KingSlayerGM Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 Hi all, I just started playing Minecraft again and, as always when I switch from 7DTD, I'm amazed by how simple things improve the user experience. Imagine you have a nice base with a few forges running. Maybe 3 are smelting iron and 2 cement. You have a stack of 6000 wood and you want to divide it among all the forges. So 6000 / 5 = 1200. How do you get 1200? Well, you split 6000 into 2 3000s, then you split them into 4 1500s and then you are ♥♥♥♥ed. YES! You will eventually be able to achieve the division, but it takes a ridiculous amount of time. Minecraft offers an easier manipulation of stacks of items. Drag a stack holding down mouse1 and it will be evenly distributed between all the slots you pass over. MC has also many more tricks, but this is the most useful IMO. So, adopting such shortcut in our previous scenario, you would just drag the stack over 5 slots and have your 5 1200 stacks of wood, taking you 1.2 seconds for the entire operation. Can you TFP please give us this? Don't say you have other priorities, because this takes 5 minutes to code.. Do you guys have other tricks that maybe I miss? KingSlayerGM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Menace312 Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 Never played Mindcraft myself, but that does sound like a great qol improvment! But I wonder if this is not for the "polishing stage" of the game... Better to fix broken stuff or add new stuff, before adding qol. I don't know... Just a thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zombie4hire Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 Definitely a polishing step, It would be nice though I would rarely need it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SylenThunder Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 I never noticed that feature in MC, but it's been a couple of years since I played too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gamida Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 Wasn't it an option one time to be able to right click on a stack and put in how many you wanted to split off from a stack? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Menace312 Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 Wasn't it an option one time to be able to right click on a stack and put in how many you wanted to split off from a stack? In many games it is... PoE is a good example... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColdSteelRain Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 This is pretty far down the list of stuff I'd like TFP to work on, to be honest. "this takes 5 minutes to code.." is right up there with, "I tested my code, and it works correctly." Best case is that this takes an hour to code and test, but if you don't know the code, it's really hard to say how long it'll take to change something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadArchitect Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 Minecraft offers an easier manipulation of stacks of items. Drag a stack holding down mouse1 and it will be evenly distributed between all the slots you pass over. So, applaying such shortcut to our previous scenario, you would just drag the stack over 5 slots and have your 5 1200 stacks of wood, taking you 1.2 seconds for the entire operation. Thumbs up on this one. Splitting stacks one by one is certainly is one of my pet peeves for managing fuel for multiple workstations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scyris Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 Thumbs up on this one. Splitting stacks one by one is certainly is one of my pet peeves for managing fuel for multiple workstations. Me too, I often just wonder why I can't specify a number out of a stack I wanna take. Maybe left click and hold then drag and it pops up a thing asking how many to take? Insted I usually gotta spam the hell out of right click. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meganoth Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 Alternate possibility: At the moment pressing the right button with a stack of wood deploys 1 wood. Holding the right button should drop more wood at an increasing speed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Menace312 Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 "this takes 5 minutes to code.." -snip- I get your point... But in all fairness, this thread is not about: "Why has this not been done yet" or "It's so easy, it takes 5mins", like many others... This was just a suggestion, nothing more... And a good one at that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingSlayerGM Posted April 30, 2018 Author Share Posted April 30, 2018 So an improvement that takes 5 minutes to code should be left for last because it belongs in the polishing stage? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Gronk Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 So an improvement that takes 5 minutes to code should be left for last because it belongs in the polishing stage? Yes, it's a nice feature to have but there are bigger and better bugs to tackle. What happens if the UI system is changed? Every change requires you to redo that "5 minute fix" over and over again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppycur Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 Wasn't it an option one time to be able to right click on a stack and put in how many you wanted to split off from a stack? Yes, in the UI before this UI. The one they scrapped for yet-to-be-known reasons. ...mm will probably mention it in his Tell All book. =) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sadpickle Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 +1 for basic QoL improvements. Delaying until the game is close to being finished is not a good argument, when we're already playing the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TSBX Posted April 30, 2018 Share Posted April 30, 2018 Yes, in the UI before this UI. The one they scrapped for yet-to-be-known reasons. ...mm will probably mention it in his Tell All book. =) The right click menu got ♥♥♥♥-canned suspiciously close to the console release. Speculation abounds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColdSteelRain Posted May 1, 2018 Share Posted May 1, 2018 So an improvement that takes 5 minutes to code should be left for last because it belongs in the polishing stage? Not at all. In my experience developing a lot of software, there are just aren't any 5 minute improvements. And it shouldn't be left for last because it belongs in the polishing stage, it just shouldn't be worked on right now because there are serious bugs that need to be fixed. The suggestion itself is fine, it's just that there are other things to fix and add that are more important to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Menace312 Posted May 1, 2018 Share Posted May 1, 2018 So an improvement that takes 5 minutes to code should be left for last because it belongs in the polishing stage? Not implicitly no... But take 1000 things that takes only 5mins, and your up to 80hours... See my point? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SylenThunder Posted May 1, 2018 Share Posted May 1, 2018 You've got to think about how many systems that "5 minute code" is going to affect. What impact will it have on containers? What happens if you cross a stack from your inventory over to a container, or vice versa? What happens when you run off to the side into the drop item area when dropping stacks? There is no "5 minute code" in development. One "simple" change will have a cascade effect on a hundred other systems. All have to be tested and coded individually. Which is exactly why icing items like this can wait until after the cake is done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scyris Posted May 1, 2018 Share Posted May 1, 2018 The right click menu got ♥♥♥♥-canned suspiciously close to the console release. Speculation abounds. What else is new consoles always ruin pc games. Its not the first time I seen the pc version of a game get dumbed down due to it getting a console release and it probally won't be the last game to get it either. Its either the game gets dumbed down for console users which they then put into the pc version so they don't need to worry about 2 ui's. or the other option is the console version ends up holding the pc version back like FF11/FF14 as there was certan things they can't do because the consoles just aren't powerful enough so they just don't bother to do it at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meganoth Posted May 1, 2018 Share Posted May 1, 2018 So an improvement that takes 5 minutes to code should be left for last because it belongs in the polishing stage? Have you noticed that your "5 minutes to code" practically asks the same question as "Why does A17 take so long?" just with a different time frame? When I got my first computer a long time ago I wanted to show some relatives what you can do with computers. So I programmed a 10 line programm to print out 6 random numbers between 1 and 49 for a lottery. With my relatives waiting behind me I had the program written in 2 minutes but then spent more than 5 agonizing minutes removing a surprisingly large number of bugs I crammed into those 10 (!!!) lines of code. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColdSteelRain Posted May 1, 2018 Share Posted May 1, 2018 Have you noticed that your "5 minutes to code" practically asks the same question as "Why does A17 take so long?" just with a different time frame? When I got my first computer a long time ago I wanted to show some relatives what you can do with computers. So I programmed a 10 line programm to print out 6 random numbers between 1 and 49 for a lottery. With my relatives waiting behind me I had the program written in 2 minutes but then spent more than 5 agonizing minutes removing a surprisingly large number of bugs I crammed into those 10 (!!!) lines of code. LOL. An amazing number of bugs can pack themselves into a line of code! When I first heard this I thought it was a joke, but the longer I'm in development, the more true it is: "Take whatever estimate a developer gives you, double the number and go to the next higher unit of time." A 5 minute fix will take 10 hours; a one week project will take two months, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toores Posted May 1, 2018 Share Posted May 1, 2018 ...talking about simple things that make life easier: I thought how to make fast and easy block rotation that would work well with current system and also consoles. So here's my pitch: You don't need to move while doing advanced rotations so, similarly when you hold "R" to select rotation method you could hold down "left click" to use WASD to access additional rotation directions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buggi Posted May 2, 2018 Share Posted May 2, 2018 As an experienced programmer I'd estimate this as taking about 30 minutes, depending on how FUBAR their back-end is organized. It could even be ported to consoles pretty easily. Basically hook into OnMouseDown, and OnMouseMove. For consoles or alt keybinds, you just detect that bound key event. "Clicking and dragging" is just a steady MouseDown event coupled with MouseMove events. Any time mouse down fires and there is a move without a mouseUP event, that's a click-and-drag. Hold onto an array of UI Cell's that the mouse has pointed to, Now detect a new 'cell' in the storage is entered and iterate through all cells to redistribute the items held. I've coded mod's for FortressCraft Evolved that were more complex and it uses the same engine! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toores Posted May 2, 2018 Share Posted May 2, 2018 Alternate way. If you want to keep movement keys for moving you could do: ALT modifier - when you hold down ALT the top is rotated to: Left click - rotate left Right click - rotate right Scroll fwd - rotate forward Scroll bwd - rotate backward As an experienced programmer I'd estimate this as taking about 30 minutes, depending on how FUBAR their back-end is organized. It could even be ported to consoles pretty easily. Even so, they probably won't just update this one thing. There are many things related to building they might wanna change. Like they wanted to have "shapes menu" for blocks. You would craft wood frame and by pressing "R" you get a window where you select what shape frame you want. It makes sense to do these changes together. And for all i know, they might already have plans exactly how to improve the rotation keys without any input from me needed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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