target_neighbor name

[makrohn]

Pennomi just told me what this does! It's not intuitive at all from the name. Maybe it should be renamed?

[dorkster]

Any suggestions for this? The name target_neighbor seemed clear when I was implementing it. There's probably properties that have confusing names, so maybe documenting them in the wiki would be a better option.

[clintbellanger]

Maybe it's a language thing, and the secondary usage of "neighbor" as "nearby" or "adjacent" is not obvious to other languages?

I'm open to better names. It's hard to come up with labels that are precise and short. But yes, with more documentation we could clear some of this up.

[makrohn]

So let me see if I have this right: if target_neighbor is set to 3, then the power will select a valid target (whether that's an enemy or a tile) within three tiles to target. Yes? I might go for target_area or target_within or even autotarget_within (or if I have the functionality slightly wrong, maybe random_within).

[dorkster]

power will select a valid target (whether that's an enemy or a tile)

It won't target enemies, only tiles. Whether or not a enemy is on the tile is irrelevant.

[stefanbeller]

When talking about areas, I'd use the word 'range' maybe?
area_range or destination_range or destination_radius?

[makrohn]

I think when I first was looking through mods, target_neighbor to ME said, "This boolean will determine whether this power targets 'self' or an 'adjacent enemy'", which was the source of my confusion.

Though neighbor can be used flexibly where I live out in the boonies (I have 'neighbors' five houses away half a mile down the road), to me, the word means "people who live in property that abuts mine," so I think that's where I picked up the connotation that target_neighbor would be a "who" (not a "where") and a boolean, not a range.

If we can't agree on a better name, then I agree with Clint that documentation might be the way to go. When 0.18 is comes out, I might try and do a Wiki writeup on "The Anatomy of a Power".