Author Topic: Captain's Requests  (Read 9107 times)

Offline StrawberryDelite

  • Member
  • Salutes: 5
    • [NEKO]
    • 45 
    • 45
    • 45 
    • View Profile
Captain's Requests
« on: October 08, 2013, 09:57:45 pm »
A nice addition for captains in the lobby would be the ability to request certain loadouts for their crew.

The way this would go about is, beforehand, the captain would build loadout sheets similarly to how you modify your equipment right now. However, they can also add to the tooltips of the different ammo types/engineering equipment so the crewmates can see the captain's logic.

i.e. Say I'm running a blenderfish. For the gunner, I'd have him bring Heavy, Charged, and Incendiary rounds. I'd have a tooltip over Heavy Clip describing exactly what it does and why it's needed "Heavy Clip will tighten the spread of the forward Carronade, making it ideal for medium to long ranges." Then I'd probably have one for both Charged and Incendiary reading "Charged is a direct boost in DPS, but, without the accuracy bonus of the Heavy Clip, it will make your shots extremely unreliable. Use at close ranges when we are just about literally in their faces. Also, Incendiary LIGHTS STUFF ON FIRE. That alone should give you reason to use it. I'd suggest alternating between Incendiary and Charged for the best effect."

Then, during the lobby, Captains can just right click their crew mates, hit a "Request Loadout" button, and then select whatever loadout sheet they want to send.

For the crewmembers, they'd get a notification of this, and, after looking it over, would get to decide whether to follow through with this or not.

Sure, you may ask "why add this whole system in the first place when messaging the crew works well enough?" It does, but it takes a while for me to type up instructions for everyone. If I could just quickly send my recommendations to the crew quickly and easily instead of taking five minutes to explain things to everyone, then it'd be a lot easier for me to make sure everyone knows what they're doing and how/why to use this or that.

Offline Nidh

  • Member
  • Salutes: 16
    • [GwTh]
    • 21
    • 45 
    • View Profile
Re: Captain's Requests
« Reply #1 on: October 08, 2013, 10:08:47 pm »
I like this idea, could shorten match lobby wait times considerably.

Offline Captain Smollett

  • Member
  • Salutes: 122
    • [Duck]
    • 11
    • 14 
    • View Profile
Re: Captain's Requests
« Reply #2 on: October 08, 2013, 10:59:23 pm »
Seems like a good idea to me.  The way you suggested seems like it may take a lot of programming and ui work to implement but maybe there's an easy way to do it.

Offline DMaximus

  • Community Ambassador
  • Salutes: 28
    • [MM]
    • 45 
    • 25
    • View Profile
Re: Captain's Requests
« Reply #3 on: October 08, 2013, 11:49:41 pm »
While something like that would be nice, A stopgap that would at least shorten the time it takes to type loadouts would be tab-completion for load out items. So typing heav[TAB] would complete to heavy clip. 

Offline James T. Kirk

  • Muse Games
  • Salutes: 182
    • [Cake]
    • 19 
    • 25
    • 43 
    • View Profile
    • The Cake Official Website!
Re: Captain's Requests
« Reply #4 on: October 09, 2013, 02:50:37 pm »
Anything that decreases lobby time is a-okay by me.

Nothing is worse than finally being ready to start a 3v3 and having a whole ship of people leave because they were tired of waiting.

Offline Squidslinger Gilder

  • Member
  • Salutes: 287
    • [TBB]
    • 31 
    • 34
    • 45 
    • View Profile
Re: Captain's Requests
« Reply #5 on: October 10, 2013, 03:28:34 am »
It would help cross language barriers. Would need a pop up feature so people wouldn't ignore it.

Offline geggis

  • Member
  • Salutes: 12
    • [VAL]
    • 13 
    • 17
    • 30 
    • View Profile
Re: Captain's Requests
« Reply #6 on: October 10, 2013, 04:59:53 am »
Or how about having a captain's notebook to accompany each ship or preset? Like a text box somewhere on the ship overview page (perhaps using one of the book graphics?) which a captain can fill out and explain their loadout, desired crew compositions, crew options, tactics and strategies. This would be easier to implement, be flexible and open to some humour and flavour. To make this feature more apparent to newcomers, it might be worth showing some help balloon/tooltips explaining that you can click on a captain's ship to view their loadout and notes. Of course, the captain's notebook wouldn't be visible to enemies. It could be a terrific learning tool as well in the right hands.

Edit: The other plus with this is that you could simply say as captain over crew chat: "Check my notes crew!". You could even put at the end of your notes "Feel free to ask me any questions." Stuff like that.

Oh, and by the way, great idea RedHound!
« Last Edit: October 10, 2013, 05:30:41 am by geggis »

Offline Cid Ferringer

  • Member
  • Salutes: 10
    • 14
    • 14 
    • View Profile
Re: Captain's Requests
« Reply #7 on: October 10, 2013, 08:24:42 am »
Yeah, I think that would be simplest to implement and easiest to understand.
Having a note for each ship where you can write 400 letters or so..

Offline Richard LeMoon

  • Muse Games
  • Salutes: 284
    • [Muse]
    • 33 
    • 45
    • 45 
    • View Profile
Re: Captain's Requests
« Reply #8 on: October 10, 2013, 06:27:32 pm »
Well, they have the new [1] [2] [3] loadouts. Could have a [C] loadout option that would would be pre-filled by the captain. One click, and good to go.