When setting complex conditions in decider combinators, the combinator will respect the standard order of operations, namely, and's first and then or's. For example, if I enter...
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Condition A
-or-
Condition B
-or-
Condition C
---and-
Condition D
---and-
Condition EBut what if that's not what I want? What if I want the statement to work like this: "(A | B | C) & D & E"? I want the statement to pass if D, E, and at least one of A B or C are true.
The only way I have to do this is to use the distributive property of 'and' over 'or' and manually distribute D and E over A, B, and C by dupilacating them for Every. Single. Damn. One! AAAARG! Like So:
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Condition A
---and-
Condition D
---and-
Condition E
-or-
Condition B
---and-
Condition D
---and-
Condition E
-or-
Condition C
---and-
Condition D
---and-
Condition EImagine, for example, having to manually click, find, and select 'Iron Ore'. Then select 'Greater Than' from the drop down. Then click and type in '1500'. Then drag it into place next to Condition A, whatever that condition is which you entered earlier. Then Click a couple of 'and's' and 'or's' to the side to set them properly. Now repeat this again to duplicate "Iron Ore > 1500" for Condition B. Then again for Condition C.
But wait! There's more! Now you have to do it again, and again, and again for Condition E! And it just gets multiplicatively worse for every single condition you add to the and-group OR the or-group.
I have GOT to be missing something. There MUST be a feature included in the interface or keybindings SOMEWHERE to either quickly duplicate a condition, or specify operation order, but I just can't find it. I've tried shift-right and shift-left clicking. I've tried cntrl-right and cntrl-left clicking. Shift and Cntrl dragging, Mouse over while using Cntrl-C and Cntrl-V, Cntrl-C and drag... nothing works.
Please help. Does anybody know how to do this? Or is this actually a true case of impossibly bad interface and control design? As in, "as bad as not providing any way to Copy-Paste in a freaking word processor" levels of bad? If it is, then I suppose the next step would be to start a topic in the suggestions forum, but like I said, It seems like there must be a way that I'm missing, so I figure I should ask about it first here in the help forums.
EDIT: I can't resist continuing the joke. But Wait! There's MORE!
Now Imagine you have to do the whole set again for a second combinator, and a third... and maybe even a fourth, as you chain them together in an "If-then, else-if-then, else" selection sequence? Now every condition you add, and every combinator you add for another "else-if" clause doesn't increase the problem multiplicatively... Now you get to make it worse exponentially!
But that's not all. There's even MORE!
Now you need to do it all again for a whole 'nother set of combinators that are controlling a different group of buildings, managing a different set of resources in a similar way! Now everything you add doesn't increase it exponentially... it increases it exponentially... twice!
And don't think that shift-click copying combinator settings will help much. You'll still have to go in manually to each combinator in the new set to change resource signals, adjust constants, and maybe rearrange a few priorities. And you'd better pray you don't miss anything. You get to put yourself through an equivalent hell to programming in good (bad) old C again, but worse, since you can't format of comment your code!
...Yeah. I think my biggest wish list for the combinator interface right now is:
- Specify order of operations
- Easily duplicate and/or copy-paste conditions with a shift-drag and/or a shift-right shift-left click.
- Add divider lines between groups of conditions purely for visual readability of the list. (This would not affect the behavior or logic present. It would just be for user readability in long lists of conditions.)
