The alpha is over, so i hope to see massive interface upgrade on PA. IMO the interface is the biggest weakness of the game. If i have to make a critic about the PA interface, it would be easy, almost everything is missing. Quiet often the interface is the poor relation in a software development. But from the player point of view, interface is everything. There is no point to make clean and efficient lines of code, if the interface sucks. There are tons of points to raise here i will forget many, but from memory. Awarness Minimap Alerts ... Communication between player drawing on the map (here an example) (ok in the example the player is drawing bullshit, but this tool is the most simple and efficient tool i have ever see to communicate on a battlefield) ... Smart unit auto expand (here an example ) auto repair auto reclaim ... Building build a line of building in a simple way (here an example) building a t2 mex on a t1 mex in a simple way (i m sick of manually reclaiming the t1 mex to be able to build the t2) ... Unit formation be able to control the position of unit like in spring,by drawing a line (see here at 4min8 the player order to 3 unit to move by drawing a line in the middle of the map, you can notice at 4min47 that the units are spread over this line) This tool is very efficient to control the formation of you units, you can circle enemy or set a line of defense in one click ! ... Factory build order in a factory (paterns and loops) ... This kind of feature are the basic to have an "ok" game, there are not even innovative. So please uber improve the interface of PA, and forget the 1000 hotkeys philosophy.
2nded. Can agree with this enough - PA is rapidly approaching my top 5 games ever but the user interface holds it back! I remember a game (Empire Earth perhaps) had this "scout" command - where the units would split up and randomly scatter/explore - also a toggle-able overlay showing lines of latitude and longitude (inc equatorial line) would really help maintain bearings - esp on larger planets without so many features, I really want to see some of the OP's ideas in the game as well! Uber I am on my knees!
In the current build you can actually build advanced mex on normal ones. With the other points I agree wholeheartedly.
Speaking about interface issues. The lines showing orders of command, good addition. Making those arrows so big that they don't show anything when, for example, building something close together... why?
All of these would be awesome to have. Even if they came out in patches after release. There was another thread talking about scouting, and no one seemed to be on board. After seeing how small the scout's vision is and how difficult it is to control your units, with the current interface, I don't see how anyone could have been against a scout command.
*snark* Well, they know that scouting is hard. Thats why they added the advanced satellite giving you vision (not just radar!) of the whole planet. So you never have to worry about those pesky radar buildings and scout units. *snark*
I totally agree. The lack of interface is really holding me back in my game. Its almost unpleasant to play without a good interface. Here are some changes that I think are really important: - a minimap - better mexpoint spots (atm im just hovering with my mouse waiting for the mex to highlight) - Something like a 'Black fog of war' (dont know the correct name) to see where i have already scouted. Now im just flying in circels . - a interface for idle units. To find those lazy engies - the buildings that I already scouted should still be visible in the fog of war with icons. Now when I find a base, I have to find it again and again. - An alert when I am under attack or are attacking. (- I dont like the way the pathmaking looks atm) Oh yeah i almost forgot: - range of radar is pressent. but range of building-range or attack-range of units isnt. These are minor changes but could really help improve the game. I was a big fan of the interface in SupCom FA and actually in SupCom 2 too. Thank you
I totally second this post. It's still in beta so we can't be too demanding, but sure, when I launched the game for the first time last night, the UI was a drawback so huge I just closed the game in hopes for future updates. IMHO, SupCom had the perfect UI, and PA is still a long, long way behind. As you said, UI is the key to a good game, especially an RTS where you have to be quick at giving orders. There are so many points to fix on the UI that I don't know if it's worth listing them before Uber tell us what they think of it so far. Perhaps it is still a very early UI in their point of view, which would be reassuring.
Totally agree with everything you've said tbos, just 2 pointers for the interim until the UI gets better. Use ctrl+n at the start of a game. This will give mex spots a blue dot to mark them from high zoom levels. Press F to select idle engineers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yeah, I'm not sure what they've planned for the UI so I also abstained from criticising it. I think they're well aware that the current UI is barely adequate and they once mentioned that they've at least one person full time on UI. And they have been some small improvements with each patch. (Counter for selected units. Paths between orders (although not really good choice of style for them, etc.). So I expect big things to still come on the UI front. Personally a better UI is even more important then additional or diverse units and should be the next big thing they work on once all the core mechanics are in and well settled.
Thanks for those little bits of info! Didn't know either of them Good to see a fair bit of response to these concepts! Really hope to see this bundle in game soon
Most important is that they fix the ui lag now. It makes the game feel so slow even if you get reasonable fps. After that more ui features .
A minimap just seems redundant as you can zoom out to see the entire planet. However in saying that, the game could benefit from a solar-system minimap or planet indicator to highlight which planet your units are under attack. Perhaps something as simple as showing the names of all the planets along with their thumbnails and highlighting in red which planet your units are under attack. Beyond that, perhaps a pinging system once zoomed into the specified planet. I don't know if this has been thought of before, but I would imagine it may be easier to implement than many of the other more radical ideas out there.
A lot of these features were already suggested & noted, but not confirmed by Uber. In effect, one of the Spring (Zero-K) devs already posted them very early on, here. (That's not to say it can be mentioned enough how nice it'd be to have these things... )
I would love to be able to get more information on the unit or units selected and/or queued, similar to the data displays in Warcraft 3, showing damage output/type as relevant, hit points, etc, perhaps in a docked "pop up" style pane to avoid eating screen space when it's not necessary. Also, iconic indicators for buildings and units with intermittent statuses, like the nuke silo or bombers, would be nice. To know if there's a nuke in the silo one needs to zoom in far enough to see the nuke model. To know if a bomber has bombs one has to zoom in enough to see the ammo bar. An iconic indicator or status display (perhaps in a the pane described above) would help that be seen "at a glance" from broader zoom levels.
