So OK, really hard to get more visibility in PA, I personally think Minimap is a no-go. Take a look.

...At my ideas


....And also @Artamentix's https://forums.uberent.com/threads/how-can-i-see-the-map-of-the-planet.49280/page-3#post-760850

because hey let's give credit where it's due.

Now redone a bit cleaner (line lenght shows distance to current viewpoint, when units get closer they "land" on the horizon) :


Now my idea : four (non clickable) pip cameras set that fade in when you zoom into a planet and are placed behind the planet to act as a rear-view mirror:

OR it could be a single PiP with a very strong lens effect.
And for the Tony Starks out there


And my (very roughly edited) idea for a three-way PIP activated with a single hotkey that brings three completely different planets without their backgrounds into the same view.

Of course if this could be stacked with the 4-pip-rear-view too


BTW guys please appreciate that I'm doing this in GIMP and how painstaking that is compared to Photoshop

The lag.....My God.

I like the first unmirrored example and would try it as a mod for sure. The others would be interesting if possible but seem disorienting. Cool.

Pfft. GTX 980. Just don't Uber it.

Tats, I think the Tony Stark version would get confusing fast.

not on my PC

My GPU would commit suicide.
Hell, late game I bet anyone's GPU would commit suicide.

Nah, Varrak's got our backs. We'll be running scale 5,000 planets as standard in no time. Child's play.

Give me a rolled out distroted mini map please ØD

Interesting but I would only like to see important stuff like commanders and teleports and les simportant, ssx, (anti)nukes and halleys.
Also I would not need it for my own stuff as I roughly know where everything is already.

Tough I would value icons for explored but not currently visible structures more. (In case I missed my radars arriving and being shut down.)

The second image- yes! I personally think this is ideal +1.

Oops mistake post

How about a fullscreen projection of the current planet as a background of the actual 3D planet view? As replacement for the skybox and all the other orbital bodies usually shown, that is.

Very interesting, although the tony stark picture is a no go, since allot of icons will overlap and it will be hard to identify what is where. Without it and only the 4 PiP on the background might actually be a grand idear! Although for orientation purposes I would link the picture to the actual field of view, so upper left picture is the upper left field of the planet if you take the base as it's center point. I hope that makes any sence

hey it's a question of what you can tolerate but I also thing that these floating icons could get a halo behind which stuff is also slightly blurred (heck there are tons of ways to increase contrast) and as such would make themselves clearly separate from the backround.

sorry, just checking because this is very ambiguous , second from where?
@Artamentix image included or not?

True dat! That makes it even more interesting and more useful

Looks fancy, no idea if playing with that would be good or not.
If we had modding hooks for this stuff, that would be cool to play around with.

Given the nature of the primitive graphics (at that scale), I suspect the lag would come from the cpu and/or the network, not the GPU.

Looks a little confusing, you have to redo the orbital icons.

Still might be a little confusing, well all of them might be, but mabey if we had some macro icon to represent a cluster of stuff?

The positioning of the mirrors seems off, like they should be reversed or something, but overall, that looks bloody fantastic.

My, eyes.

NOW THIS IS A SERIOUSLY COOL IDEA!

and you should read the text and links in your quote.

also
...it's a mockup I'm not going to bother with little details like that. I need a bit of your imagination to do the work.

overall thank for the kind words

I don't understand why this would cause a performance decrease if the entire game is being rendered at the same time.

Couldn't there be a 3D camera system to solve this?