Some UI Ideas

I've been trying to get some friends into PA, and although they've enjoyed themselves, they brought up some interesting points. We all know the UI in PA is in need of an upgrade (considering I've seen a whole bunch of posts about it), but my friend brought up some interesting points that I have not seen people ask for. He suggests:

-when selecting units, it should bring up the names and stats of the different types of units being selected
-Minimap (we've seen this suggestion a bunch already, but what the heck, I'll include it anyway)
-Have the unit/building description show up when you hover your mouse over the unit/building in question
-Allow the commander to be selected as a combat unit and a builder unit, not just as a builder unit (for when you want to have him join an assault early on)

Any other suggestions or comments?

1: Already in the game, kinda. Shows what units. Honestly, I don't think the names and stats should be included. It would just clutter up the UI. Maybe on click or something... but really, it wouldn't be used practically at all. Send your friends on over to the PA Matches Wiki. It has all the up to date stats.

2: Uber has said it will be implemented. It's going to be tied into the multi window system, which seems to be a ways off since we haven't heard anything about it.

3: I don't like this one. It would clutter up the UI. All you need to do is figure out what the unit/building is once. Once you know what it is, then you don't need to be constantly told what it is. That'd just be clutter. Again, check out the Wiki.

4: I strongly strongly oppose this one. When I do a huge click and drag over the entirety of my base to select all my combat units, the absolute LAST thing I want to happen is select my Commander. When fighting early on, the combat is small scale enough that manually selecting him is good enough.

options 1 and 3 could be through quick pop-ups that don't remain on screen, but last long enough for you to read them. The pop-ups of option 3 wouldn't trigger right away, because that would be awful when moving your mouse over your army/base, but would just appear when hovering for a little bit. I know that option 1 is not used by advanced players, being one myself (I would hope) I would never use it, but for people making a transition from other RTS games it makes a huge difference in playability. I can agree with your take on point 4 however, perhaps just a reworking of unit selection as sometimes it's hard to shift-click both the commander and the bots. And yes I know we just had a re-working of unit selection, but perhaps it should be coded that the commander takes priority when you click in his general area (on him, or very close by).

I think Options 1 and 3 should be implemented for the sake of playability for some of the new players, and I do believe there is a method to implement stat displays without cluttering up the UI more than it needs to be. It can even take the space of the build bar when selecting combat units, as I don't think most people are going to be worrying about the total health and armour of their engineers. All that would really need to be shown is health and damage, maybe speed and range, but range can be seen by holding down ctrl anyway, and speed can be seen when moving your units. I don't think it would be possible to select more units at once than there would be space to display stats for in an area the size of the advanced fabber's build bar.

If there's a pop up over a unit or building every time I select or hover over it, even if there's a delay, then I wouldn't play the game until I mod it out.

There's other, and better, ways of educating new players on what the units are and what they do.

Even so, I don't really think education is really needed. I played SupCom for quite some time before I ever Googled anything about the unit. I just played the game and figured out what units did. Back in the days when I played Command and Conquer, there wasn't even the Internet to find that stuff. I just read the pamphlet that came with the game. For Red Alert 2, I just figured it out.

I strongly oppose pop ups.

Maybe add a unit directory in the menu options or something. Anything but pop ups.

IF there's pop ups, there MUST be a setting to turn it off – which every player will do right away, or after a few matches.

Sure, I think there should be an option for removing pop-ups as well, It doesn't necessarily have to be done with pop-ups either, but there should at least be a quick-to-access method of figuring out what certain units and structures do, for beginner players, perhaps a keybinding that brings up the description of the selected unit(s)/structure(s). I have found that many players who cannot grasp things quickly when they pick up a game, often lose interest quickly, adding more support for beginner players would be a means to curb the number of people who would quickly lose interest, and adding an option to disable these tutorials or pop-ups would curb the number of advanced players annoyed with them!

Be that as it may, I strongly believe that basic combat unit stats should be displayed when said unit is selected, as I stated previously, this could be done in a space no larger or different than the build bar you see when a fabber or the commander is selected. It wouldn't clutter up the UI unnecessarily because it occupies a space that is used by fabbers when they are selected, and I don't see anyone complaining about the build bar. Also, it would allow for quick re-calculations of the situation, as you have your unit stats in front of you when necessary, shown in an unobtrusive manner.

I would make a mock-up on paint.net, but I'm going to sleep for a few years, or hours. Probably hours. Anyway, see you guys later.

There is a quick access method to finding stats. Simply Google it and you find your answer. ... although to be fair, the official wiki is often outdated and riddled with ads. But I'm working to get the PA Matches wiki to overtake the official wiki in the search results.

There's lots of stats for a unit, even for a basic one: http://pamatches.com/wiki/units/vehicles/ant/

What you're suggesting, to put the info in down in the side, then there's not enough room. There's too much data, and that would make the info larger. And that's just when selecting one unit. What if you select a dozen different units? Are you going to display none, or all?

The build bar is simple. One bit of info that constantly changes. It's helpful.

The stats are numerous, and always stay the same. It's helpful for the first time you read it. Afterwards, it's not needed and takes up space.

That's a very key difference. The build bar changes. The stats don't.

You say "no larger or different" than the build bar. But the simple fact is, there's too much info to make it the same as the build bar – especially when multiple units are selected.

It is obtrusive. It's taking up screen real estate. Granted, not much, but more than you think – and again for just one unit. It's very common to select 4 to 8 different types of units – and we have a less than half complete unit roster. When more units are added, and it's very easy to select 16 different types of units, then that's very obtrusive.

If you want to learn about the stats of a unit, I highly recommend browsing a Wiki.

I'm all for providing info to new players. But it shouldn't be in game. If it is in game, then it MUST be able to be turned off.

Even so, in game would just simply get in the way.

In general I think a minimalistic UI is a good UI.. Simple but powerful. There's nothing I hate more than a visually cluttered UI/HUD. I think in principle the only thing you need to have visible at all times is your eco numbers and recent notifications. A power user will always use keyboard shortcuts for any commands. A minimap i feel would just overlap with the main view.. I think the main view is powerful enough on itself. I thought this was the whole idea of the supcom-style design.. The player is the commander looking at the minimap.

Also, take a look at this mod.

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/rel-unit-info-56516.50894/

Unfortunately, PA-DB isn't always updated. :-/

Um... official wiki should be most accurate. .. Otherwise what is the point?

And sadly padb has the best layout of the 4 databases out there..

I see the mod, and It looks like it could definitely be useful for new players, though it doesn't allow you to see important stats on the fly, so advanced players might not ever use it.

As I said before, the only stats you would really need to show are health and damage, or health and DPS, take your pick. As far as I know, all of the other stats can be determined ingame, by looking at their ingame behaviour. For example, I don't need to know the stats for speed of a unit, or turn rate of a unit, because I can easily see it happen ingame, however If my army of ants wants to take down a commander, knowing how many I would need to overwhelm it would be useful, therefore, letting me see the damage output and health of both the commander and the ants would let me quickly average how many ants I would need to kill the commander. Knowing the health and damage of both units would allow me to make quick tactical decisions with my units based off of a bit better information.

Give me a second, i'll make a mock-up in paint.net, the stats would really not take up much space.

used to be a mod, not sure if you still can

shift-select works.

please, please only post such suggestions in @Culverin 's UI suggestions thread

My bad, the search for the UI changes thread on the forums I did earlier didn't turn up anything like that. Might have been my internet derping, or I could have screwed up the search query. I'll post stuff in there next time. Thanks for the heads up!

Also, here is mock-satbar as promised:

I would like to add one UI suggestion

- In the short descriptions add the keyboard shortcut of the building or the unit to make it easyer to select them and remember the key bindings.

it's a bit ui heavy, i can imagine it fitting in the corner just fine.

also you should use economy efficiency mod.

and lastly it's not your fault, in my humble oppinion, search function is broken, I use Google, I type in: "site:forums.uberent.com **TYPE KEYWORDS HERE**"

dude read what I said. there's a UI suggestions thread.

also your idea exists, it's called hotbuild. you can get it through this : https://forums.uberent.com/threads/rel-pa-mod-manager-v2-0-2.50726/

The Official Wiki is often inaccurate, same goes for PA DB. They often can take weeks to be updated after unit stats are changed.

The PA Matches Wiki is updated within a day of each new release and is the largest, fastest growing, and most accurate Planetary Annihilation Wiki out there.

The problem with something like that is that it's a noob trap, there are so many stats that go into defining how a unit works and when you only present a small selection of stats you'll confuse lots of people.

Mike

Yep because PA-DB dude doesn't appear to be active.

I do think that PAmatches wiki can learn a lot from the way information is actually presented in PADB. PADB is much faster to navigate.

And on accuracy. ... what the heck is Viper Commander?

There's very little difference between the PA Matches wiki and PA DB.

If you want to jump straight to a unit, scroll down to the list of units and click on the unit. On the individual unit pages, all the same information is displayed.

PA DB is more geared towards power users who are very familiar with the game. The PA Matches wiki has to strike a balance between new players and power users. For the power users, there's the search and the newly added list of units on the wiki home. Making the PA Matches wiki more like PA DB wouldn't be a smart choice since there are so many new players who browse the wiki.

The PA Matches wiki just has more to the site than just being a list of unit, since PA Matches offers more both through the wiki and through the other features on the site. Also, the PA Matches wiki has a search.

The Viper Commander is what the Raptor Commander was called at first. I updated the wiki. Despite that one error, the PA Matches wiki is still a lot more accurate than PA DB and the official wiki.

I really suggest you go through the unit database of pamatches with a fine toothed comb. I noticed one significant error per page on multiple pages.

Yes. Correct. I am purely talking about the unit bit of PADB vs the unit bit of pAMatches. And accuracy isn't as great as you think it is.

Also I am talking about ergonomics. PA-DB isn't perfect, but it is definitely more ergonomic than the unit bit of PA-DB.

Hi, I just wanted to throw another voice into this thread...

As a more casual gamer, I hate having to look up information outside of a game. I should be able to make an educated decision, only from information presented to me in the game, about whether it is better for me to build 5 basic factories pumping out level 1 vehicles or 2 advanced factories pumping out level 2 vehicles. I should not have to resort to a wiki for this.

I think that you have a good point that this information should be hide-able, but I think you are wrong in assuming players will turn it off within a minute or two of playing. In an RTS, there are many build trees one can go down, and it's nice to be able to make some decisions without investing as much time as it would take to play both paths of the decisions.

From another perspective, it is also nice to be able to figure out strategies and whatnot on your own, without consulting a wiki. That's half the fun for some gamers. There are other gamers who love reading strategy guides and wikis and learning that way. Both are valid, and should be supported. By not including critical information in game, you are really making the game less fun for a large demographic of gamers. Sure, including more information will decrease your screen space, but if you have an information panel that can be closed or minimized, but shows more detailed, relevant information when it is open, that really makes the game a lot more fun to play through trial and error. Less time is spent going down fruitless paths.

So, please include more in-game help about units. Minimally, I would like to see a damage per second measurement by the metal cost. That way, I can see what I'm paying, and what I'm getting out of it. That would be swell. More information would probably be nice though. It would be great to see movement rates, etc, in an in-game appendix. Sure, it's on a wiki. I understand. I also know that when I care about Planetary Annihilation is when I'm playing Planetary Annihilation, and usually wouldn't spend much time in the wiki or on forums. I'm sure I'm not the only one in this demographic.

Great game so far, by the way. Thanks!