1
DF Suggestions / Fortress Alert Level, or at least Civ Alerts back
« on: December 17, 2022, 07:34:41 am »
It's been asked in a few places that the old civ alert mechanism should be added back to the UI, so I'll just quickly reiterate.
Utilizing burrow assignment is both extremely cumbersome to manage and only has limited effectiveness, whereas the old civ alert burrow limitation was both simple to setup and enact. Having the game automatically limit civilians to pre-selected burrows is just simpler to conceptualize and enact than making a mega-burrow that you have to manually select for everyone and toggle on and off on the burrow level. Even just having a general "RED ALERT" button on the UI to toggle an emergency burrow limitation on and off would be a huge upgrade to the current workaround.
But since it's possible the feature is getting remade anyway to work with the new UI, here's a suggestion for a new system to supercede the old alert system.
Fortress Alert Level
Instead of the old system where the squad-level orders and alerts are mixed, separate the two and make orders part of the alerts. Squads have their own standing orders (which is what we have now) that they follow normally if nothing else comes up, and then you have actual fortress-wide alert levels that apply to the whole fortress, potentially both overriding standing orders and restricting civilians to burrows set in the alert level. Alerts could either have an "As you were" order for squads so they follow their standing orders, which is what the basic "No Alert" level would be for everyone, or separate orders that override the standing ones for the given squad. This way, you could have several different alert states for different situations. Manually set orders from the squad menu, like "Kill X", would override both the standing orders and alert orders, of course.
For example, you could have a general emergency order which limits civilians to the fortress proper only and orders defenders to all the entrances, a surface alert that limits civilians to the underground burrows while sending defenders to the surface entrances, separate cavern alerts for each cavern layer that limits civilians to the fortress and the surface while sending defenders to the appropriate cavern entrance, and a "yellow alert" of sorts where the squads start guarding the entrances and patrolling the fortress for thieves or assassins (if those ever get added to fortress mode) without limiting civilian movement.
For an example of what the UI could look like, imagine something like the old Evil Genius game with the alert level shown in the lower right next to the squad button. Pressing it would open a list of alert levels, a checkmark on the one currently toggled on and edit buttons on all of them. Editing an alert would look somewhat similar to the current squad order screens, but the first item shown in the list of squads should instead be the civilian burrow settings, and choosing what burrows to limit the civilians to could be done either by a list of burrows or by clicking the wanted burrows on the map.
Utilizing burrow assignment is both extremely cumbersome to manage and only has limited effectiveness, whereas the old civ alert burrow limitation was both simple to setup and enact. Having the game automatically limit civilians to pre-selected burrows is just simpler to conceptualize and enact than making a mega-burrow that you have to manually select for everyone and toggle on and off on the burrow level. Even just having a general "RED ALERT" button on the UI to toggle an emergency burrow limitation on and off would be a huge upgrade to the current workaround.
But since it's possible the feature is getting remade anyway to work with the new UI, here's a suggestion for a new system to supercede the old alert system.
Fortress Alert Level
Instead of the old system where the squad-level orders and alerts are mixed, separate the two and make orders part of the alerts. Squads have their own standing orders (which is what we have now) that they follow normally if nothing else comes up, and then you have actual fortress-wide alert levels that apply to the whole fortress, potentially both overriding standing orders and restricting civilians to burrows set in the alert level. Alerts could either have an "As you were" order for squads so they follow their standing orders, which is what the basic "No Alert" level would be for everyone, or separate orders that override the standing ones for the given squad. This way, you could have several different alert states for different situations. Manually set orders from the squad menu, like "Kill X", would override both the standing orders and alert orders, of course.
For example, you could have a general emergency order which limits civilians to the fortress proper only and orders defenders to all the entrances, a surface alert that limits civilians to the underground burrows while sending defenders to the surface entrances, separate cavern alerts for each cavern layer that limits civilians to the fortress and the surface while sending defenders to the appropriate cavern entrance, and a "yellow alert" of sorts where the squads start guarding the entrances and patrolling the fortress for thieves or assassins (if those ever get added to fortress mode) without limiting civilian movement.
For an example of what the UI could look like, imagine something like the old Evil Genius game with the alert level shown in the lower right next to the squad button. Pressing it would open a list of alert levels, a checkmark on the one currently toggled on and edit buttons on all of them. Editing an alert would look somewhat similar to the current squad order screens, but the first item shown in the list of squads should instead be the civilian burrow settings, and choosing what burrows to limit the civilians to could be done either by a list of burrows or by clicking the wanted burrows on the map.