Tracking Incoming Orbital Transfers

Picture in Picture is such a useful feature. However, we can only have one. (which is a bummer. I'd love more since my computer can handle it, but that's another topic)

Since we can only have one we have to pick and choose where we use it. For multi-planet gameplay and managing multiple planets, that second pip is normally best used for looking at the other planet rather than looking at the orbital view.

This leaves us with the problem of keeping track of incoming orbital units. Especially when players send in SXX satellites or a bunch of orbital fabbers to build a teleporter, each second counts.

I have three suggestions.

New Notifications

This probably would be pretty simple. At the very least it'd be simpler than my other ideas. Whenever enemy orbital units are seen to be leaving their planet to transfer between planets, give us a notification. Would probably even be a good one to be an audio transfer since it's such an important event.

New PiP Just for Orbital View

I understand that most computers can't handle rendering another gameplay window. However, I am going to assume that rendering the orbital view doesn't take as much power as rendering planet side. If that's the case, then having a new PiP just for a full orbital view would be very helpful.

Semitransparent Overlay

My last idea is a lot more ambitious and presents a number of challenges. The biggest challenge is ensuring enough contrast to actually be seen and not so much contrast that it is too distracting.



But some form of an overlay that shows dots moving between planets. This could be larger, it could be smaller. It could use actual strategic icons or it may not. Like I said, it's very rough and is more of a proof of concept to illustrate my idea rather than try and explain it with text.

Conclusion

Knowing that a unit is incoming is very important and having an improved manner of noticing these incoming units would be really helpful.

That overlay looks budiful.

ha. Thanks. I was concerned about it being too rough. Barely spent 5 minutes on it.

Any old diablo II players would have no problem with an overlay after years spent running around with a map on over their gameplay.

Not sure how popular it would be in PA though, and with strategic icons already becoming something of a mess in larger fights I'm not sure adding more complexity to the screen is a good idea.

If players don't like the added complexity, then they don't enable it. If players are fine with it, then they could enable it.

Ok fair enough, I do agree we need an easier way to keep track of orbital shenanigans. I just feel your first two suggestions are easier to implement and would be more widely used.

I love it! This is a really great idea and should be added to the game.

edit: I am talking about the Semitransparent Overlay.

I always wanted to see pip/minimap that doesn't slow down my game. I've proposed idea about simplified PIP mode, where it only renders icons and plain circles instead of planets. I only proposed that only because I wanted to have my orbital map always on.

So yeah, I want something like that, to keep track of incoming orbitals.

Ah but that's good though cause it's minimalist
I think it'd be a good solution as it wouldn't be very demanding or distracting, and would save us checking the system view every few minutes.

A simple orbital overlay like that would be great. Any chance that this is can be made as a ui mod?

i like your idea, i also haf sometimes trouble whats going on when i am building on more planets.

Sometimes say unit under atack and then i start my search where it is

Only rendering icons rather than units would be very helpful as an option for the main window for players with less powerful computers.

It could also be helpful for people even with mid/high range computers when we get multi-window support.

I have two monitors and would love to have a dozen windows covering my two monitors with different views.

me, too

if a tiny corner-screen popup told me at least on which planet the attack is located, that would help

in RL, nobody would report being attacked without providing location info... otherwise, it would just be a waste of breath

icons-only option is a great idea!

gj, brian!

The overlay would be great, yeah! Or if that's not possible, having the PiP cycle through several views would be nice too ...

We already have anchor points... but anchor points for PiP would be pretty awesome.

Transparent overlay looks perfect. This would make orbital much more manageable. +1 would marry anybody who makes this.

Yes.
YES.

Well I'm flattered... but the distance would make it difficult...

I like overlay. Could also be enhanced by showing a units type, path and time to destination at mouseover.