Player Message System

• Astraeus has a built-in system for displaying information  to help you keep track of your team's state and display important stats.
  
  

• Some common uses are:

  • Showing your team's current strategy (attack, defend, skirmish, etc)

  • Showing what types of speed, weapons, or defenses your opponent is using

  • Showing how close together your fleet or the opponent's fleet is

  • Comparing your current breakdown of unit types to desired unit types
    
    

Syntax

• You can use the method addMessage() to include a message on your list to display that frame.  

Unit Debug Messages

• Similar to player messages, Astraeus has a debug system to output information on units.  By default, debug messages will appear above a unit's healthbar in a gray color for a short duration.
  
  

• Sometimes it's still useful to use System.out.println(), but the problem with text logging is that it can be difficult to tell which specific unit of a given type the message came from.  Sometimes you simply need to tie the output to a specific unit on the screen.
  
  

Syntax

• You can use the method dbgMessage(String message) to output text above a unit's healthbar.
  
  

• Consider this example:

if(getPercentEffectiveHealth() < .25f)

{

   dbgMessage("Very Low Health");

     moveToNearestHealer();

}

• Note:  This method is overloaded.  It has additional versions that allow you to specify the message duration and color.

Hotkey

• Press the "Q" key to disable drawings, messages, and debug output for the left player

• Press the "E" key to disable drawings, messages, and debug output for the right player
  
  

Settings

• You can change the default settings in the Settings file to change the default state.