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IDProjectCategoryLast Update
0002642AI War 1 / ClassicSuggestion - Interface Ideas - Notifications, Warnings, and AlertsMar 23, 2011 7:36 pm
Reportermartyn_van_buren Assigned ToChris_McElligottPark  
Status consideringResolutionopen 
Product Version4.073 
Summary0002642: Error messages for targeting non-targetables?
DescriptionI wonder if we could get an error message when you tell a ship to do something it can't do? At least, as an option. I'm not a very serious player; I just installed a raft of updates, and then I spent a frustrating 15 minutes trying to get some siege starships to target an AI fortress. It didn't make the "command" noise and the ships didn't do anything, so I thought I'd clicked in the wrong place or hadn't right-clicked (I play on a Mac and use the trackpad, so it's quite easy to left-click by mistake). I lost my fleet the first time, and then tried reloading and restarting the game a few times, thinking it was a bug; eventually I went to look on the fora to see if there was a fix and found out that fortresses are now immune to siege starship fire.

Come to think of it, I had a similar issue some time ago trying to unload my transports too far from the middle of the map. When you click the "unload" button, it makes the click it normally makes. I was unloading them as they moved, so half my fleet got out before they crossed the limit, and when I saw the rest wasn't there I went and tried to unload them again, and spent a while doing this while the other half of the fleet got blown up.

So perhaps the game would tell you somehow if you're trying to give an invalid command? You could get a warning noise, or in the case of transports the button could turn red when they can't unload. I wouldn't mind losing a fleet and having to reload because I didn't know a rule and found out the hard way, but especially when a rule changes after an update, as with the siege starships, you're trying to do something you've done before and you tend to assume that something is broken before thinking it might not be allowed.

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cathexis

Jan 25, 2011 11:06 am

reporter   ~0009669

If you mouseover an invalid target (Fortress w/ Siege ships, anything sniper-proof with snipers) the expected damage readout shows 0.

BobTheJanitor

Jan 25, 2011 11:39 am

reporter   ~0009670

Yes but "Damage to do" isn't a very intuitive indicator in itself, but that's another issue. I very much support error messages of every stripe for when units won't do something. They could be made optional so that if veterans don't want them they could leave them off. But for things like ships not attacking targets, or transports not unloading outside of the magic range they would be invaluable for shaving some rough edges off the learning curve.

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
Jan 25, 2011 5:15 am martyn_van_buren New Issue
Jan 25, 2011 11:06 am cathexis Note Added: 0009669
Jan 25, 2011 11:39 am BobTheJanitor Note Added: 0009670
Mar 23, 2011 7:36 pm Chris_McElligottPark Assigned To => Chris_McElligottPark
Mar 23, 2011 7:36 pm Chris_McElligottPark Status new => considering