Uber, do you agree PA needs a huge UI update?

I am all in favor of a projection map, however there is still a problem with those, which I had not thought of so far. They may be tricky to play with, because it become kind of counter-intuitive :

Here is an example. Let's say you're blue, and the enemy is red. You want to move your unit A to point B, to fallback to your main base :


A normal player would select the unit A, and click on B, and expect the unit to move along the dotted blue line.
But here's what will actually happen, because it's in fact the shortest path :



Instead of falling back to a safe place, the unit will go straight through the ennemy's defense line.

Now, imagine you have a plane, and want it to scout all around the planet in a patrol mode. Here is (very approx.) the path you'd have to draw :



So as much I would love projection maps, I'm beginning to think Neutrino is right in saying we can't expect to play PA the way we played FA/SupCom. The choice of having planets instead of flat maps made it a much different game than we thought, and to be honest, I think it's not a game I will have much fun playing with. I already want to go back to SupCom, because it's a game in which I feel much more in control of what I'm planning, and that's what I'm looking for in a strategy game. Today I really don't see how any PA UI could bring me the same feeling, but who knows.

Giving move commands on the projected map indeed is pretty unreasonable and hard to work with. However moving the camera with it like in FA might be possible.

1. That's part of learning to play on 3D sphere.The player needs to learn to drop in a couple more waypoints.The same unit movement would happen regardless of whether it's projection or not.
   But the problem you propose is "error between chair and keyboard".It's the user not knowing how to play on a sphere.
   
   p.s.
   This would help if the latitude/longitude grid was on the planet and shown.
   A player would be able to quickly and intuitively count those up.
   
   
   
   
2. However, the "scouting all around the planet....
   The player still has the spherical view to do a "scout around in a circle".
   
   Why is everybody so terrified?
   Nobody is forcing the projected view onto anybody.
   
   An important thing to remember is that the projected view will allow for less clicks.
   Sure, this game won't be an APM spamfest like Starcraft 2, but the UI should still be designed in the way to be as less intrusive as possible.
   

Remember,
A more complicated battleground will need a smarter player to handle it.
The UI needs to get smarter too.

personally I just locked the poles and then use WASD to rotate the planet (Remapped attack and reclaim)(Before I used the arrows). I don't have any problem what so ever navigating. Now if I was trying to do that same navigation with the middle mouse button I would be complaining with the rest of you, cause its annoying. I would urge you guys to at least give that a try. I don't really need or want a flattened view. Because the poles are locked I don't get disoriented. and with WASD I can move around very quickly. Add to that commands for next and previous planet and the command to go to celestial view and the game actually works quite well (comma is default for next planet and period is default for celestial view. Before I was aware of next and previous planet commands it was hard to manage multiple planets, now I have no trouble. The one click to celestial view is amazing, because you don't have to fight the scroll wheel.

I really like not having the mini map, instead of knowing where your opponents are you have to scout. It MAKES more sense to be smart on where you build defences. Last game I played I built defences in the wrong spot because I'd wiped out 3 players but the fourth came from the other side and whilst I rebuilt heavily on that side I never really knew he'd waltzed into my base by accident from that angle. Far more organic

By organic, you mean like fighting in WW1 before we had radar and satellites?



Sorry, just teasing

not to mention without this powerfull UI, the "ultimate macro" part of the bargain for PA falls down the drain.

I feel like we at least need to reach SupCom levels of UI before we do anything drastic.

Like
1. Spherical planets
2. Interplanetary?
3. Destroy chunks of map with other chunks of map.

We've got beyond a "little" drastic.

*Slams fist on desk* YOU KNOW WHAT I MEANT DAMMIT!

The way I understand it, PA will be getting a better UI, but probably won't be getting an earth-shakingly innovative UI using abstract orders, complex force organization, etc. Something comparable to SupCom would be acceptable, although something more in line with Zero-K would be an excellent step forward. Things like line-drawing formations, widgets, etc. are all excellent additions.

However, PA will be open to modders for UI which means well after release someone is almost certainly going to cook up a UI package that gives players an incredibly robust and effective abstract command system. Depending on whether someone else makes an advanced UI system, I may take a shot myself somewhere down the line.

The projection in your example has a discontinuous line which leads to the confusion. This is why I think that the azimuthal equidistant projection is the best projection for this application. It has no discontinuity, just distortion.

The entire circle is a discontinuity...
Walk 1mm off the 6 o'clock position and you are 1mm at the 12 o'clock position...

As long as we can pan within the projection, it's just a matter of preference.
Because this projection sure wouldn't work if the enemy base was at the south pole.
His commander is on "patrol" and you'll see him flashing all over your map at ever single "o'clock".

But if you can just "pan" the projection 10 degrees latitude, then it's fine.

What ever happens on Uber side, i have no doubt that the modders will come to lots of nice solutions.
Just check how TA modders are still working on improving this legendary game :
They have just implemented The "Big Minimap" (unofficial 3.9.2 patch) :
http://www.tauniverse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=43735

By the way i was just thinking that TA modders really deserve to finally have TA source code released (John would have done this if Uber had managed to get TA rights).

Only if you pass exactly over the south pole which is very unlikely. But even if you pass over the south pole you could draw a line around the border of the circle to draw the continuous path.

The azimuthal equidistant projection has the property that any continuous path on the sphere is mapped to a continuous path on the projection as long as you don't exactly hit the south pole. This also means that any connected 'blobby' area (such as your LOS, radar coverage or turret coverage) is connected in the projection.

This projection:

Only has these properties if you don't pass over a certain line joining the north and south poles.

The function needs to exist in the first place if you want to improve it.

fair enough.

THIS ! just this!

I have nothing to add. I totally agree with you GoogleFrog, it seems so obvious. Culverin how do you do to not see it ?

Cause I'm dumb

But yes, I agree, it is one of the better options we have out there.

I see 3 major things that need to happen.

1. Uber creates a projection mode toggle.
2. We get enough data out of the game model so we can slice/dice the planet to any other projection type we want.
3. There is enough info from Uber so the graphics won't get wonky for the projection types.

Clearly enough people want projection to warrant Uber to have it built into the game. After that, people can just play the game however they want.
Holographic mode with terrain set to transparent shouldn't be that hard to mod in right?


I just put this whole "projection/minimap" thing to rest and never need to debate it again....