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[Brandon816]

I saw this issue come up in the bug tracker, and I thought it would be useful if given a full forum disscussion. Given the changes to the squad interface, there is obviously some room for improvement. If you have any ideas for improving the flow of the new interface and making it more useable, please post them here.

And to start it off, I'll quote some of what was already said in the bug ticket.

Okay, this new interface for assigning dwarves to the military is a total nightmare! ...

When assigning a dwarf to your squad you have no way of knowing if he is already in a different squad, which frequently results in you having to go back and assign new dwarves to fill the slots you've accidentially emptied in the other squad.

As has been mentioned in another thread, you also have no way of knowing if a dwarf in a squad is even still alive, since death does not remove a dwarf from a squad.

Futhermore, when you do select a dwarf, and press enter to put him in the squad it yanks the cursor back to the top of the list so you have to scroll down through everything to find another dwarf you might want to draft.

I've just spent the better part of an hour TRYING to assign four full squads of dwarves to deal with a crisis. Now that I've finally assigned them, they're off god knows where screwing off or something while everyone dies...

1. Dead dwarves need to be removed from existing squads.
2. The cursor needs to stay where it is when you select a dwarf.
3. there needs to be a clear way to see if a dwarf is already in a squad and what his profession is. (Color coding!)...

And it's no good setting it all up long in advance either, since various random bits of misfortune will gradually reduce your army to nothing without ever even needing to make contact with any real enemy. Which leads you to the final insult... trying to prune out the dead soldiers...

I like the new system. It needs some efficiency improvements -- like being able to tell what skills a dwarf has before drafting, or what other squads they belong to -- but other than that, it's incredibly easier to use.

While there are flaws in the current system, most of what you were complaining can be bypassed by simply giving every military dwarf a custom title along the lines of "Captain1" or "Axedwarf3."

This may add a bit of extra work, but I already screen all immigrants and give them custom titles relating to the work that they'd eventually take up. For example, back in 40d I'd assign all immigrants with an undesired moodable skill the title "H/M," that is a hauler to be recruited into the military.

[Silverionmox]

Right now alert status determines which schedule is followed. It would be much more straightforward if the schedules switched between statuses of squads, while an alert would override them.

So the steps to make a military would  be:
- Define squads (including commanding positions etc.)

At this point you could already switch between the three standard statuses by means of the squad menu without extra fuzz. Then you have the option to:

- Define more statuses for each squad: (equipment/uniforms/supplies, place to be, in the future tactics - like now in the military screen). (Standard statuses: off-duty (= civilian), train (at 80% capacity), emergency (= direct player control).

- Define schedules for each squad: switch between statuses, based on time. (I imagine most squads to have just one schedule under this setup.) No schedule: revert to manual player control. Standard schedule: "train" status.

- Define alerts: switch statuses, overriding schedules. For every alert you would get a list of groups present (squad 1, squad 2, civilians etc.): for each, you would indicate what status to switch to when this alert is active. No input: keep following active schedule.

Copying schedules and statuses between squad ought to be possible, naturally.


tl;dr
- For each squad you define statuses (place/equipment/tactics/command).
- Schedules automatically switch a squad between statuses. 
- An alert switches every group in the fortress to an appropriate status. Alerts override schedules.

[XenoZergie]

I agree with Silverionmox.  The current system seems to be:

Alert --> difference between Inactive and Active
Schedule --> what they do while Active

When it really should be:

Schedule --> whether a squad is Active or Inactive during a given time frame and what they do while Active (train, stand guard at their station, etc.)
Alert --> overrides the Schedule, calls the squad to Active, and maybe stations them in their barracks ready to be moved out

[DoctorZuber]

I should probably just tie these two together.
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=52989.0

It's a pretty tedious analysis I realize, the really really short version is it takes many many more keystrokes to produce the exact same effect as in 40d of allocating new dwarves to the military.

If you're going to run your entire fort on a single squad it's not really much of a problem, but if you need more to handle a crisis, you better go get a cup of coffee first.

[Silverionmox]

Apart from the solvable interface issues, organizing dwarves in squads/equipes/groups/teams is very useful. Grouping miners, woodcutters, engravers etc. would be really good to see the work advance, and a lot safer. It's also a perfect to integrate with a master-apprentice system.

[Lord Shonus]

I agree with Silverionmox.  The current system seems to be:

Alert --> difference between Inactive and Active
Schedule --> what they do while Active

When it really should be:

Schedule --> whether a squad is Active or Inactive during a given time frame and what they do while Active (train, stand guard at their station, etc.)
Alert --> overrides the Schedule, calls the squad to Active, and maybe stations them in their barracks ready to be moved out

And how, pray tell, would you determine which of the possible tasks you want them to do? As it is, you can easily have one alert that tells the squad to guard the Trade Depot, one that tells them to patrol the surface, one that trains, one that stations them in a chokepoint, etc.

[Silverionmox]

That would be arranged by swapping schedules.

That way, schedules can be carefully edited for the longer term, while alerts are quick and dirty. Right now you need to set up a schedule for every alert, which is often unnecessary.

[Footkerchief]

When I started playing this version I was extremely confused that the "Alerts" were actually just schedules.  I was expecting something like Silverionmox said, where schedules control routine activities and alerts are the panic button.

- Define more statuses for each squad: (equipment/uniforms/supplies, place to be, in the future tactics - like now in the military screen). (Standard statuses: off-duty (= civilian), train (at 80% capacity), emergency (= direct player control).

- Define schedules for each squad: switch between statuses, based on time. (I imagine most squads to have just one schedule under this setup.) No schedule: revert to manual player control. Standard schedule: "train" status.

Are you envisioning the "statuses" as they currently are (a scheduled activity chosen from fixed types, with no reuse), or as a separate reusable abstraction?  If the latter, the military interface is already confusing due to the many abstractions (uniforms, alerts, schedules, etc.), and I don't see the motivation for this one.

[Silverionmox]

You define statuses per squad/group of dwarves. Examples of statuses:
- Hold position
- Train with equipment x at barracks y
- Search burrow z for enemies
- Off-duty in burrow a
- Guard burrow b
- Protect dwarf c, d & e with your lives
etc.

Those would then be available to switch between manually, and/or associated with alerts, and/or time slots in schedules. The difference between an alert and a schedule would be that a schedule switches and changes the status of a single squad/group over time, while an alert (potentially) changes the status of more groups but doesn't change over time. Both schedules and alerts are ways to avoid having to switch the status many times manually, the former in ordinary situations, the latter in case of emergency for all groups.

[Footkerchief]

Okay, so "statuses" are basically the orders from the current version.  I don't know about this, though... is there really enough of a functional difference between your alerts and schedules to warrant separating them?  The current alert states can already do both of the things you described -- they can change the orders of a single squad over time, or they can change the orders of multiple squads "permanently" (it's pretty easy to do this from the Alerts screen).

Hmm... I guess an "alert," as you're describing it, is basically a schedule without the month selectors.

[Silverionmox]

The difference is that schedules are defined for a single squad, while alerts can change the status/orders of many squads.

[Footkerchief]

It's already easy to change the alert state of either a single squad or many squads, though.  I think I understand the difference between your alerts and schedules, but the similarities between them are so much greater that the net result will be an even more confusing and ambiguous interface.

[Silverionmox]

It could look like this:


At the bottom right - or maybe the whole bottom half - is space to use for temporary panels, to select equipment, burrows, dwarves. Or maybe the alerts can go to the bottom left and the whole right side is available then

Aside from its general buggy unresponsiveness, the current system has the disadvantage that every alert requires a schedule, the civilian alerts are only accessible through the military screen, and everything depends on each other.

The change I suggested would make it possible to edit schedules and alerts separately. Changing a status/order would automatically be applied in the schedules and alerts. Even deleting an order/status would just show up as <no orders> in the relevant schedule or alert. It would be perfectly possible to work without schedules or alerts, allowing everyone to leave that until they are ready.
The mockup above can easily be expanded with schedules and work orders for civilian groups as well, if need be.

[Retro]

Personally I like the alert system even if it is basically a schedule over-group in all but name. A lot of people don't seem to realize that there's more than just two alerts. You can make alerts for basically any scenario you want in as complicated or simple of a way as you want. If you just want a "okay doods are attacking me I want to go fite them" you can use the active move/kill commands in the squads menu to send them there. I've been trying to mention this in as many military-related threads as I can but the idea doesn't seem to have caught on; I suspect the names of the default alerts (inactive and active/train) is helping spread the wrong idea here.

That being said, yes, the names don't really make sense ('alert' lends itself to highly tense situations, not 'okay let's go from patrolling this path to being stationed over thataway') and the interface could use a visual overhaul to include all the data requested.

[Silverionmox]

It's indeed unclear what is intended to be used for which function. Given that you still have to send squad manually to do their butchery, and still have to assign them manually to alert statuses and burrows, I dare say that either schedules or alerts are unnecessary in the current setup. In any case, their interaction ought to be clarified.

- Also, when making a squad the standard uniform choice ought to be - use whatever available. The player can change it later, no need to force that decision on him right away.

- The equipment, uniform, supplies and ammo section should just be a separate page, instead of cramming it in on top of the screen.