Another improvement for brigades I want to have: Enabling mission types of air units by brigade.
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Improving the user interface - part V
This is an idea which I already had during the development of AOD and at that time was hoping it would make it in the final release. But unfortunately I hadn't used screenies to envision my idea. Here we go again:
Some of the bigger HOI2 mods had quite large and extensive tech trees. They were well thought and therefore needed more space than the more basic vanilla tech trees which came at the price of having a overcrowded screen. Having a scrollable tech screen would be a good option for these longer tech trees which could then use this function to have a clearer and easier-to-use interface.
Simply adding some buttons for more areas of research would be nice, too. The devs might even leave them unused so that modders can fill the gaps. Renaming of the various tech areas poses no problem, because luckily the names of the already existing tech areas can all be found in tech_names.csv, i.e. they can be changed by modders. ;-) Ofc I would prefer if we had separate *.csvs exclusively for the ledger and the major game screens, so that they could be more easily corrected or modified. The task of an overhaul and reorganization of the config files has already been completed by abodat (see here).
This is an idea which I already had during the development of AOD and at that time was hoping it would make it in the final release. But unfortunately I hadn't used screenies to envision my idea. Here we go again:
Some of the bigger HOI2 mods had quite large and extensive tech trees. They were well thought and therefore needed more space than the more basic vanilla tech trees which came at the price of having a overcrowded screen. Having a scrollable tech screen would be a good option for these longer tech trees which could then use this function to have a clearer and easier-to-use interface.
Simply adding some buttons for more areas of research would be nice, too. The devs might even leave them unused so that modders can fill the gaps. Renaming of the various tech areas poses no problem, because luckily the names of the already existing tech areas can all be found in tech_names.csv, i.e. they can be changed by modders. ;-) Ofc I would prefer if we had separate *.csvs exclusively for the ledger and the major game screens, so that they could be more easily corrected or modified. The task of an overhaul and reorganization of the config files has already been completed by abodat (see here).
Idea
Now, we all know and love how we can track our leader's combat history. BUT! Would the same feature be possible for divisions? Like, hovering over division experience would give the same pop-up the leaders have (or soome fancier method altogether). I don't think it's that tough to do as it is possible for leaders. It'd be great to track where my elite panzer division has fought over the years even after I've changed its leader(s). Not to mention thisway elite units can organically evolve from the field.
Now, we all know and love how we can track our leader's combat history. BUT! Would the same feature be possible for divisions? Like, hovering over division experience would give the same pop-up the leaders have (or soome fancier method altogether). I don't think it's that tough to do as it is possible for leaders. It'd be great to track where my elite panzer division has fought over the years even after I've changed its leader(s). Not to mention thisway elite units can organically evolve from the field.
Sure, its possible - but at some point we will have to scrap .txt as savegame format, if we really want to make serius statistics.
We already had some trouble with statistics, and we needed to cut down the information from our intended amount, to save you all from ~80MB savegames.
So question is if we should continue to limit statistics, or abandon the pure .txt system and use a zipped compression (slower) or binary format to reduce the savegame size to 5-10MB even with all the data from the 80MB version.
However this will make editing them more difficult.
Ah, that makes sense. I have no doubt some gifted programmer would make something to help us edit savegames once it's been transferred to a different format, but obviously this would be a very big change and I am not a representative of the entire playerbase.
Still, I'd be for a remake of the save system - the benefits of editing saves can be temporarily given away in favour of performance (smaller files need less time for saving them, right?) and features. Besides, much can be done with custom events anyway, and I've ever had to resort to editing the savegame in AoD/HoI2 once. But statistics are a great part of the game, as they allow the player to see and feel much more, and I'm for all changes that allow us to get moar.
Still, I'd be for a remake of the save system - the benefits of editing saves can be temporarily given away in favour of performance (smaller files need less time for saving them, right?) and features. Besides, much can be done with custom events anyway, and I've ever had to resort to editing the savegame in AoD/HoI2 once. But statistics are a great part of the game, as they allow the player to see and feel much more, and I'm for all changes that allow us to get moar.
Holding back progress would be foolish. Eventually the .txt format has to be abandoned, it's only a question of when. So I say go with the zipped format. Better to have a good game harder to edit than have a poor game easy to edit. 
add eventcommand for relative rising money like this:
command = { type = industrial_modifier which = money value = x }
command = { type = industrial_modifier which = money value = x }
+1Holding back progress would be foolish. Eventually the .txt format has to be abandoned, it's only a question of when. So I say go with the zipped format. Better to have a good game harder to edit than have a poor game easy to edit.
In addition, after that would have been implemented, would it be possible to see these new charts in the statistics section?
Please keep the current savegame file format, it's very easy to edit/mod and to track for bugs. Please scrap the useless combat history - hardly adds anything of value.
Today's computer and HDD are fast and big enough to have no problems saving those files. Just give us an option in-game to delete these files.
Although I must admit the save time needed in AoD is still a good portion longer than in Armageddon.
Today's computer and HDD are fast and big enough to have no problems saving those files. Just give us an option in-game to delete these files.
Although I must admit the save time needed in AoD is still a good portion longer than in Armageddon.
The current savegame file format should definitely be kept. Most playing sessions don't see that many gamesaves so that actual time to save the game is negligible. But it might be worthwhile considering to split the savegame file into a data file and a file containing the complete game history from this savegame. The content of the ledger, i.e. its statistics, might even be exported to another file which uses a binary format to better assist the expanded statistics.
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Retaining the ability to edit Savegames is an absolute must.
A larger research screen would be cool. Some mods really struggle to fit everything in, particularly the longer spanning ones (like Cold War Extension)
A larger research screen would be cool. Some mods really struggle to fit everything in, particularly the longer spanning ones (like Cold War Extension)
the save system may already include this, but wouldn't it be smart to keep the existing txt format but use one of the freely available open-source version-ing or backup tools to only write what's changed or added to the autosave? It seems like 99% of the data is the same. That way the autosaves could be relatively fast, only writing a few kb, and when the user wanted to make a separate save they could wait for the full ~80MB to be written.
I find myself editing the saves all the time, for things like changing puppet ais or national provinces... Some of it seems repetitious from the scenario or ai files?
I find myself editing the saves all the time, for things like changing puppet ais or national provinces... Some of it seems repetitious from the scenario or ai files?
Why not make it a data file for game execution and have a two way translator for editing?
Honestly it would be better to use a mod enabler like JSGME which allows you to activate more than one mod at the same time. You'll never do without it.
Don't know if it has been mentioned but if I want to build AA I click on the AA tab in production but when I click on the actual AA structure the abbreviation says (AntiAir Artillery AAA). AAA instead of AA, looks quite sloppy considering I just clicked on AA. Should be a quick fix.
Maybe this has been proposed, but a very nice feature would be an 'enddate' column in the ministers.csv file, just like there is one for leaders. It would almost eliminate the need for writing minister death events in mods.
That's not really wrong. You have some artillery guns specialized on Anti-Air warfare, that's Anti-Air Artillery.