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Ability to save bridge officer/skill tray layout

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
edited November 2013 in Controls and User Interface
HELLLLLLLLO DEVS,

First off want to say that i am cautiously optimistic about the whole F2P thing. Ive played around a bit on tribble, and am liking the Doff System, love the new ships and the travel system. Overall things are going in a good direction.

I have a minor suggestion for something that I beleive would make players lives MUCH easier. Its simple: The ability to SAVE a specific ships assigned BO's and SkillTray layout. I personally have 6 toons with at least 8 ships per toon. I enjoy switching ships often, and when running some missions am REQUIRED to switch ships. ( The Vault, Delta Crafter) While switching ships is not an issue, the fact that EVERYTIME i do i have to redo my assigned BO's and skill tray layout is rather invonenient, and quite annoying at times during a time crunch.

Another part of this would be the ability to save specific Ship Weapons/shields/Consoles layout. This would come in handy if im running against different enemies in one play session. IE: Going against the breen would use different weapon layout than going against Borg.

Now im not a programmer in any way shape or form so i have no idea if this idea would take a lot of back of the house work or server space or what,, but it would be a good addition to the game.

Of course in order to switch weapons and consoles the player must OWN those consoles and weapons and have them in there inventory or bank. Perhaps this ability could be tied into level,, could be aquired at commander. Commander the player would get an second ship layout, Vice admiral a
3rd layout with perhaps a 4th layout being able to be earned or bought at some point in the game.

If anyone thinks this idea has merit please chime in below, i would LOVE to see this gain some steam and be implemented in some form at some point the future.
Thanks ,,,
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Bravo. Most of us would like to see this. Completely Editing and changing our layout is just annoying. Moving from PvP to STF to Shuttlecraft is far more of a chore than it should be. One reason I have so many character is so I DON'T have to do this, but even then with my favorites I end up having to play with the specs. Its a bit too much accounting in my view. Even if we could have a loaded 'save' resident on our own machine that'd be nice.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    THanks DodgeHopper, at least i know im not the only one that thinks this should be done in some way shape or form.
    I like the idea of the SAVED file being on the players computer. I wouldnt think it would be THAT hard to make it happen. Granted im sure the programmers are up their eyeballs in other things right now.
    I know theres more people out there who think this is a good idea, post SOMETHING here, and maybe JUST maybe the Devs will see it and at least add it the INVESTIGATE list, or something.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    I think the best way is if they setup a build saving system like guild wars has to store/save up builds. That system doesn't save them on their servers but on your computer so people can make as many as they want and still not affect any game performance from the game providers. It would be more complex on STO because it would be more than 8 skills.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Yeah, this is super annoying for anyone who likes to switch ships or even a few bridge officers. It would be nice if the last layout/boff selection was saved between switching ships. It would save a lot of people a lot of time setting up their tray again and again and again and again and again....
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    This get brought up in waves, it has been looked at by the Devs and commented on. Last I heard was that while they know and agree it is a pain if they did do it the amount of info being saved on the servers would sky rocket creating huge lag issues. Seems that it was coded to pull information most, if not all your ships saved settings each time that bit of info is either looked at by your system and the other stuff is just hidden. Personally sounded like it a poor code design but not much we can do about it now.

    However the option to save to your own personal PC I don't think was ever addressed. This is what I would like to have looked into. Even a basic script that we could run that would just load the powers in set layout knowing full well when I change ships it won't be saved.

    Basically I am talking something akin to the keybind marcos we use (well some of us). Have a new script installed that saves a command that tells the system to slot power to set locations on the skill bar. So that I can just type something like “/skillbarsave escort” save a script for my shuttle, escort, etc on my hard drive and then when I want to use my bar just type "/skillbarload escort" and boom my bar is what I want it to be for my ship.

    I can't see that approach taking too many resources or creating any real lag since it all on the host PC, no extra information saved to the servers seems like a very clean solution that would make a lot of use very happy. And yes it would not be that user friendly to a lot of people that using that as a frame work it can be made more accessible over time.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Each ship has its tray layout saved independently from all of your other ships. When you swap to a ship, all of your tray elements should be restored to the state they were in when you swapped out of it. This works 100% of the time in internal testing.

    However, a known issue all along has been that if the internal ID of an item or power changes because of game-wide fixups or any mishaps with a power or item on a character, then the tray will forget about that item or power. This is something internal testing would miss, and that's the only thing I can think of that would cause this. But that should be a rare occurence.

    From the way this issue is being described in this thread, it's almost like every time you swap a ship it resets all of your tray elements. That would be completely unintended, and puzzling since internal testing has confirmed that trays are being saved properly per ship.

    As for bridge officer assignments, they are not being saved per ship currently. I'll see if anything can be done about that.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    mkenneally wrote: »
    Each ship has its tray layout saved independently from all of your other ships. When you swap to a ship, all of your tray elements should be restored to the state they were in when you swapped out of it. This works 100% of the time in internal testing.

    However, a known issue all along has been that if the internal ID of an item or power changes because of game-wide fixups or any mishaps with a power or item on a character, then the tray will forget about that item or power. This is something internal testing would miss, and that's the only thing I can think of that would cause this. But that should be a rare occurence.

    From the way this issue is being described in this thread, it's almost like every time you swap a ship it resets all of your tray elements. That would be completely unintended, and puzzling since internal testing has confirmed that trays are being saved properly per ship.

    As for bridge officer assignments, they are not being saved per ship currently. I'll see if anything can be done about that.

    There is your answer LOL. If the boff officer assignments are not saved that goes hand in hand with that ship so without them complementing each other the testing of both of them not working together in that manner leads to pointless testing.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Zeuxidemus wrote:
    There is your answer LOL. If the boff officer assignments are not saved that goes hand in hand with that ship so without them complementing each other the testing of both of them not working together in that manner leads to pointless testing.

    Yea, and that's it exactly. When I swap ships I usually swap BOs or at least change BO abilities. Then it is always a 20 minute job to re-sort all my powers, bring up the power tray to restore the stuff that got lost completeley, move everything from abilitiy bar 4 (which I never use, and it always confuses me as to why abilities wind up there), etc. etc.

    I honestly don't care why it is a pain...if it is working as intended, someone needs to go back to the drawing board and figure out a way to help players streamline moving from one ship to the other. Right now it's a huge pain in the keister.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    mkenneally wrote: »
    Each ship has its tray layout saved independently from all of your other ships. When you swap to a ship, all of your tray elements should be restored to the state they were in when you swapped out of it. This works 100% of the time in internal testing.

    However, a known issue all along has been that if the internal ID of an item or power changes because of game-wide fixups or any mishaps with a power or item on a character, then the tray will forget about that item or power. This is something internal testing would miss, and that's the only thing I can think of that would cause this. But that should be a rare occurence.

    From the way this issue is being described in this thread, it's almost like every time you swap a ship it resets all of your tray elements. That would be completely unintended, and puzzling since internal testing has confirmed that trays are being saved properly per ship.

    As for bridge officer assignments, they are not being saved per ship currently. I'll see if anything can be done about that.

    A couple of comments here: I've noticed that if I replace my BOffs into exactly the same slots, this works as above, but I have also noticed that if I delete a ship (like a shuttle) all my ships get reset and I have to redo my trays. So, yeah, we need to be able to save bridge officer assignment slots.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    mkenneally wrote: »

    As for bridge officer assignments, they are not being saved per ship currently. I'll see if anything can be done about that.

    I think this is the crucial part. It leads to a lot of unfortunate events, like switching ships, getting into a PvP instance and finding yourself without heals and damage buffs because the Shuttle you flew before only had a Science Officer and an Engineer slotted.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    mellestad wrote: »
    Yea, and that's it exactly. When I swap ships I usually swap BOs or at least change BO abilities. Then it is always a 20 minute job to re-sort all my powers, bring up the power tray to restore the stuff that got lost completeley, move everything from abilitiy bar 4 (which I never use, and it always confuses me as to why abilities wind up there), etc. etc.

    I honestly don't care why it is a pain...if it is working as intended, someone needs to go back to the drawing board and figure out a way to help players streamline moving from one ship to the other. Right now it's a huge pain in the keister.

    It is absolutely TRIBBLE how if I switch between ships its like a game of memory trying to remember how you had the ships boffs set up. Especially the worst crossing between ships is say a bird of prey and something else. After that you are stuck trying to remember how you had it placed before in the bop. They just need to create a function where you can save profiles or builds so it won't matter if it remembers the exact same ship with boffs LOL :D
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Protector wrote: »
    I've noticed that if I replace my BOffs into exactly the same slots, this works as above.

    I have also found this to be true and don't seem to be having the same problems that everyone else is when switching between ships.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    It's such a huge problem for me I don't switch ships.... ever... even the simple act of taking a shuttle forces me to reset my Boffs. if the ground aspect is true that we must reset our boffs. before we beam up.... Well that be a great topic for a screen shot tool tip or even a AI notice upon switching ships, to help spread the word.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Zeuxidemus wrote:
    There is your answer LOL. If the boff officer assignments are not saved that goes hand in hand with that ship so without them complementing each other the testing of both of them not working together in that manner leads to pointless testing.

    Aye, the main issue from how I see it is the boff change. The Boffs setup should be stored for each ship indivitually too.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    As a follow up to this, any time I change kits (ground) my tray resets to the default position the skills the kit offers are placed in. Very annoying to have to constantly re-assign my powers to the comfortable slots on my tray each time I swap a kit out.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Fairchilde wrote:
    As a follow up to this, any time I change kits (ground) my tray resets to the default position the skills the kit offers are placed in. Very annoying to have to constantly re-assign my powers to the comfortable slots on my tray each time I swap a kit out.

    Yeah thats another annoying issue the only positive thing that can be said about it compared to space is the ground one has a lot less skills to deal with. With the new revamp of skill tree's I do not think that it will get the intended result they were looking for because people will more than likely just stay in the same ship to avoid having to redo all those skill bars again.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    Its an old Issue and anoying as hell since beta.
    It is right that USUALLY, if you are cautious and switch the BOs back into the right position a major part of the abilitys stay in the right in the hotbar... at least if you dont abandon the ship for to long (patches tend to ruin it).

    But it often does not work.
    If you do not switch that often... as I said... between patches it often gets deletet.
    And sometimes the hotbar resets entirely randomly without us doing ANYTHING.

    Happened more then once that my fleetmates asked me to join Pvp or an STF, and when it should start I have to shout "stop stop stop... I need 20 minutes,... my hotbar resetet"...

    Saving layouts on the harddrive would be great.... It would also be great to save multible layouts.
    Having diffrent bos is... at least I thought so... supposed to give us the ability to switch abilitys on the same ship now and then. Since that needs us to switch arround the hotbbar for 10 minutes, too, thats almost not an option right now.

    On ground, by the way, there are very similar problems.
    Switching kits is a non-option since the entire UI resets there, too, EVERY SINGEL TIME.

    Bottom line: that Hotbar-mess is one of those issue that should have been fixed even before release IMO and there is work needet.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    mkenneally wrote: »
    Each ship has its tray layout saved independently from all of your other ships. When you swap to a ship, all of your tray elements should be restored to the state they were in when you swapped out of it. This works 100% of the time in internal testing.

    However, a known issue all along has been that if the internal ID of an item or power changes because of game-wide fixups or any mishaps with a power or item on a character, then the tray will forget about that item or power. This is something internal testing would miss, and that's the only thing I can think of that would cause this. But that should be a rare occurence.

    From the way this issue is being described in this thread, it's almost like every time you swap a ship it resets all of your tray elements. That would be completely unintended, and puzzling since internal testing has confirmed that trays are being saved properly per ship.

    As for bridge officer assignments, they are not being saved per ship currently. I'll see if anything can be done about that.



    Thanks for replying mkenneally. All i ever wanted to do was get alittle attention on this issue and WOOOOHOOOOO here u are. Thannks for taking a loook athis issue. I beleive the problem stems from BO layout not being saved therfore trhe skillls are not being put back.
    Thanks to everyone who replied to this thread, lets just try not to be too B!tchy about it, its a minor annouyance, but DEFINETLY needs addressing.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited November 2011
    the only issue i got is what was written, that a single power won't be remembered, it gets annoying when i have to replace the breen energy disappater every other fight.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited December 2011
    UPDATE: It seems this problem has been fixxed. Recently i switch ships and noticed the BO layout was exactly as it was when i left that ship. Just to make sure i wasnt dreaming,, i switched ships several more times, and any ship that i had recently used had an accurate BO layout, AND Skillbar was correct as well.

    THANK YOU VERY MUCH for fixxing this annoying issue!!! Once again Cryptics Devs have proved that my lifetime sub was a GOOD investment. This game gets better and better the more time goes on, and right now i have NOTHING bad to say,, enjoying the updated STFS emencely, as well as the DOFF system, and Q's snow race,,, so far so good. Looking forward imencely to the new FE series,, cant wait to see what you guys have come up with!:D :D
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited January 2012
    On thing thing along these lines that I would love to see would be an ability to have multiple pre-set boff / skilltray / equipment layouts per ship, and a hotkey to switch between them.

    If I'm doing Khitomer Accord Space, I want my boffs with Scatter Volley, torpedo Spread & Gravity Well. If I'm attacking a tactical cube, I want my target shields 3 boff & dual beam bank swapped out for my cannons. Against general enemies, I want my DPS layout, for PvP I want Attack Pattern Omega instead of Beta, etc. Having the ability to rapidly swap between pre-made configurations (while out of red Alert of course) would make me very, very happy player. I doubt I'm the only one who would love this ability, and it might be the sort of thing that would make a good subscriber perk; a convenience, but not a balance / content feature.
  • ergthbeb1ergthbeb1 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited November 2013
    Missions that force you to fly a specific ship as part of the story will still re-arrange my personal tray powers from how i had them. I don't keep every weapon or shield distribution icon on my personal tray, so those get added back on. The story-line Bridge Officer abilities get jumbled all over in the spaces..

    Regardless of the ship i'm in, I never move most of my abilities. I keep the universal ship abilities (like Evasive Maneuvers) and consumables on the 1st row, my personal Science abilities and equipment / ship specific abilities on the 2nd row, as well as a vertical personal tray displaying row 5 with all the sector space / use-from-inventory abilities (hail freighter, fireworks, etc.) and shield distributions. My Bridge Officer Abilities are divided between rows 3 and 4 for hot key use.

    I would love to have a way to either see a dialog that lets you set useful rules for when the system auto-assigns abilities (personal ship abilities on row 1, BO abilities on tray 3, overflow to tray 4, etc.) or a way to save and load Personal Tray layouts, maybe via another button on the window (as with power settings).

    Somewhat related, the Obelisk Carrier's Special Ship Tray (containing the launch fighter buttons) does not appear while captaining my personal Obelisk Carrier like it does when i play 'Sphere of Influence'.

    Edit: Or if anyone is aware of console / command alias functions that I can use to manually achieve this result, it would be very helpful!
  • edited November 2013
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