Interface proposal, Autopickup Limits

[Siegurt]

My suggestion is that you can specify in the autopickup menu, how many of something should be in your inventory, before autopickup stops picking said thing up.

I would probably duplicate the pickup/drop mechanism for the inventory menu (i.e. type number, then press letter of thing to be selected) just for consistency

Basically this would save me the time of going to the autopickup menu whenever i get to 200 arrows, 3 remove curse scrolls etc. etc. (And would save me the trouble of going back there should I get low on my supply.

If I don't get any negative feedback on this, I may code it up myself and submit it as a patch if someone else doesn't do it first (Although December is hell on wheels for me, I don't know if I'll have the time)

[1010011010]

As long as the interface is fluid, I don't think anyone would oppose this.

[dck]

This would indeed be a great improvement.

[Siegurt]

As long as the interface is fluid, I don't think anyone would oppose this.

Well, for consistency, I'd personally probably use the same interface as the pickup/drop menu (i.e. type number then hit letter) Although honestly I kind of dislike that interface slightly (I feel like it should show you the number you are typing somewhere on the screen)

I'd probably also put the numbered limit next to the item description in parentheses or something in the \ menu.

[jejorda2]

Setting thee limits by default in the options file seems hairy because you either have to do it by race and class, or you have to be able to have a limit for things that you don't pick up by default.

[Siegurt]

you have to be able to have a limit for things that you don't pick up by default.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that (unless it's "things that have auto-pickup turned off, should still have an auto-pickup limit, so when you turn them on, they're set to some limit by default")

[pubby]

I looked into doing this before and there were some problems that need solving:

200 arrows is a good example because you can carry 6 different types of arrows. Players will want a specific ratio of arrow types rather than limiting their sum to 200.

Food has the opposite problem: it's too specific. I don't want 3 different limits for bread rations, meat rations, and fruit. Ideally, there would be a single value for the amount of sustenance you will carry.

[Siegurt]

Well, I think a good start would be the simple one. Yes, obviously there's a lot that could make it even *more* optimal but I think that a simple per-stack autopickup limit would be a great addition (And easily understood) without getting overly complicated about it.

I don't think those problems need to be solved prior to implementing something. (Perhaps that concern could be partially alleviated by allowing 'category-wide' auto pickup limits, but I'd leave that as a secondary rather than primary stab at it.

[reaver]

you have to be able to have a limit for things that you don't pick up by default.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that (unless it's "things that have auto-pickup turned off, should still have an auto-pickup limit, so when you turn them on, they're set to some limit by default")

Here's an example of what I think he's trying to say: Normally I don't want to pick up scrolls of torment. However, if I am playing an undead species like a mummy, I will want to pick up and hold around three in my inventory. How would I do that with this interface?

He also notes the more general problem that different species may want different numbers of consumables. For example, I would probably want to carry more potions of curing on a Fo than a Sp, even though I would want at least a couple on each of those species.

Anyway, this is a good idea. Even a small step like letting rc files access how many of each known consumable each player has would be nice; I'm sure some lua magician could come up with a macro to do it outside the game.

[jejorda2]

Yeah, that's it. Spriggans don't pick up large rocks, and human hunters may want 200 sling bullets or 200 arrows, but probably not both. It would be nice to set this stuff up in the rcfile so you don't start every game with /200c or whatever it is. Since you already auto-pickup ammo iff you start with a launcher, it's good enough to just always have the limits set, and let the auto-pickup switch be a separate thing. Avoid making a 0 limit and auto-pickup off signal the exact same thing.

[Tiktacy]

*applauds wildly*

[snow]

I hate to say this but you're just working around a problem instead of fixing it.
This is just like auto sacrifice: instead of removing blood sacrifices they automated it.

[Siegurt]

Yeah, that's it. Spriggans don't pick up large rocks, and human hunters may want 200 sling bullets or 200 arrows, but probably not both. It would be nice to set this stuff up in the rcfile so you don't start every game with /200c or whatever it is. Since you already auto-pickup ammo iff you start with a launcher, it's good enough to just always have the limits set, and let the auto-pickup switch be a separate thing. Avoid making a 0 limit and auto-pickup off signal the exact same thing.

I now clearly understand the request. Actually the design I have in mind avoids the whole problem, auto pickup for each category could be "off" or "on" and there'd be a default limit to set each category to when it was first turned "on" which is settable in the rc, so you could set autopickup for say, arrows to "on, 200" "off, 200" or just "200" (And the current decision tree for whether it was 'off' or 'on' would stand as is) additionally, if you set it to 'off, 200' and then flipped it on in the interface without using a number, it would flip on, with a 200 limit.

I actually had '0' in mind as the 'turn off the limit for this category, make it unlimited' signal just from a user interface point of view, it avoids adding weird extra keypresses.

[Siegurt]

I hate to say this but you're just working around a problem instead of fixing it.
This is just like auto sacrifice: instead of removing blood sacrifices they automated it.

I'm not really sure what you think the problem is here that I'm working around? Is it "You don't want to pick up an unlimited number of the same thing" or "You don't want to go in and fiddle with the auto pickup options all the time" Or is it something else. Also I have no idea how this relates to sacrificing, automatic or otherwise.

[sanka]

https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=7519&p=101981

I did not get very positive response: the developers seems to think it would be too complicated to code and the interface is would be also too compliated. Altough if you can code it yourself, I think that would be accepted, the feature would be awesome.

If it is any easier to code, I think specifying numbers in the init.txt would be very good also.

[galehar]

The autopickup menu is already quite busy and complicated, so I'm not sure about adding even more. It does sound like a nice feature though, but I suggest you do your best to make it as simple as possible.

[dpeg]

I like the general idea. Like galehar, I am afraid the solution could look too much like an accounting tool. What if we took a completely different approach?

If you select an item from the inventory (press 'i', then the item's slot), you get another two options. (Currently, you can already do a number of things with items from there.)

A) "I have enough of this particular item."
B) "I have enough of this general type of item."

So if you carry 8 large rocks and use A) on them, then the game will pick up rocks, but not if you already have 8 or more (more is possible as you can still pick up some of them manually).
And you could use B) to affect your picking up of needles, or food, without bothering about the individual types.
These limits would still be shown in the autopickup menu ('\').

What is the keypressing saldo? With the method I propose, you'd have to invest three keypresses in order to tell the game you're satiated with the one item (type). If you want to do this via the other approach, then it is more keystrokes: one for the menu (\), another one for the item or category, then several keys to enter the number. However, I think the main virtue of my approach is the different mode: instead of trying to set these numbers globally from a menu, you would set them locally from the inventory.

[johlstei]

That sounds fine as long as I can set sensible defaults from an rcfile. I feel like you probably still want an in-game ui for changing the number for items you aren't carrying, especially if you can set the number to 0 and have it still be on autopickup.

vvv Good guess on the missing last letter in my username there.

[dpeg]

johlstein: Yes, sure: as soon as the functionality is in, it should be accessible from the init file. There may be some issues with conditionals (different limits for different species or backgrounds), and this is why I think the two should be implemented independently of each other.