Configurable Loadouts

AaronMoore · Post by **AaronMoore** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 11:35 pm

Hey everyone,

I have been looking around for discussions on this topic, and the closest I could find was this one:
Default Scout Loadout

What are your thoughts on allowing multiple, named loadouts that can be configured from in game, such as:

The loadouts would be saved to an external file, but probably not be in a human readable format to avoid manual editing/invalid part IDs/cheat hacking etc.

I am not working on any personal projects at the moment, and I want to help contribute something useful...
Would I be wasting my time implementing this? I think it will be very handy.

Thoughts?

jaybird39 · Post by **jaybird39** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 11:50 pm

Aaron Moore wrote:QUOTE (Aaron Moore @ Oct 3 2009, 04:35 PM) Hey everyone,

I have been looking around for discussions on this topic, and the closest I could find was this one:
Default Scout Loadout

What are your thoughts on allowing multiple, named loadouts that can be configured from in game, such as:

The loadouts would be saved to an external file, but probably not be in a human readable format to avoid manual editing/invalid part IDs/cheat hacking etc.

I am not working on any personal projects at the moment, and I want to help contribute something useful...
Would I be wasting my time implementing this? I think it will be very handy.

Thoughts?

This has been brought up before. I asked about it myself.

That would require a major code change.

Here is my solution:

I got the autohotkey program, which automates mouse clicks and stuff. I made loadouts for all the factions, and use this regularly in game

KGJV · Post by **KGJV** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 12:44 am

AFAIR, some people want this, some people don't because they think 'time spent changing loadout' is part of Alleg gameplay.

Not sure it's worth the 'time to code' / benefit, they're other stuff with "higher" priority to do but whatever it's your time and Dev team policy is all about freedom anyway.

Just be ready to 'manage' our 'forum lawyers' and our 'wiki geniuses'

Broodwich · Post by **Broodwich** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 2:34 am

i am totally for this as far as being able to save custom loadouts for different craft. kage is just being paranoid as usual

TurkeyXIII · Post by **TurkeyXIII** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 7:41 am

Hey if you want to do it, awesome. An easier way to avoid hacking/cheating would be to make sure the game checks each part when the player selects the loadout... remember that all this is open source so if the game can read your loadout files, a third party program can too.

Good luck! I suspect you'll need it.

AaronMoore · Post by **AaronMoore** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:13 am

Thanks for your comments, guys!

SRM_Jaybird wrote:QUOTE (SRM_Jaybird @ Oct 4 2009, 12:50 AM) That would require a major code change.

Yes, I think it will be a nice challenge that will help me understand the code base better. How the interface ties into the other layers, what objects are available on the client, etc.

TurkeyXIII wrote:QUOTE (TurkeyXIII @ Oct 4 2009, 08:41 AM) An easier way to avoid hacking/cheating would be to make sure the game checks each part when the player selects the loadout...

Thanks, I'll look at checking each part and leaving the slot blank or reverting to the current default logic if it is invalid

madpeople · Post by **madpeople** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 10:52 am

I personally like it, It doesn't really need a UI change as you could use number keys instead (ctrl+1,2,3..9,0 to save, 1,2,3..9,0 to load)

Broodwich wrote:QUOTE (Broodwich @ Oct 4 2009, 03:34 AM) kage is just being paranoid as usual

with good reason though, devs shouldn't have to write stuff that won't get used, and when they write it, they shouldn't get flamed for it.

as for non-human readable format, just do it in whatever format is easiest to code, such pathetically simple hiding of data isn't the right way to ensure security.

deathgoat · Post by **deathgoat** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 3:00 pm

ive started a thread about this before, and think its a great idea..

gl!!!

AaronMoore · Post by **AaronMoore** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:03 pm

Thanks for your comments, guys.

I have been making progress with this. Using Madp's suggestion of Ctrl+[num] to save loadouts and [num] to load them up, as it is simpler without UI changes.
It seems to work well in simple cases, and saves the cached list to a core specific file in the allegiance directory.

I am running into problems when ship types are upgraded (scout -> adv scout) as the HullIDs are different, at the moment it's not applying the previous loadout...
Also, if I mount and dock new tech and save that in a loadout, reloading the tech works a bit like current allegiance logic when u loose access to the parts (it cant find the exact PartID avaliable, and loads a default... nan?)
I'm reusing the logic to restore the loadout (the same as currently when you confirm a loadout for a ship)

I'll look at allowing upgraded ships to use the same saved load outs as the ships they replaced...
Or, would you prefer to be able to specify 10 different loadouts for each ship type?? (basic, adv, hvy)...

I'll need to think more about what part to load as default if the specific part ID is not avaliable, I'd prefer it to degrade gracefully: gat2 > gat 1... etc

What do you think?

Cheers!

Post by **FreeBeer** » Fri Oct 09, 2009 11:16 pm

Seems to me the simplest way would be the most functional. Allow the user to specify his own defaults on a ship by ship basis. If choose a scout (ship ID #xxx) I can hit CTRL-1 for my "probing" loadout, CTRL-2 for my proxing loadout, etc. And maybe SHIFT-CTRL-1 to overwrite/save the new loadout. You can leave the game's standard loadout as is. I hit CTRL-1 and I head off to probe (assuming I've saved a loadout for that particular ship is #). Make sense?

Sure, I'd have to do that for each scout, advanced scout, heavy scout for each faction, but once it's done, it's done.