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BattleGridOrders

BATTLE GRID ORDERS
Don't just be a MechWarrior, be a MechTactician!
One of the biggest limitations with the vanilla order system is that it requires you to have a line of sight for move orders and to be actively targeting the desired enemy for attack orders. The Battle Grid Orders mod allows you to send move and attack orders to your lance mates without you having to adjust any sight lines.

Common use cases:
If you want to issue a move order that is more than 1000 meters out, you were previously out of luck. Now, you can gleefully send your lance mates around mountains, into valleys, or simply to the other side of the wall you are cowering behind without having to so much as move an inch.
Beach head missions are made infinitely more tedious by artillery. You have a light mech in your lance but you really don't want to pilot it all the way to the other side of the map to remove the installation yourself. Rest your weary mind knowing that now you can specify the location you want that Spider to move to and they will go deal with the artillery installations on your behalf.
Two enemy lances just dropped on the other side of a hill. You really can't gauge the distance with the flat UI markers, thankfully you can now open your map and hand select which mechs you want your lance to focus fire on.



Instructions:
You can select which units you want to issue orders to by either selecting them on the battle grid, or by using the standard F1 through F4 key bindings. You will find that certain use cases favor one selection method over another.
Unit selection is bound to Left Mouse Button by default. If you have custom key bindings that change "Fire Weapon Group 1" to a different key, you will instead need to use that one.
Order issuing is bound to the Right Mouse Button or "Fire Weapon Group 2". Just as with Weapon Group 1, if you changed this then you'll need to use the new key binding instead.
Selecting enemy units with the Left Mouse Button will not change the mech you have targeted. Once you close the grid it will revert to the target you had selected before you opened it (technical limitation).
If the indicators look off on their positioning you can press "Weapon Group 3" and it should recalibrate the map. I'm still investigating why this happens some times.
Holding shift will allow you to only select lance mates and issue move commands. Useful if there are a lot of mechs near each other.

Compatibility:
This mod only overrides 2 files, the BattleGrid and Minimap widgets. Obviously anything that overrides either of these will cause it to not function. Additionally, it uses a lot of functionality in the Lance Status UI, so if existing functionality is removed from there then it could maybe cause problems.

I recommend pairing this up with TTRulez_AIMod2 if you want even more control over your lance. With some guidance from the author of that mod, I changed the structure of this one to make sure it would have no conflicts with theirs (selfishly, I love that mod and wanted to keep using it) but would instead extend it if you wanted.

Known quirks:
You can select/target enemies that aren't currently visible on the map. I went back and forth on this, but this ultimately became a much less frustrating experience. Nothing sucks more than trying to tell your lance to attack something that just barely vanished from the map and then instead having them interpret it as a move order.
Move orders jump around when a lance mate gets to the target location due to AI "patrolling" around the area. So if you see your move order icon moving around a few pixels every 10 seconds or so, recognize that they are choosing to be very detailed with letting you know what they are up to.

Feedback welcome!
Some areas I'd love feedback on:
Bugs
User experience optimization. Suggestions on how you'd change the icons/indicators
After issuing an order, would you prefer it de selects the lance mate(s) you had selected, or would you rather it keep them selected so you can re-issue it if you made a mistake
Thoughts/preferences on the next features I'm looking to implement
Other information you'd like to see on the battle grid that would help with your decision making

Next features I'll be looking to add:
Issue airstrikes via the battle grid
Show attack indicators on the HUD above the regular target markers
Show optimal/max ranges for allies to help with determining where to position your lance (shoutout to Oraeon1224 for this idea).
When changing which mech you are controlling, use the map to determine which one to control

Changelog:
v1.1: Fixed a bug where icons would be offset when playing a new mission that had a different map size than the last one. Added the ability to hold shift when selecting a unit to "force" select a lance mate instead of something else closer. Holding shift when issuing an order now forces a move order.

v1.3
- Improved reliability, there should be less instances where the icons are offset incorrectly.
- Selected lance mates will now have blue boxes shown around them when using the function keys for selection
- Added an option in the menu (Mod Options is required) for setting cursor sensitivity when the battlegrid is open

v 1.5
- Added a mod option that let's you configure if time should slow down when the grid is open or not.
- Resolved a bug that would cause weapons and rotation to be disabled unless the battle grid was open

v1.5.1
- Resolve issue with switching mechs causing torso/weapons to be disabled and time dilation to not reset

v1.5.2
- Resolve additional issue causing mech movement to freeze
- Resolve issue hiding BGO from mod options