Sneak Peeks, Coming Attractions, Works-In-Progress Redux

[Crossroads]

This looks really good. Thanks for the newest improvement, and for picking up the baton.

Thank you, benpark!

[MarechalJoffre]

Quick question, I recently reinstalled CSVN to play the 1.31 Beta. Now that the official update is out, should I remove everything and install again? Or would official update simply override the Beta just fine?

[Crossroads]

Quick question, I recently reinstalled CSVN to play the 1.31 Beta. Now that the official update is out, should I remove everything and install again? Or would official update simply override the Beta just fine?

Yes, it should be fine to install the official 1.31.02 update over the public beta. The latest update version is always cumulative, including everything added since the first full installer.

In this case, it is worth mentioning that the official 1.31.02 update contains a few new features added after the 1.31.00 public beta, such as the fix for the PBEM replay bug during night turns.

[Crossroads]

--snip--

So what better task to get into MFC than our long-time wishlist item: a new front end.

Now that the new front end is in pretty good shape, and continuing with my new adventures in Campaign Series UX, I’ve moved on to the in-game dialogs. I’m not going to touch them all, but some definitely need some TLC.

I started with the dialog for selecting the sides and rules, the first thing you see after choosing a scenario from the front end. Interestingly, there are three variations of how this dialog plays out, and they’re all a bit different

Let’s begin with starting a new scenario against the computer opponent. The dialog pictured below is pretty straightforward, don’t you think? You select your side, then pick the side the computer will play. Do you want Fog of War on or off? And wait, can I have the computer play both sides here? (Yes, you can.) Then there’s the Advantage slider, which basically adjusts the Combat Resolution Table modifier for or against your side.

To access the Optional Rules, you have to click the Rules button. Even more straightforward UX there: just a list of rules with no explanations. Where’s that manual when you need it...

computer_newscenario.jpg (61.73 KiB) Viewed 419 times

Starting a Play by Email game with your friend? You’ll encounter a different dialog. It’s similar, but when you look closely, there are some key differences. First off, you have to accept the First Player side when starting a PBEM—the other side button is disabled, but there’s no tooltip to explain why. Also, this is where you now pick the basic Fog of War. And the Advantage slider? We’ve covered that already.

Then there are the optional rules. Since they’ve been added over time, you need to know that Enhanced Fog of War requires basic Fog of War to be selected first. And for Enhanced Reporting? Enhanced FOW needs to be active. In the screenshot here, basic Fog of War isn’t selected, ... not good.

Could be made more user friendly, right.

computer_choose.jpg (54.4 KiB) Viewed 419 times

[Crossroads]

... but we're not done yet. Hot Seat? It takes you directly to Optional Rules dialog, as the side must be the first side, and Fog of War needs to be always on. Here we go, to have the screen shot here as well. This is how the game welcomes you:

OptRules.jpg (33.34 KiB) Viewed 418 times

How about a new dialog that combines everything? Something like this: Everything is now available in one place, with Fog of War options grouped as radio buttons, as they should be. Optional rules have their own section, neatly organized in alphabetical order. Also, it suggests the First Side as default, you don't have to remember that anymore.

SetUpNewScenario.jpg (58.95 KiB) Viewed 328 times

[Crossroads]

Starting a Play by Email game with your friend? You’ll encounter a different dialog. It’s similar, but when you look closely, there are some key differences. First off, you have to accept the First Player side when starting a PBEM—the other side button is disabled, but there’s no tooltip to explain why.

Tooltips added to all selections. So in case you were wondering as why Side B is default this time, hover over it to reveal the dynamic tip there.

Also: Help button now opens the manual at Optional Rules chapter for more information. And there is a tooltip to inform you of that, too.

SetUpNewScenario_tooltips.jpg (64.36 KiB) Viewed 327 times

[Crossroads]

And wait, can I have the computer play both sides here? (Yes, you can.) Then there’s the Advantage slider, which basically adjusts the Combat Resolution Table modifier for or against your side.

As it was, you could have the computer play both sides, but it still required manually clicking through various dialogs to close them. Did you know: Berto designed a neat command line parameter setup to trigger other play modes as well, as he explained in his AI-vs-AI AAR/CSEE scripting and testing blog. T for TestTrialPlay mode, right?

To be precise, that's one of the two autonomous game modes. TesteTrialPlay allows the game to pause, giving you time to study what's happening in the scenario. There's also ContinuousAIPlay, which is better suited for Computer-vs-Computer fun. You can activate it using the -C command line option, like this: ./vnengine.exe -W -6 -C VN_550921_Rung_Sat.scn (see his post for details on the other parameters).

It already works with the current game versions out there. But since it’s a mode of its own, how about adding the option to invoke it directly from the (new work-in-progress) frontend?

CSVN_Launch autoplay.jpg (429.04 KiB) Viewed 416 times

[Crossroads]

As the autumn rains arrive (always a good excuse to stay indoors at your computer) I'm thinking about reworking a couple of other dialogs: the Units/Losses/SPs casualty report dialog, and on the opposite end of things, the Victory status dialog.

Additionally, and this will take a bit of time to complete, I'm considering a comprehensive, tabbed dialog for all the Options in the Options menu, making everything visible in one place, with tooltips to explain each setting.

What else would you like to see improved?

[Crossroads]

Tooltips added to all selections. Also: Help button now opens the manual at Optional Rules chapter for more information. And there is a tooltip to inform you of that, too.

There was a finite number of Help buttons in the game so I have now tweaked them all to open the proper game manual page. In case I missed anything, they now open the Table of Contents page if no page number provided.

About the SumatraPDF reader supplied by the game: I don't recall which View options are on when used for the first time, but it saves the preferences, so if you like me prefer to have the Bookmarks (ToC) always ON, and not to have Continuous pages but browse up and down a page at a time, it stores the preferences in the Manual folder (meaning if you have both Vietnam and Middle East, you need to do this once for each game). It is possible to view manual on Book view as well, both pages open at the same time, but I prefer this view.

Little things, this is what this UX iteration for the late fall 1.40 update is all about. This one is quite nifty though, like when seeing the Objectives list, it is very easy to open the manual to see how each objective type behaves.

PS What Help buttons originally did was they opened a WinHelp booklet. And if you remember what those are (Iike I do), then you are Officially Old (like I am, ha!).

help.jpg (589.08 KiB) Viewed 359 times

[Crossroads]

What else would you like to see improved?

^ reminder

[kodab89]

1. Option for a fullscreen; currently I'm using borderless gaming, however each new save has a new window name.

2. Option to have autosave after each turn? Good for learning

3. Separate window dialog for a turn summary; damage log with filtering options

[Crossroads]

Thank you, those are neat ideas!

1. Option for a fullscreen; currently I'm using borderless gaming, however each new save has a new window name.

That's right, the game defaults to Windowed view. You can actually launch it at fullscreen mode from command line:

This is the default, "'W" for windowed view: ./vnengine.exe -W VN_550921_Rung_Sat.scn. This should work, then: ./vnengine.exe VN_550921_Rung_Sat.scn

But now that you mentioned this, I will add this option to new front end game launch window.

2. Option to have autosave after each turn? Good for learning

I think this is already available from the Options menu?

3. Separate window dialog for a turn summary; damage log with filtering options

I am working currently on a new SITREP dialog, combining the old Strength and Victory dialogs there. Maybe that would work for you. Stay tuned, I should have initial screenshots soon to post here.

[kodab89]

Thanks for the reply!

This is the default, "'W" for windowed view: ./vnengine.exe -W VN_550921_Rung_Sat.scn. This should work, then: ./vnengine.exe VN_550921_Rung_Sat.scn

Huh, it worked, thanks. Would it at least be possible to have it as a shortcut modifier? Since reloading any save goes by default to windowed.

2. Option to have autosave after each turn? Good for learning


I think this is already available from the Options menu?

I'm afarid not, I have all auto-save options checked and it just saves last 3 turns, see below:

Screenshot 2024-09-01 094454.png (29.46 KiB) Viewed 252 times

This proves tedious If I'm trying to experiment with various moves, because the name gets eventually altered to eg. test OLDER OLDEST. I'd be nice to have eg. test TURN10, even if it eventually changes to test TURN 10 TURN 10

Some other suggestions:

• Option to use WASD for scrolling instead of arrows

• Do not recenter view after turn end/ before turn start; so that it gets back to the same view the turn ended

• Smooth zoom instead of preset zoom levels, more zoom increments? Don't know if that's posssible

• Option to check whether particular scenario has any event points, like max points to be earned. Or should I conclude it from the scenario description?

• Despite the fact that enhanced FOG is turned off I cannot see ambush chances, however I have enhanced spotting turn on (apparently with eFOG as a prerequsite unchecked

• Initial game start/edit scenario window changes size when I start the game and after I exit it

• With the adventage/ disadventage slider to have some dynamic info what is it actually changing? For now I don't know what certain increment converts to. The manual is quite vague on this

[Crossroads]

Thanks for the ideas! To make a few points, quickly:

• I will add the non-windowed scenario start to front end as I mentioned earlier. I am not sure how much coding it would need to keep the option on when opening saves or starting new games without going back to frontend. I might not have the time to look at this for a while.

• Ah, you meant you would like the game to save every turn, not just rotate two previous turns with OLDER and OLDEST. Gotcha. I will keep this in mind, although OLDER/OLDEST features in many places in code, for instance not displaying when looking for save files. In the interim, yes, you would need to save manually at end of each turn before ending it.

• Map zoom views are not programmed but physical with a large set of graphics for each zoom view. So no fixing that.

• Thanks for all the other comments as well!

[Crossroads]

Meanwhile, moving on with my quick iteration of in-game dialogs. Next stop: The Strength Dialog (Units, SPs, Losses) and the Victory Dialog.

Here are our old friends as they currently are implemented, with Enhanced Reporting optional rule on, meaning many of the details are obscured. Without that, also the opponent details would be available at the same level as friendly rows.

Room for improvement? I think so.

spslosses_victory.jpg (137.05 KiB) Viewed 218 times

[Crossroads]

Both dialogs will be deprecated in the next version. Instead, say hello to the new SITREP dialog! It's available via the Status menu or with the F3 hotkey.

This dialog features three tabs, including a new addition: Force Status. By popular demand (from us included), we now have a report on men and equipment, not just strength points and unit counts.

Note that this information is displayed even if Enhanced Reporting is selected. Similar to starting a scenario with the new frontend, which details the number of units on the map and the scenario size (whether it’s companies, battalions, brigades), what we have here is a SITREP from your HQ and their intelligence officer.

It’s not an exact science, as the game doesn’t inherently categorize platoon data this way, but it’s mostly possible to figure out the unit type correctly. For the infantry tally, I’ve simply used a formula of five men to one SP (i.e., half a squad). This should be good enough. For all other categories, the numbers represent individual systems and their crews—so one tank equals one tank and its crew, one helicopter equals one helicopter and its crew, and so on.

Quite neat! Personally, I’ve been hoping for something like this for a while.

sitrep_category.jpg (186.44 KiB) Viewed 178 times

[Crossroads]

And here's the new Strength Report tab. I kept the existing Enhanced Reporting logic, meaning it only displays units that have taken losses. Any other units that you haven’t engaged yet remain a mystery.

Note the "Light Arms Unit" here, just like how they’re displayed in the current Strength dialog. But now, if you visit the Force Status tab, you’ll see the Infantry category showing (new) losses. It’s not perfect, but it’s at least something useful from those slackers in Intel Section!

Otherwise, I aimed to keep the relevant strength information accessible, both for SPs and for points. The point tally is similar to the Force Status tab, but here it’s broken down by each unit type. Looking at this, I actually added the SP information to unit name in braces, so there is that too.

sitrep_strength.jpg (163.71 KiB) Viewed 215 times

[Crossroads]

And finally, the old Victory dialog has now become the Mission Status tab in the SITREP dialog, too.

Not much has changed here. I made use of the available space, shuffled things around slightly, and added a new summary level for points per side before displaying the total.

Is there anything else you’d like to see here? I couldn’t immediately think of anything more...

sitrep_victory.jpg (100.89 KiB) Viewed 214 times

[Crossroads]

Is there anything else you’d like to see here? I couldn’t immediately think of anything more...

Actually, looking at this now, I could make the Mission Status side-aware. One issue with the current implementation is that it always reports the victory status from Side A's point of view, if I remember correctly.

So, if you’re playing as Side B, it should say "Side B Minor Victory" instead of "Side A Minor Defeat," right?

Edit: No, it doesn’t report the end result from Side A's perspective, but rather from the First Player's perspective. Come to think of it, what can be really confusing is that Victory Levels are compared to the First Side, which can be tricky if you’re playing as Side A against a computer-controlled Side B who goes first. Hmm...

[Plodder]

And finally, the old Victory dialog has now become the Mission Status tab in the SITREP dialog, too.

Not much has changed here. I made use of the available space, shuffled things around slightly, and added a new summary level for points per side before displaying the total.

Is there anything else you’d like to see here? I couldn’t immediately think of anything more...


sitrep_victory.jpg

Is there any need/legacy issue that you're still using the indented Windows 98-style form boxes? Could you just use flat labels instead? It would look a lot cleaner and modern, imo.