Re: [glob2-devel] patch with improvements: brushes (6), fix AI cheating (2), explorers (4), other GUI (7)

[Leo Wandersleb]

Hi

> It helps very much with this farming pattern (my favorite now):
>
>   X..X..
>   .X..X.
>   ..X..X
>   X..X..
>   .X..X.
>   ..X..X

ok now i see. still this looks hard to do. (i want farming areas)

> This grows as much crop as
>
>   .X..X.
>   .X..X.
>   .X..X.
>   .X..X.
>   .X..X.
>   .X..X.
>
> but doesn't have the problems of globules getting stuck.

right! Many use

.x.x.x.x
........
.x.x.x.x
........
.x.x.x.x

i suspect to have non optimal groth conditions.

> > although i see the need for bigger brushes.
>
> I don't understand.

if i don't want my globs to go to some area i paint it as cutting it off makes 
the globs already in the area stay there.

> > your changes on the speed, painting gets aplied maybe smaller brushes are fine, 
> > too.
>
> I don't understand.

as it is easyer to paint large areas with smaller brushes i don't need the big 
brushes.

> I'm not sure whether it makes sense to work on brushes bigger than 1
> by 1, but maybe that could be tried.
>
> For the smallest brush, I can't think of any reason to not always make
> it toggle.  Basically, the idea is, if I am using the smallest brush
> on some map cell, I want to _change_ whatever the area setting for
> that cell is, regardless of whether it is on or off.
>
> > no effect -> inverse action temporarly.
> I don't understand.

if you are painting your pattern

.x..x..x
..x..x..
x..x..x.
.x..x..x
..x..x..
x..x..x.

and accidently get one wrong

.x..x..x
..x..x..
x..x..x.
.x.xx..x
..x.xx..
x..x.xx.

you don't want to change for the 1x1 or the inverse brush to fix it. you simply 
want to click a second time.
no effect means you click 3red on 3red. that would mean remove 3 red.
if you click with all effect or with little effect (3red on 2 red) it takes the 
chosen effect.

> > works perfect here.
>
> Do you mean the potential problem I mention does not happen?

I mean to all my little testing i was happy it works better than before.

> I don't understand.  Can you clarify?

if i have the 5x5 i prefere to see only one square of the right size and not 25 
small ones.
with the checkerboard patterns that's nice now.

> By the way, what I would really like would be for the lines to be
> dashed in this case instead of being dimmer.  I think that would be
> much clearer.

right. i just thought about drawing only half squares or diamonds but dashed is 
fine.

> It makes a big difference on 256 by 256 maps.  Otherwise what happens
> is this:  An explorer returns from exploration, starving and losing
> hit points.  The explorer feeds.  The explorer goes out.  Before he
> reaches the frontier, he notices he is wounded, and goes back to heal.
> After healing, the explorer goes out again (without feeding first).
> Just after he reaches the frontier, he starts to starve, and must
> return again.  The cycle repeats over and over, and for each explorer
> trip hardly any actual exploration happens.  Plus more of the
> explorers end up dying of starvation.

hmm... i understood that. but i guess if they go explore they are not wounded 
enough to go to hospital so they do a normal exploration circle ligtly wounded 
risking more when getting hit by turrets or when turning hungry.

> Basically, I use 2.41 instead of 2 in one place, because 2.41 is the
> mathematically correct value.

in what place ecxactly? you know that they are faster diagonally? time from one 
tile to the next is always the same no matter if diagonally or straight.

> Can you try different values and tell me what would be okay?

will see if i come to this.

> The
> current dimness is black at 50% opacity, which is way too dim.

agreed

> I'm
> using instead black at 16% opacity, which I like very much.  It is dim
> enough that I can easily tell where the fog is, but bright enough I
> can still see details without problem.  Can you try 20% and 25% and
> see if those would be okay?

without trying i would vote for 25% if you can then see enough through the fog

> Again, can you please try some other values?  I'm using black at 8%
> opacity.  Can you try 15%?

why not 25% in pause?

> Keep in mind that the dimness from fog of war and from pausing get
> _combined_.  So without my patch, when paused, the area under
> fog-of-war is dimmed the equivalent of black at 75% opacity.

still: why not 25%?

> > great. i added some default:break; to the switches to get rid of the
> > warnings on every possible key.
>
> Sounds good.  (Why wasn't I getting these warnings?)

no idea. i got tons of them.

> > >    B. This patch enables holding the Control key while pressing the
> > >       arrow keys to move the viewport by half-screens instead of by
> > >       single cells.  At the same time, some bugs are solved where
> > >       window manager controls involving arrow keys and other modifiers
> > >       could sometimes accidentally be interpreted by glob2.
> > nice. but half screen is too fast for my taste.
>
> What about 1/3 screen?

now i found another problem: direction keys don't work anymore. i need cell-wise 
arrow keys to paint forbidden areas on straigh lines.

> > >    D. This patch allows the user to require the Control key to be held
> > >       down before the scrollwheel changes the number of requested
> > >       workers.  This solves a problem (bug #19600) where the number of
> > >       workers keeps getting accidentally messed up.  (With this patch,
> > >       the user requests this by setting the GLOB2_NO_RAW_MOUSEWHEEL
> > >       environment variable; this should be done with a user option
> > >       instead.)
> > ???? please clearify
>
> With my patch, when I set this environment variable, I have to hold
> down the control key while using the “scroll wheel” to change
> requested worker numbers.  The problem is that I don't actually have a
> scroll wheel, but instead I have a touchpad which simulates a scroll
> wheel using a small strip on the right edge of the touchpad.  This
> means without my patch I get *lots* of accidental adjustments to the
> requested worker numbers.

can this go into basic settings? environment variable sound complicated for 
noobs.