Unit Manager 2.0 (for FAF Patch 3652)

[HUSSAR]

Currently, unit manager for restricting units is a bit limited and it lucks a few features for making FAF game more interesting. Especially for those who wants to test their skills on usage of specific units against humans or AI opponents. That's way I started working on new version of Unit Manager. So far I had good collaboration/ideas from IceDreamer (aka AeonCleanse) and I would like to share status on this project and get feedback from you all as well.

List of features:
- old restrictions presets (no game-enders, no air, no nukes, etc.)
- new restrictions presets (no TMLs, no mobile arty, no engineering stations/drones)
- visualization of restricted units (see gray-out icons)
- visualization of restricted commanders' upgrades
- visualization of units introduced by active mods (e.g. Antares Pack, BlackOps, TotalMayhem)
- grouping units by faction, air, land, navy, eco, support, other
- grouping upgrades by their locations on ACUs and SCUs
- restricting units using restrictions presets
- restricting units by individually selecting them

There a few things that I need to finish and test but I'm making good progress and I would like to get feedback from you all.

If everything goes well, this Unit Manager will be in the 3652 patch or in the next one

[EDIT] the new Units Manager has been added to upcoming patch and it is avaivable for testing in FAF beta

Here are screenshots of both versions 1.5 and 2.0:

[Myxir]

the extended groups look awesome, not so sure about the unit previews though. disabling units but not for all factions might lead to some sort of faction discrimination by the host, and i guess it might cause trouble for new factions like the nomads (hopefully we will see them again in the future)

[speed2]

One thing if you could solve would be, no nuke restriction will remove seraphim battleship as well. Would there be any way around this?

[Myxir]

One thing if you could solve would be, no nuke restriction will remove seraphim battleship as well. Would there be any way around this?

might be possible to have a list of special cases, like for this one, which would then just disable the related weapon on the unit
can only guess how much effort it is though as i haven't looked at the code

[IceDreamer]

You just hit disable nukes preset, then UNrestrict the battleship by clicking on it. The idea is to give the maximum possible customization of all units and upgrades. If someone wants to make a totally unfair set of restrictions, that's up to them!

[HUSSAR]

One thing if you could solve would be, no nuke restriction will remove seraphim battleship as well. Would there be any way around this?

might be possible to have a list of special cases, like for this one, which would then just disable the related weapon on the unit can only guess how much effort it is though as i haven't looked at the code

Ideally, categories such as nukes, tml, torps, etc. should be defined on weapons and not on units. Then restriction system could lookup these categories and restrict weapons of units if user's restrictions match. Otherwise, you will have to hardcode some special logic to interpret nuke restriction in order to allow Sera Battleship without nuke weapon. Also, the same would apply to t3 strategic subs. Alternatively, we could just allow restriction of weapons the same way we restrict ACUs enhancements (e.g. Billy). That is accomplished by specifying names of enhancements that we want to restrict.

For now, we will keep restriction system simple and allow users to select

nukes preset, then UN-restrict the battleship by clicking on it...

[thiextar]

just wondering how its going, will this be in 3652 or is it delayed? im gonna have so much use for this since me and my friends enjoy a good ai bashing xD, great work!

[HUSSAR]

just wondering how its going, will this be in 3652 or is it delayed? im gonna have so much use for this since me and my friends enjoy a good ai bashing xD, great work!

I'm finishing up some minor UI improvements (most functionality is working) and I'm doing testing in order to make sure this new Unit Manager works with most/all mods.

I attached screenshot of latest UI with all T4 units restricted and one game mod enabled. Note that I added new tooltips for all units and enhancements that show most important stats and values for DPM (damage per mass) and DPS (damage per second) that are more accurate than those stats in-game tooltips.

As to the release, I will do all my best to add it to the 3652 patch but all my changes will need to be approved by main contributors to FAF codebase. I think that it should make it to the 3652 patch or to the 3653 path at the latest.

[thiextar]

Great to hear! this new unit manager sure looks amazing! cant wait to try it out!

[PerfectWay]

Excellent work! In addition to the restrictions of units it is also a good way to look the characteristics of units.
Today, I noticed a few issue related to the economic characteristics of the units.
T2 Mass Fabs show "Mass production: 0", but it should be 1
ACUs all faction and SACUs (except Seraphim) also show "Mass production: 0", but it should be 1