Good news - slot layout override!

It's good for mods!

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Space Empires Depot | Space Food Empires!

Ed,

It certainly sounds like an improvement, but I'm still a bit confused (admittedly, my normal state of being) - does this mean we will still need to drag and drop each component onto a bunch of boxes and multiple 'decks' - or will we just be able to designate them to I,O, or A zones with a single click or something else?

Actually, I just realized that you probably have no idea, as you just got the email from Aaron. Oh well.

This is certianly good news though, now just hoping we'll get some similar word on the UI.

Thanks,

AMF

This override layout will be read from some files in the mod, right? This isn't just going to hard-code a single layout to use, right? Just making it all filled with boxes and not letting the modder customize it is almost 100% pointless.

I think filling that screen completely with boxes would be a waste of time - he may as well have stuck with lists and scrapped that view. Its unfortunate, but for stock balance the current system of slots defined by player shipsets could lead to unbalance. A minor unbalance arguably, but shows bad planning.

It would seem to be that the boxes in the override layout would need to be moddable and the single drag and drop of each item needs to be looked at also.

I quite like the slot layout. Not only does it affect how you design your ships (do I really want the engines there? That might make it hard to run away if I'm in trouble...), it also allows a bit of strategy (I'll put the cargo containers in a circle around the engines, giving them that extra bit of protection).

Although I agree that if the override layout were to just make the screen full of slots or be unmoddable, it wouldn't be worth it.

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"He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." -Jim Elliot

Yes I am aware of this and I think its not a very efficient method for doing things and overdesigned. Best way is keep it simple and not frustrating for the player.

Besides being annoying, I need my drinking hand for drinking not holding shift down

Se5a's got these nice big, round, flexible Abbidon layouts.
I've got these skinny little Xiati layouts, with the inner slots eating a good chunk of the core.
With the leaky armor in GGmod, internals are always taking damage, and guess who's critical components end up being squeezed to the surface

Completely filling the screen isn't a waste of time; the relative locations of the components still contribute greatly to directional damage effects.
However it does need to be moddable... for GGmod, I'd eliminate all the inner hull slots to put everything on equal footing.

while I wouldn't quite go as far as saying that it's a waste of time to fill the screen with boxes and not allow the modder have a diferent boxes setup for each hullsize, it WILL be insainely annoying.
why not just to it the right way the first.. make that the second time around?
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an se5a is a ww1 fighter, it is also a car.

At one time I made a generic layout that retained the a group of slots for each facing (top, bottom, left, right) that were arranged around the ship's portrait. This would seem a good way to go for generic layouts. But of course, I hope we can edit the placement of the generic layouts.

See an example:
Generic Slot Layout

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Space Empires Depot | Space Food Empires!

You know it's gonna come, you do, yes you do. Ooooh, this game is going to so rock on release.
And you just know that everyone is going to pick the Borg cube for that nice large amount space it's going to provide.

MMmmmmm Vorlon Battle Cruiser

I much prefer the way it was done in Space Empires IV. Maybe in the game setup a toggle letting people choose if they want to design vehicles using the format from SE4 or the new way in SE5 .

Thanks, this is great news. With this fix, we'll be able to use skinny ships and not be disadvantaged in our component slots.