How would you want to add contained units?

[IBBoard]

Warfoundy has an idea of "contained" units - units that exist as "sub-units" of other units (e.g. a Champion, who can't be taken on his own). We will also be flexible enough to allow a unit type to be contained as well as top-level (e.g. Wights in Warhammer Undead armies, IIRC).

Currently, the support for "contained" units lets us define contained unit types and add contained units programmatically. What we don't have is a UI for adding these units, so it is an invisible/unavailable feature for users.

With the new "single button UI" (a tree view for adding units from) we can represent contained units more easily than with the original dialog method. The contained units would just be in the tree as sub-items of their parent unit, but the UI for defining which unit they get added to still needs thought.

The question is, does anyone have any other ideas on what UI they would find most useful/intuitive for adding contained units? My current ideas are:

1. Add contained units as sub-items in the tree. Adding one lists all units of the parent type in a dialog for you to pick from.
2. Add contained units as sub-items in the tree. Right-clicking is the only way to add, which brings up an "Add to..." item with each candidate parent unit as an item
3. Put an "Add contained unit" button on the unit forms and use something similar to the existing "Add unit to category" forms
4. Put an "Add contained unit" menu item in the right-click menu on units in your army. Clicking lists all units of the parent type in a dialog for you to pick from.
5. Put an "Add contained unit..." menu item in the right-click menu on units in your army, which brings up an "Add to..." item with each candidate parent unit as an item.
6. Support drag-and-drop between the unit type tree and the army tree (I'm sure WinForms must support it, but I've never looked at how)
7. Some other idea I haven't thought of

[snowblizz]

Ooooh, results from whining a lot!

With the Treeview it would be pretty intuitive with the sub-items, however I think there's not going to be a fit-all-solution here. E.g. when there's a lot of sub-units. And dedicated transports which could show up for most if not all units in a category. On the other hand the right-click or menu item sort of "hides" the existence of the sub unit. If I add a unit of Tactical Marines I would probably want to be able to add the transport and any equipment to it at the same time (edit unit form should allow picking a transport). But also being able to directly access it once it's been added, eg from the army tree in the same way normal units are. If it makes any sense. I'd avoid additional dialogs. The problem I see with "Add contained unit..." is that it's needs to be "add champion" "add dedicated transport" or whatever options exist. Though that may not be a big question. I won't be flexible for the "retinue" example below, so it needs to be possible to add these in the unit form too.

As I see it there's quite a few "sub unit scenarios". So I thought I'd list a few I've run into so far so you cans ee what sort of stuff would likely need to be supported.
- "Retinue/henchmen" units. Eg just did the Dark Eldar where there's a "Court of the Archon" unit which contains 1-n of 4 completely different "units", ie models with completely unique statlines and equipment and rules. And Grey Knights have a unit of 3-12 models picked from like 10 models, in any configuration you like, some of which have their own equipment options and stuff. I guess Apocalypse "formations" would work like this as well, as would EG the Imperial Guard platoon which is essentially a collection of sub-units grouped together.
- "Mount/transport" units. 1 choice from a smallish selection with its own options.
- "Champion/leader" units. 1 model from the unit has special stats/equipment options, normally both.
- "Units of individuals". Ie each or at least a certain number of models are specially customizable. I'm thinking stuff like Ork Nobz and the annoying Space Marine Elites where each models has a "may swap either x or z for a A-X. This would most likely cover things as vehicle squadrons where you can normally individually equip "models" or units of heroes. Or more correctly "slots" of heroes, quite a few minor heroes are a 1-n HQ choice (in 40k) where each model can be individually equipped but will function individually.

So yeah, we probably should allow several of these ways of adding units.

[IBBoard]

Ah, yes, transports will mess it up. I'd been thinking that transports might work as equipment with a stat line (once we support it), but that wouldn't work when the equipment can have equipment :\ I know what you're saying about transports and equipment, but I think sub-units as equipment might make a mess of the UI.

Thanks for the list of sub-unit scenarios. One thing I know we need to add (which I'll ticket) is an "only appears as sub-unit" attribute that stops units appearing at the top level, even if they are in that category. Other than that then I'll have to read and digest.

I can see that retinues may become difficult to properly validate. If you mount one model, you should generally be mounting all of them. Assuming that's the actual rule then we'd need to validate equipment amounts across multiple units rather than just one. That said, as I type it then I realise that it isn't too different to the "no more than 33% of army may have bows" rules that LotR has, and I was planning support for that.

Other than the existence of a leader, is there a difference between Retinue and Unit of Individuals? The former has (for example) the Archon as its parent unit, where as the Space Marine Elites would have an empty "Elites" unit. Beyond that, it is all about requirements on the numbers of individuals under the unit (e.g. Space Marine Elites being an empty unit wouldn't make sense).

[snowblizz]

Ah, yes, transports will mess it up. I'd been thinking that transports might work as equipment with a stat line (once we support it), but that wouldn't work when the equipment can have equipment :\ I know what you're saying about transports and equipment, but I think sub-units as equipment might make a mess of the UI.

Probably, which is sort of why I'm honestly thinking that eventually the UI is going to need to be made more complicated, unfortunately. If we can get the equipment categorisation on a "multipage control" (ie tabs) then transports could fit into that. That's what I've "planned" anyway .

Thanks for the list of sub-unit scenarios. One thing I know we need to add (which I'll ticket) is an "only appears as sub-unit" attribute that stops units appearing at the top level, even if they are in that category. Other than that then I'll have to read and digest.

Oh yes, forgot to mention that.

I can see that retinues may become difficult to properly validate. If you mount one model, you should generally be mounting all of them. Assuming that's the actual rule then we'd need to validate equipment amounts across multiple units rather than just one. That said, as I type it then I realise that it isn't too different to the "no more than 33% of army may have bows" rules that LotR has, and I was planning support for that.

Yes, it'd need to count models of subunits, eg where up to 10 models would fit into a Rhino and the Chimera takes 12. The transport option is a property of the whole "retinue" as a group. As far I've ever seen at least.
I wouldn't discount the existence of special cases. Eg an Ig Platoon I think can individually "mount" the composite squads into transports. Yup so they do. An "Infantry Platoon" consists of numerous sub units. Since a picture says more than a 1000 words I made a diagram!

Other than the existence of a leader, is there a difference between Retinue and Unit of Individuals? The former has (for example) the Archon as its parent unit, where as the Space Marine Elites would have an empty "Elites" unit. Beyond that, it is all about requirements on the numbers of individuals under the unit (e.g. Space Marine Elites being an empty unit wouldn't make sense).

Yes and no. The fundamental difference I see is that the "retinue" type unit is simply a container for several other unit options. More or less. Would be a good place to place eg the Transport option in 40k because that's exactly how it works. Whereas "unit of individuals" is a real unit of sorts with options that impact the unit as a whole, e.g. it counts weapon on the hwole unit, everyone ahs to buy grenades etc. But I'm not saying there might be a severe overlap, I was struggling with the idea of which types of units are similar in function. So I think you are right in that they may be the same. I guess what I'm saying that to me conceptually they are different but from a "algorithmical" standpoint they might not be. Which is why I tried listing as many cases as I could think of.

[IBBoard]

It's always better to list more cases and then agree that they're basically the same rather than forget a case and struggle to add it later

With regards the IG Platoons, the "sub-units" should be able to go ad-infinitum, so if you have a Formation containing a Platoon containing a Squad containing a Captain then it'll be four levels of unit, but it won't break anything.

As for retinue vs unit of individuals, I guess part of it depends on how we write the data files. If you put "Court of the Archon" at the top with Archon, Incubii etc below it and Elite Space Marines with Veterans below then in many cases you'll have an effectively free parent with the cost contained in the sub-units. Either unit may have a mix of "limited to a total within the parent unit" and "limited to a total per sub-unit/model", but they'll just be separate types of requirement because we'll have "limited to a total within the army" above it, which we don't have yet.

Now, better make sure those tickets are in place to record some of these thoughts.