Advanced text search filtering

[Dournbrood]

Currently, search boxes in any field use ONLY a string and a few filtering options available in some cases. (Namely the inventory search where you can do some basic filtering via a dropdown)

My suggestion is the implementation of more advanced, text-based searching and filtering options that could be mixed and matched:

• Exclude(-): "R-Salvag -Titanium" in the inventory would result in a page showing all R-Salvaging lasers you have, with exception of the ones made of titanium. Similarly, "Factory -Processor" would highlight all sectors containing factories, except the ones that contain Processor Factories.
• Numeric Range(n..n): "250..500" in the inventory would result in anything whose name or tooltip contains any number from 250 to 500 inclusive. This would be extremely useful paired with the next idea!
• Tooltip Search(tag:value): Currently, searching "Damage 500" will return any turret that has damage and any stat or number in its name/tooltip that is 500. Instead, what could be implemented is a way to directly search the stats of weapons/subsystems using a colon. "Damage:250..500" would return a list of turrets whose Damage stat is anywhere from 250 to 500 inclusive.
• OR(value|value): There is also currently no way to refine your search to multiple results. "Processor Factory|Antigrav Unit Factory" would highlight any sector that contains a Processor Factory, in addition to any sector that contains an Antigrav Unit Factory. A similar search in the current version would only highlight any sector containing ONLY BOTH, which isn't super useful if you're looking for trade routes. Additionally, this would be useful for the inventory: "Naonite|Titanium|Iron" would quickly allow you to see all of your garbage, low-tier trash items and sell them off ASAP!
• Mass Favorite/Trash: Not directly related to text boxes but this would still be nice: Some UI button or Keybind that simply marks all matching search results as either favorites or trash.

So what's the use of all this, anyway? Well...

Imagine for a minute that you're sitting in the Xanion sectors and suddenly, your inventory fills up. That's a thousand slots you have to search one stat at a time and mark as trash!

Instead, you could simply use "Trinium -Legendary -Exotic -Exceptional|Naonite|Titanium|Iron|DPS/Slot:0..100" to narrow your search to Trinium turrets lower than Legendary/Exotic quality in addition to all naonite, titanium and iron-material turrets, and anything else that has under 100 DPS/Slot regardless of material, type or quality.

Results all in one screen, now mass-trash-mark and sell!

I'm almost certain the map screen and inventory aren't the only places this could be useful as there are a TON of search boxes in the game. In my opinion, this would give the player a ton more agency over complex resource management.

Edited September 22, 2021 by Dournbrood

[AvorionCraft]

This game needs this so bad.

And an implementation of the Trashman mod.

Edited October 4, 2021 by AvorionCraft

[Akeno017]

Before we even start considering improving upon these most basic of game functions... we need to make sure they work in the first place.

Right now when I search "r-", "r-salv", "r-min" or simply "bolter" the search will EXCLUDE turrets that specifically include that string in its name.

What kind of search only shows you half the results?
How did this even happen when 1.3.8 had a perfectly functional search term. Limited in scope maybe but at least it worked.