I know this is probably not the best time to ask for a feature to be added, but I just thought of something that might be pretty useful: a visual rangefinder for weapons. I thought of it for beams, and I don't know how difficult it would be to incorporate a slider-bar into the interface, but it seems like the BeamLength field naturally desires a click-and-drag entry method. That is, you drag the slider, and however far it is from the end, that's how long the beam is.
The simple version: Put a slider-bar horizontally across the wëap editor window, perhaps right where you currently have the first dividing bar, immediately above the BeamLength field. Moving the slider changes the number in BeamLength to equal the number of pixels from the left that the slider is positioned, and changing the number in the field makes the slider jump to that value. If a value is entered that's outside the slider's range, the slider goes all the way to the end. The slider could be grayed out if the weapon isn't a beam, if you want. This would make me thoroughly happy.
The slightly more intricate version: When the weapon is a beam, it functions as above. When the weapon is a projectile, the slider moves to match the range of the weapon (Count * Speed / 100 pixels). This would make me ecstatic.
An optional frill: The slider is never grayed out, and moving it changes the weapon's Count (or maybe Speed: there could be a little button to toggle this, whose state doesn't get saved) so the range matches.
The moderately fancier version: For beams, the region of the bar to the left of the slider is colored. It could be all one color or, if you want, the color from the BeamColor field. I'm thinking somewhere around 3-5 pixels wide.
An optional frill: The beam is drawn as it would appear, taking into account color, width (to a limit of maybe 16 pixels, unless it appear behind text and stuff in which case it needs no limit), corona color, corona, and whatever makes the beam taper off at the point. This would ignore lightning and fading in or out.
The super-snazzy version: For projectiles, a dot starts at the left edge, moves at Speed along the line until it reaches the slider, then repeats. Maybe a Preferences option should be available to disable this for people that prefer no motion.
An optional frill: For projectiles, the dots would appear every Reload at the left, rather than one at a time in a loop.
An excessively decadent possibility: For projectiles, as above, plus taking into account BurstCount and BurstReload, plus fading in or out. For beams, include Reload, BurstCount and BurstReload, plus fading.
Really, the first two versions are all I want. The latter two were just whimsical musings on what's possible. If you made a slider that showed BeamLength or projectile range as appropriate, and when the slider moved it adjusted BeamLength, but was grayed out for non-beam weapons, that would be awesome. Just remember to update the slider's position when the weapon type is changed. No need for colors or animations or anything. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this,
~Qaanol
This post has been edited by Qaanol : 08 May 2009 - 06:16 PM
