Unit Tooltip Improvements & Poll

[Hepps]

@cernel Those are not really an improvement from an English standpoint.

I just have to wonder if we aren't trying to fix something that isn't broken. I mean I get why you are suggesting alternate naming conventions... but in ten years I have never once had to explain "Transport Cost" to a single player. Nor do I remember ever seeing a post (on either forum) indicating anyone was ever confused by the current terminology.

If something really elegant is found... then it would be nice.
One thing that really conveys the transport capacity is "Cargo".

So you could go with something like...

Cargo Capacity
Cargo Cost

But again, to me it feels like change for change sake.

[redrum]

Yeah, I like "targeted" and I'm leaning towards just leaving "transport cost" for now.

I made a few more adjustments. Here is the latest:

[Cernel]

@hepps Ok. I personally like "Ponderance" a lot, since I think it exactly expresses what we are talking about, but I don't know how it really sounds or if it is uncommonly used.

[Hepps]

@cernel It's a nice word... but A) it is long (which isn't really good for a tool tip), and B ) It is not really a part of the English speaking vernacular.

[Cernel]

@redrum In that case, for like the Tank-Destroyer, I would reword these ways:

Targeted Offensive Attack for Battle: 1 @ 1/10 XXX Before Each Round
Targeted Defensive Attack for Battle: 1 @ 1/10 XXX Before Each Round

and, in such cases as they are both the same, collapsing them as:

Targeted Offensive/Defensive Attack for Battle: 1 @ 1/10 XXX Before Each Round

where XXX is "anti-vehicle gun" or whatever.

Also "Off|Def|Mov" (meaning "Offensive Stregth", "Defensive Strength" and "Movement Ability") would be strictly more correct than "Att|Def|Mov", for the basic values, since the game is strategic, not tactic, but I know that "Att" and "Def" are the tradition. Minor note.

[alkexr]

@redrum These new tooltips do quite a god job with LME. The only thing that needs to be added is unit type and terrain preference, both too map-specific to be procedurally generated. But I wouldn't like to create custom tooltips for the parts we can now generate, that would only add another place for errors. Would it be possible to add custom tooltips to the end of generic ones instead of overwriting the whole thing?

[redrum]

@alkexr Should be possible though I'll have to take a look at the code that does the custom tooltips to see how much effort it would be to allow appending rather than replacing.

[Frostion]

@Cernel "Targeted Offensive Attack for Battle: 1 @ 1/10 XXX Before Each Round"
and
"Ponderance"

These two statements make absolutely no sense to me. I basically do not understand the meaning. I am writing on my phone right now and the english dictionary does not even recognize "Ponderance". I would strongly advocate that descriptions were made more simple and not more confusing and hard to understand.

If I was to come up with a description for AA attacks, it would sound something like:

Special attacks: 1 (name of attack. Like "anti-air attack") (before battle or every round) with 1/10 hit chance when (defending and/or attacking) vs. (list of units)

So an AA attack could look like:

Special attacks: 1 anti-air attack before battle with 1/6 hit chance when defending vs. Bomber, Fighter and Dive-Bomber.

Special attacks: 1 anti-tank attack every round with 1/10 hit chance when defending/attacking vs. Tank and Mech-Inf.

[Cernel]

If we are not getting a good proposal for referring to the "load", how about just "Cargo Capacity" and "Cargo Size". I don't like "size" very much, since it is mainly referring to the volume, while the capacity is mostly the mass, but it is at least better than cost, and it is what is used in a few custom maps, like WAW. Or would "Cargo Load" be acceptable?

[redrum]

PR is merged and unit tooltips can be tested in the latest pre-release: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/releases/tag/1.9.0.0.10758

[redrum]

@alkexr So I added in an option for appending to the tooltip the custom text instead of replacing. Just add ".append" to the properties file keys. Example is I took your original LME properties file and changed wizard to this:

tooltip.unit.wizard.append=Unseen<br/>Prefers Settlements

Unit help:

PR: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/pull/3623

[Frostion]

@redrum Looks very good. A great improvement to the old tooltips Just some concerns:

1. If the tooltips are to use the vertical lines instead of the slash for separating the Att/Def/Mov, then the numbers at purchase screen should also be separated in a similar fashion. If we wouldn’t like it at purchase, we shouldn’t have it in tooltips. Different looking separations for the same thing two places could be confusing. Also, if the numbers at purchase will then seem too cramped together with new line types (they were naturally spaced a bit apart with the / sign) we should think about adding spaces in between numbers and lines.

2. I can see that when units use the old artillerySupportable attachments, a strange sounding and looking info in tooltips like “1 ArtyOld Power to 1 Allied (…)” is used. Players without insight into XML history and definitions will probably go “what???” Would it be possible to change the word “ArtyOld” into just “artillery”? If not, I would say that a lot of maps should be given an update. Not a problem for me and my maps, but many other maps might not get it.

[redrum]

@frostion Good points. I'm planning to update the purchase screen to use | and I'll probably just have ArtyOld not be displayed since its an internal tag since isArtillery is converted to a support attachment.

[LaFayette]

@redrum pipe delimiters look almost like a 'one' to me, so I've a slight preference for unifying to: 10/10/10 over 10|10|10

FWIW, experimenting around with other delimiter chars, like dash or dots, slash or pipe delimiter do seem to be the best two choices.

[Cernel]

@lafayette My suggestion was to space it.

10 | 10 | 10
instead of
10|10|10

[redrum]

@lafayette So "/" conflicts with using that as the dice sides in some places "3/12" (3 attack roll on a 12 sided die) which made some of the tooltips hard to read.

@Cernel Yeah, I'm going to take a look at adding some spacing to see if that makes it a little easier to read.

[redrum]

Updates format for tooltip and purchase screen to "A | D | M": https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/pull/3641

[Frostion]

@redrum I am looking forward to trying it out, but there seems to be something seriously wrong with the latest few re-releases. The map tiles seem to load very slow, sometimes they never load and just hang, so one cannot play the map. Do youknow what I mean? Is there an end to this problem?

[redrum]

@frostion Yeah, there were some map tiles changes that are problematic but its a known issue and reported here: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/3539

Feel free to add any details/insights there.

[Cernel]

@redrum said in Unit Tooltip Improvements & Poll:

@frostion Good points. I'm planning to update the purchase screen to use | and I'll probably just have ArtyOld not be displayed since its an internal tag since isArtillery is converted to a support attachment.

How about supporting the possibility of not having the label displayed without having to use the old unit options to obtain this result? Either:

1. Wherever there is only 1 type of support, the default tooltips don't display the type.
2. You can avoid having the type for the support and, in this case, it defaults to "ArtyOld" and it is not displayed; the same if the support is called exactly "ArtyOld".
3. You can have the support called exactly "ArtyOld", to not have it displayed.
4. Same as 3, but with something else than "ArtyOld"; and also changing "ArtyOld" to that for the deprecates.

I would strongly favour 1, as, in the moment you don't have a label for a support, you also get the info that in that specific map there is only 1 type of support.