Two improvements to player.add_custom_alert: position instead of entity, and duration

[Reika]

As per the title, the ability to give a Position instead of a LuaEntity would be very useful, as would the ability to specify how long the alert lasts. "Structure damaged" alerts already last longer than the "Turret Firing" ones, so I know the system already has something of a mechanism for that built in.

[Optera]

Yes please.

Having to write a ticker just to show alerts for more than 10s is such an annoyance and easily avoidable overhead.

[raiguard]

+1 on this.

[Rseding91]

Duration isn't possible. The times a given alert last are compiled and stored in the exe:

Capture.PNG (22.75 KiB) Viewed 1760 times

Position may be possible.

[Reika]

Duration isn't possible. The times a given alert last are compiled and stored in the exe: Capture.PNG

Is there a reason this has to be as such? Why is it hardcoded (ie not even a utility constant, let alone a prototype or script thing)?

[Rseding91]

Duration isn't possible. The times a given alert last are compiled and stored in the exe: Capture.PNG

Is there a reason this has to be as such? Why is it hardcoded (ie not even a utility constant, let alone a prototype or script thing)?

Has to be; no. It could be in utility constants but it would still apply for all alerts of a category.

Mostly; that's how base game uses them and so that's how they're coded and saved/loaded. Then the Lua API was added to read/add/remove them because 'why not?'

[sparr]

Seems like it might be viable to at least let Lua decide between 300 600 1800s, just by exposing three of the constants.

[Rseding91]

Seems like it might be viable to at least let Lua decide between 300 600 1800s, just by exposing three of the constants.

The category of the alert determines which timeout it uses. It isn't configurable per alert.

[Deadlock989]

+1 for duration please.