PLEASE update/improve carrier UI! Some statistics in OP...

[secondcomingofzeno]

Okay so I have told my carriers to carry only fighters, as right now they carry the most bombs and generally are the best plane.

Easy, right? Well for starters I have to set them all up, this roughly takes like...50 clicks or so, do I really have to move my mouse 50+ times just to outfit a fleet of carriers? Can I not just "Auto distribute 125 fighters" on one carrier, copy, paste onto 12 at the same time?...

Now if that isn't bad enough, okay i'm in battle now...

Now I have to click 36 times to select all 36 airwings for "Heavy" Ordinance, and click "Yes" 36 times. (72 clicks so far, and mouse movements)

But that's not all! Now I have to do the same thing for mission, so another 72 clicks... (144 so far)

Lastly another 36 clicks to select them all for strikes, and 3 more clicks to click "Launch".

So a whopping 180 clicks (more really because you might want only some to be sent out, not all, etc) for a SINGLE combined strike.

And you have to do this EVERY mission, it doesn't save.

Come on!

[berte]

I agree with less clicking, and I have a suggestion to reduce it. When carrier wings are 'Ready' we get a notice via window popup and have to click OK. Instead of doing that for every squadron that is readied that turn, how about consolidating ALL squadron ready notices that appear on the same turn on just one popup window? That'd be a few less clicks right there!

[secondcomingofzeno]

We cannot even drag and click 'launch'!

Why add the 'blue' drag indication if it doesn't work?

Being able to drag and click to check all would massively cut down on clicks and time.

Holding shift when clicking ordinance options, missions, etc should select that option for ALL selected.

[jwsmith26]

secondcomingofzeno , yes, the UI for creating strikes is click heavy but there are a lot of moving parts and the only way to give the players the flexibility that they need to make unusual choices, such as the ones you describe, is to allow the player to access each of those parts individually. The game is set up to automatically create or select the most commonly used air groups, loadouts and missions but selecting non-standard options can rapidly send you down into micromanagement hell. Some additional level of automation or multi-selection such as you have suggested would definitely be useful, but there are already ways to reduce the load that you may not be using.

You can't auto distribute 125 fighters to a carrier but you can auto-add aircraft. This will fill your carrier with a balanced set of squadrons. You can't expect the game to know that you want an all fighter group. However, even with your all fighter airgroup, you don't need to create each squadron individually. You can create your preferred airgroup in one carrier and then copy the entire airgroup and paste it onto another carrier. You do this repeatedly for each of your carriers. (This option is available by right-clicking on a selected base or carrier and then selecting "Copy air group" from the menu. You can then paste this group into another carrier or airbase. Note that this will create new squadrons with raw recruits.)

It normally would not take 36 clicks to arm your planes because the game loads default weapons when a squadron is selected, which in my experience is the ordnance I want 95% of the time. For fighters, it defaults to the most common loadout, which is a light load. The game has no idea that you want all of your fighters to carry heavy loads, so you need to do this yourself instead of using the automated process. The price you pay for the flexibility to use your unusual loadout is some level of micromanagement. I agree that, for these situations, it would be nice to have more robust options for group selection.

For instance, it would be nice to be able to Ctrl or shift-select a group of squadrons and change the loadout for all selected squadrons, but I believe most players spend the vast majority of their time creating strikes with mixed aircraft types and generally use the default loadout, so such an option would see very limited use. You have to balance each change and its potential benefit against the cost in time to make the change. So far this type of UI enhancement has not reached that bar.

Here is another bit of automation that you may not be using. When your planes are Ready, you can use the "Select all readied planes" option to reduce the number of clicks required to create your strike. It would definitely be nice to have the ability to multi-select with a mouse drag for this purpose.

berte , consolidating the popup messages is a good suggestion. You may not know that you can turn off the "air unit ready" popups entirely in the Preferences screen under the "Pause battle on" section.

[berte]

May 4, 2020 13:30:59 GMT -6 jwsmith26 said:

berte , consolidating the popup messages is a good suggestion. You may not know that you can turn off the "air unit ready" popups entirely in the Preferences screen under the "Pause battle on" section.

Thank you! I don't like turning those off, cuz when I do I keep hearing complaints from my pilots that it's hot in their cockpit while they sit on the deck with engines at idle because I forgot to tell them to launch. But yes, consolidating the messages would be nice. 

[secondcomingofzeno]

May 4, 2020 13:30:59 GMT -6 jwsmith26 said:

secondcomingofzeno , yes, the UI for creating strikes is click heavy but there are a lot of moving parts and the only way to give the players the flexibility that they need to make unusual choices, such as the ones you describe, is to allow the player to access each of those parts individually. The game is set up to automatically create or select the most commonly used air groups, loadouts and missions but selecting non-standard options can rapidly send you down into micromanagement hell. Some additional level of automation or multi-selection such as you have suggested would definitely be useful, but there are already ways to reduce the load that you may not be using.

You can't auto distribute 125 fighters to a carrier but you can auto-add aircraft. This will fill your carrier with a balanced set of squadrons. You can't expect the game to know that you want an all fighter group. However, even with your all fighter airgroup, you don't need to create each squadron individually. You can create your preferred airgroup in one carrier and then copy the entire airgroup and paste it onto another carrier. You do this repeatedly for each of your carriers. (This option is available by right-clicking on a selected base or carrier and then selecting "Copy air group" from the menu. You can then paste this group into another carrier or airbase. Note that this will create new squadrons with raw recruits.)

It normally would not take 36 clicks to arm your planes because the game loads default weapons when a squadron is selected, which in my experience is the ordnance I want 95% of the time. For fighters, it defaults to the most common loadout, which is a light load. The game has no idea that you want all of your fighters to carry heavy loads, so you need to do this yourself instead of using the automated process. The price you pay for the flexibility to use your unusual loadout is some level of micromanagement. I agree that, for these situations, it would be nice to have more robust options for group selection.

For instance, it would be nice to be able to Ctrl or shift-select a group of squadrons and change the loadout for all selected squadrons, but I believe most players spend the vast majority of their time creating strikes with mixed aircraft types and generally use the default loadout, so such an option would see very limited use. You have to balance each change and its potential benefit against the cost in time to make the change. So far this type of UI enhancement has not reached that bar.

Here is another bit of automation that you may not be using. When your planes are Ready, you can use the "Select all readied planes" option to reduce the number of clicks required to create your strike. It would definitely be nice to have the ability to multi-select with a mouse drag for this purpose.

berte , consolidating the popup messages is a good suggestion. You may not know that you can turn off the "air unit ready" popups entirely in the Preferences screen under the "Pause battle on" section.

The problem is CHOICE! The game offers so much choice yet the second you try it, it takes an hour to set up a strike!

Automation for planes right now is AWESOME! If you want a generic carrier with generic strikes, it doesn't take too long (still 36 clicks roughly per strike, which is ridiculous), but what when we want something custom?

If you don't want custom airstrikes/groups, why not remove the option entirely? As it practically cannot be done unless you have far too much spare time as is.

You say that a mixed aircraft type strike might not have a use for a shift/ctrl click loadout change, but I beg to differ.

Simply click the 'sort aircraft by type' button, bam, now you can alter the loadouts (ESPECIALLY USEFUL WHEN YOU ARE OUT OF TORPEDOES AND YOU WANT HEAVY FIGHTER BOMBS!) with around 2-4 clicks per carrier group instead of the 10-20 needed now! 

[noshurviverse]

Perhaps a menu or arrangement of selection boxes could be arranged with an "Assemble Strike" button. This could be a set of four boxes similar to the current ammo selection screen divided into: F/E (Fighter, Escort), F/S (Fighter, Strike), DB, and TB. When on this menu, you'd input the ratio of planes you wished, at which point the game would automatically ready a strike based off of that request.

So if you had a carrier with a spot value of 20, you could input the following:

F/E: 20
F/S: 0
DB:  40
TB:  40

And the game would ready 4 escort fighters, 8 torpedo bombers and 8 dive bombers. You could also have this work for squadron creation.

[secondcomingofzeno]

May 5, 2020 4:04:52 GMT -6 noshurviverse said:

Perhaps a menu or arrangement of selection boxes could be arranged with an "Assemble Strike" button. This could be a set of four boxes similar to the current ammo selection screen divided into: F/E (Fighter, Escort), F/S (Fighter, Strike), DB, and TB. When on this menu, you'd input the ratio of planes you wished, at which point the game would automatically ready a strike based off of that request.

So if you had a carrier with a spot value of 20, you could input the following:

F/E: 20
F/S: 0
DB:  40
TB:  40

And the game would ready 4 escort fighters, 8 torpedo bombers and 8 dive bombers. You could also have this work for squadron creation.

I just want my carriers to have all fighters by endgame because they carry the most ordinance.