.g.), than other orders are entered into the vehicles Orders automatically. The orders to be entered automatically can be defined in the buoy window. So:
1. I build a buoy
2. Open its window and rename it to 'Go To Oil Refinery and Back'.
3. Enter the new feature, named e.g. 'Buoy Orders'
4. Click all of the following buoys once, creating a list of orders that every vehicle automatically travels when it is ordered to this buoy.
5. I can order each vehicle to that buoy and the complete orders on the way to and back from the oil refinery are entered automatically in the vehicles orders.

Shared orders would not help here, as the ships only share part of the route (e.g. a canal), but not their final destinations.

I hope I could make it clear, otherwise please ask.

I would like to read your comments.

All the best and enjoy the weekend,

Dickrich

[Transportman]

Hello,

and at first a very big THANKS for improving that game over and over again!

I had the following situation in the game, which lead to my current idea:

On the one end of the map is a oil refinery, on the other end a lot of oil rigs. Now, all ships go around half of the map to deliver the oil. I know that ships can share orders (great idea!), but what annoyed me is that for every new oil rig that appeared, I had to click every single buoy on the long way again and again. And on a large map, this can be a lot. And the same on the way back for the ships.

My suggestion: If I order a vehicle to go to a specific buoy (or waypoint for trains, e.g.), than other orders are entered into the vehicles Orders automatically. The orders to be entered automatically can be defined in the buoy window. So:
1. I build a buoy
2. Open its window and rename it to 'Go To Oil Refinery and Back'.
3. Enter the new feature, named e.g. 'Buoy Orders'
4. Click all of the following buoys once, creating a list of orders that every vehicle automatically travels when it is ordered to this buoy.
5. I can order each vehicle to that buoy and the complete orders on the way to and back from the oil refinery are entered automatically in the vehicles orders.

Shared orders would not help here, as the ships only share part of the route (e.g. a canal), but not their final destinations.

I hope I could make it clear, otherwise please ask.

I would like to read your comments.

All the best and enjoy the weekend,

Dickrich

Don't share their orders, but copy them, so it has the same orders without sharing them. This can be done by copying the vehicle in the depot or by clicking another ship when setting up orders to copy those orders. Then you can delete the Oil Rig from the original orders and replace it with the new Oil Rig.

[Alberth]

On the one end of the map is a oil refinery, on the other end a lot of oil rigs. Now, all ships go around half of the map to deliver the oil. I know that ships can share orders (great idea!), but what annoyed me is that for every new oil rig that appeared, I had to click every single buoy on the long way again and again. And on a large map, this can be a lot. And the same on the way back for the ships.

Why not copy the orders (instead of selecting a station/bouy/dock, select a vehicle *without* pressing ctrl), and edit them a bit?

[planetmaker]

On the one end of the map is a oil refinery, on the other end a lot of oil rigs. Now, all ships go around half of the map to deliver the oil.(...)

What I do in these cases: I transfer all the oil to one of the oil rigs. Thus most ships only travel short routes and the service to the oil rigs migth also be better. And from this one selected oil rig I run a fleet of oil tankers which all share the same orders, thus bouys only need to be assigned once.

Cheers,
pm

[Jacko]

well thats a great idea but i just link them up with a train line

[Dickrich]

Hello,

sorry for the late reply, have been busy studying and calming my little one...

Thanks for the ideas, however, I would see the following advantages:

- I have a large network for trains that is shared by every train running on the map, and all trains deliver coal to a certain station. Now the trains running to the west from there are supposed to leave on a certain route, whereas trains running east should leave on another. I think it's annoying to look for a train already running e.g. east, copying its orders, and then editing it. Especially when doing this again and again for the 20 coal mines waiting to be served.

- Imagine a situation where vehicles (may it be ships or trains) deliver to a station, and the vehicles run in a tree-like manner. I cannot simply take one train and edit its orders, but where a new leaf of the tree is served, I order the train to one waypoint and voila, it is ordered to return there automatically.

- It would also enable me to order trains just to a station and know that they go a certain way from there.

Maybe it's just me, but I think building up train orders by clicking a fixed location (i.e. waypoint) is much easier and less prone to mistakes than to look for the right vehicle to copy the orders from.

Chris

[Expresso]

A better suggestion:

You create a bunch of bouies. Then you open a gui to connect a bunch of bouies and/or stations including (optional) order flags. Now, a vehicle must work the chain of orders from its entry point in the list to the end and (optionally) back.

[Alberth]

You create a bunch of bouies. Then you open a gui to connect a bunch of bouies and/or stations including (optional) order flags. Now, a vehicle must work the chain of orders from its entry point in the list to the end and (optionally) back.

Like the current order gui, where you link to points to visit, (optionally) including what to do?

[Eddi]

there is a difference whether you need 30 clicks or 5 clicks to do that.

[Dickrich]

You create a bunch of bouies. Then you open a gui to connect a bunch of bouies and/or stations including (optional) order flags. Now, a vehicle must work the chain of orders from its entry point in the list to the end and (optionally) back.

Like the current order gui, where you link to points to visit, (optionally) including what to do?

You link the bouies once, and then can order a vehicle to a single buoy instead of clicking all of them. Would safe lots of clicks when having corridors in a large network.

Further idea: If you create a 'chain' of bouies, and send a vehicle to a buoy in the middle, only the rest of the chain is added to the orders.

[adf88]

Another idea: each time a player adds an order with ctrl+click, fill order list automatically with all required buoys to get to the destination.
I'm wondering how much CPU-consuming it would be. Anyway, it would happen only when creating order list. In multiplayer, the calculations could be done on the client side only.

[Expresso]

You create a bunch of bouies. Then you open a gui to connect a bunch of bouies and/or stations including (optional) order flags. Now, a vehicle must work the chain of orders from its entry point in the list to the end and (optionally) back.

Like the current order gui, where you link to points to visit, (optionally) including what to do?

Sort of, but the vehicle needs to be able to figure out where its entry point was. Otherwise such a feature would only be marginally useful.

Ok, it could still involve simply adding all the orders from the buoy to the vehicle's order list (not preferential, because if 1 buoy changes all those vehicles need to be edited, to prevent invalid orders), but it would still be nice if the player wasn't forced into unnecessary actions.

When you've got 80 vehicles, all of which have in part the same order list, you'll find yourself praying for such a feature.

[Simons Mith]

Just passing through, but a thought occurs:

Someone else has produced an 'invisible engine' NewGRF. If you could use a Ctrl-Shift click or something to add orders to an existing vehcile's order list, instead of replacing them as now, those engines could gain a second use. You'd need invisible ships, possibly an invisible go-anywhere vehicle, but there has been much discussion about order-sharing, creating order lists without having to associate them with a vehicle, etc. Maybe the invisble engine plus 'add to order list' is sufficient.

[FooBar]

Shift

Shift gives the costs of an action.

It would need major convincing for the devs to accept changing that behaviour, to even give this a chance of implementation, ever.

[Simons Mith]

As a general principle of UI design, I broadly agree with the use of the shift key in the game. With one exception: it is not good practice to indicate the cost of an action that never has a cost. In those areas - which are relatively rare but not non-existent - the current usage of the Shift key is wasted, and it could theoretically be repurposed. By and large I'd be happy for Shift to do one thing, Ctrl to do a second, Ctrl-Shift to do a third.

Shift-clicking indicating a cost makes perfect sense for the construction and purchase menus, and refitting. In those areas where costs do not apply - clicking on the minimap is another example - by default, it should not indicate 'Cost £0' - because that falsely implies that sometimes doing what you just did could have a cost - it should do nothing. If, in some area of the game, no costs can ever arise, then it might be legitimate to reuse the Shift key for some other function, provided you can give a logical and consistent framework for how it functions that works throughout that area of the game. So lots of caveats one would have to address before one could change it, but not a dogmatic insistence that 'Shift always indicates costs' even where there are never any costs to indicate.

Besides, it doesn't really matter how 'adding orders' is done, merely whether it's reasonably easy to implement - and I wouldn't want to see this discussion derailed over arguments about which key should trigger it. Especially not as my comment was just a passing idea. Please split if necessary.

[FooBar]

Oh, I don't mind shift doing something else in places where cost isn't relevant. I was just forwarding the dev's view on the matter

As for ctrl+shift: that combines what control and shift does. E.g. ctrl+click can remove a piece of track with the railway tool active. ctrl+shift+click in that case gives you the cost of removal. As for "cost 0" cases, I thing it would be better to do just nothing.


I didn't read the suggestions here very carefully, but maybe just an additional button is enough to avoid repurposing the shift key altogether. That would also make that function directly visible without having it hidden behind some key. IMO all game options should be accessible without having to press a modifier key.

But yes, let's not let this topic derail too much

[Rubidium]

Shift is used to see whether an action can succeed without actually executing it. As side effect it gives a cost estimation.

You can e.g. check whether you can add a particular order, think of buoys not being far enough apart without actually adding the order and sending vehicles to the wrong place for the short time between adding it and you being able to remove it, or whether the council allows you to build stations.

[adf88]

When talking about costless actions, testing if an action can success is a very rare case. Besides it gives you not much, such an action can be easily undone. So usability is = small². Shift could be soooo much more usable if used as action-specific modifier.

Lets take a closer look, these are costless commands:
CMD_RENAME_WAYPOINT, CMD_SEND_VEHICLE_TO_DEPOT, CMD_FORCE_TRAIN_PROCEED, CMD_REVERSE_TRAIN_DIRECTION, CMD_CLEAR_ORDER_BACKUP, CMD_MODIFY_ORDER, CMD_SKIP_TO_ORDER, CMD_DELETE_ORDER, CMD_INSERT_ORDER, CMD_CHANGE_SERVICE_INT, CMD_SET_COMPANY_MANAGER_FACE, CMD_SET_COMPANY_COLOUR, CMD_INCREASE_LOAN, CMD_DECREASE_LOAN, CMD_WANT_ENGINE_PREVIEW, CMD_RENAME_VEHICLE, CMD_RENAME_ENGINE, CMD_RENAME_COMPANY, CMD_RENAME_PRESIDENT, CMD_RENAME_STATION, CMD_RENAME_DEPOT, CMD_PLACE_SIGN, CMD_RENAME_SIGN, CMD_TURN_ROADVEH, CMD_PAUSE, CMD_BUY_SHARE_IN_COMPANY, CMD_SELL_SHARE_IN_COMPANY, CMD_BUY_COMANY, CMD_RENAME_TOWN, CMD_ORDER_REFIT, CMD_CLONE_ORDER, CMD_MONEY_CHEAT, CMD_COMPANY_CTRL, CMD_GIVE_MONEY, CMD_CHANGE_SETTING, CMD_CHANGE_COMPANY_SETTING, CMD_SET_AUTOREPLACE, CMD_START_STOP_VEHICLE, CMD_MASS_START_STOP, CMD_AUTOREPLACE_VEHICLE, CMD_CREATE_GROUP, CMD_DELETE_GROUP, CMD_RENAME_GROUP, CMD_ADD_VEHICLE_GROUP, CMD_ADD_SHARE_VEHICLE_GROUP, CMD_REMOVE_ALL_VEHICLES_GROUP, CMD_SET_GROUP_REPLACE_PROTECTION, CMD_MOVE_ORDER, CMD_CHANGE_TIMETABLE, CMD_SET_VEHICLE_ON_TIME, CMD_AUTOFILL_TIMETABLE, CMD_SET_TIMETABLE_START
Some of them will (almost) always success if the GUI lets them. I marked red all others.

In case of CMD_START_STOP_VEHICLE, CMD_TURN_ROADVEH, CMD_REVERSE_TRAIN_DIRECTION commands I don't see shift key usable at all. CMD_SEND_VEHICLE_TO_DEPOT can be easily undone, a double click on the "send to depot" button works like a test only; besides just testing if a vehicle can go to a depot without actually sending it is a very rare case.

So there left only two commands - CMD_INSERT_ORDER, CMD_COPY_ORDER. But again, just to test if we can add an order or copy orders is a very rare case. I can't remember if I did so at least once in my whole life (and I play TT games since TTD was released).