Simple Disable "-" Turn Button

I tried not to ask for this, given the move to V4, but I have to. Perhaps someone can talk me out of it with a workaround.
I would like to respectfully request a simple checkbox in the properties for the Turn-Tracker that allows me to disable the “-” button that goes back a turn. In games where automation is triggered by the arrival at a particular turn state, the reverse button really screws things up. Automation is run a second time when re-entering the previous phase, then the next phase’s automation is also run a second time when going forward again. This can really screw up some stuff and potentially ruin a game.
–Additionally, I would like to observe that disabling the reverse “-” button on the turn counter doesn’t prevent the players from going back. They simply have to use the “rewind” button to do it. This button “undoes” the previously executed turn-based automation…which is what we want…it also doesn’t trigger the previous turn/phase automation when we do it…finally, it re-does the automation going forward based on the current state of the game…again, the desired result.
–I would argue that enabling the designer to make this choice is objectively good for the game.
I would also argue that disabling the button via a checkbox offers a solution with very little code.
If I have missed something in my write-up, please let me know.

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If you can’t wait for this to be implemented, a possible workaround is to use a “flag” Global Property. When an important turn-state is hit, first check the flag GP to see if it’s already been triggered; if so, do nothing (other than possibly displaying an error message). If not, set the flag GP, and do whatever should be triggered.

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I appreciate your thinking and thanks for the tip. I’ve been considering this approach as well…maybe some way of counting turns and phases that tests for if> and doesn’t fire if not true. It will be a big work around if I can pull it off. Can you suggest a way of deriving a numerical value for, say, two non-numerical turn/phase lists? The only way I can think of is to set automation for every single turn and phase combo to set two globals…one for turn and one for phase and then compare each to the upcoming one and see if the current one is … and at this point I think I convince myself I should ask for the checkbox in the next release.

Much simpler. Just have flags as jrwatts said.

So, I have a Turn-Track with “turns” a non-numerical list, and “phases”. Each phase triggers different automation that I want to not fire if I am going backwards. Then, I also want it to not fire going forwards if I’ve gone back five phases and then go forward. The only time my automation can fire again is when I get back to the same state of Turn-and-phase combo and then forward one step. Walk me through how you see that working.

I don’t know how or why you have such a confusing setup, or what it is meant to achieve, so I can’t help, sorry.

No problem, thanks for trying.

I am curious as to why your phases go backwards though.

That’s what I’m asking for control over. By default, the player has the ability to go backwards in the Turn-Tracker…which triggers automation. If automation is triggered in reverse it breaks the state on the pieces. It is fine if the player uses the “rewind” function because that unwraps previous automation and doesn’t trigger in reverse. So, the answer to your question is that it is not intended to go backwards, but players, if given a button, will sometimes push it in ignorance of what it does to piece state because they want to go back and correct an erroneous move or something. But, with automation triggered by turn, we should be able to prevent this kind of backing up in favor of the “rewind” type.

Right, that’s the very basic situation where flags solve everything, but that doesn’t sound like situation you described just above where phases and turns could go out of sync and were separately tracked(?)

Well, It’s possible I don’t fully understand what you are recommending. Do you care to walk me through it?

When the turn tracker triggers something the first step in the trigger is whether the flag is 0 or 1. If 0, proceed and set to 1, if 1, do nothing.

OK, what event makes it 1?

The trigger itself, as I said. When 0, set to 1 and proceed with the rest of the trigger. The trigger is now “flagged” and non-functional. Undo will reset, and you may have some other ways to reset it, but moving the track back and forth won’t do anything.

Everything going forward is fine…then you go back a step…now you want the automation to do something different than it does going forwards…tell me how you do that. The automation just knows that you are landing on the trigger-phase. It doesn’t know if you are going forward or backward. So, setting it to 1 going backwards and 0 going forwards is not going to work as far as I can see.

Why do want it to do something different going backwards?

So that you can disable the automation and not break the unit state/game.

But, going backwards should do nothing, right? That’s what you want and get. Going forwards again also does nothing, until you get back to the actual turn, and a new trigger.

OK, yes, that’s what I want. But, the trigger for the automation is the changing of the turn/phase itself. Backwards or forwards, it fires if you use the “-” button on the Turn-Tracker.

Not if you use flags…