Another minimap request (Re: May 3 livestream)

Up until now, I've been mostly on board with the strategic-zoom-as-minimap plan, but the May 3 livestream gave me some pause...

The issue I noticed was that fully zoomed out, at most you could functionally interact with about 1/6th of the planet's surface (sure, you can "see" about half the planet but good luck selecting a group of units in that blob of icons on the edge of the planet without moving the camera). The point I'm trying to make is that you would need 5 or 6 windows open, each focusing on a different point on the planet, in order to effectively keep track of and manage everything happening on one planet (let alone several), which could get tedious and confusing very quickly.

I noticed in the livestream that the blue player, at about 9:00, was attacked without realizing it until 20 seconds later (maybe longer, I couldn't tell), and at several points it looked like he was scrolling all over the place trying to relocate his own armies (and this was on a "small" planet!).

I realize that this has been discussed in other threads, but after seeing gameplay in the livestream, I feel like the discussion needs to be reopened. I would like to see a projected minimap showing the entire surface of the planet the window is locked to. It would be nice if it behaved like a traditional RTS mini-map (as opposed to a separate camera), where clicking a point in the mini-map would relocate the main camera window, as this would help solve some of the disorientation issues I could see cropping up.

After watching the May 3 livestream, do any other backers agree with me? Any alternative ideas for solving these issues?

There aren't any warning bleeps and arrows yet. Don't worry, they know what they're doing. If it sucks we'll tell them.

As a player of Sins if a Solar Empire I believe that an alert system with a function to quick move the camera to the alert would be suitable for this game. In Sins if you zoom out all the way you only see the gravity wells you own, you can't select the units in them until you focus in on them.

Also, I know this is the nature of Sins but hear me out, alot of the time you don't know where the enemy is moving until they are reasonably close to launching an assault on you (Unless you are the Vasari who can research to see all jumps), the alert system tells you when an enemy is making the jump to your gravity well. Now sometimes this doesn't help, your fleets are spread out and nothing can get there in time; however, this is why I personally build multiple defence lines throughout my systems. I can afford to loose one or two gravity wells as my enemy gets slowed down (and weakened) fighting through them. Then my fleet can catch them and we are done.

My point is, I believe the strategic zoom will be a completely I able way for this game to work and I don't believe there will be much problem with it, providing there is an adequate alert system to help you know when things are under attack and take you there so you can see what can be done, order units to move to the defence or write a base off and prepare your counter offensive.

Also, depending on machine capability, there is no set unit cap. This means you can build defences and units to your hearts desire; defend every base/outpost with a full army? Costly but why not. Build a defensive line longer than any mountain range on the plant? Again costly but why not.

When it comes down to selecting armies, that's what group commands are for and that's a feature that's been in pretty much every RTS. Ok you might have to use it a bit more but when we are fighting over multiple celestial bodies and on multiple fronts I figured this would be the case anyway.

The video showed that zooming out and moving around a planet could be very quick and easy to do so I wouldn't worry about it too much, as long as you have faith in your defences to at least slow down an enemy you should be able to get there to see what needs to done. Even if that is simply evacuation.

I think the problems that a minimap solves are problems that are better solved by other means.

A minimap doesn't do a good job of informing where and how you're attacked, this is the case even with traditional RTSes, let alone one based on multiple spheres instead of a singular, flat surface.

Not to go too far off-topic, but I'd like PA to take some cues from old management games such as Transport Tycoon, where notifications would pop-up on-screen along with a picture-in-picture video of the location where the event is taking place.

Could have a little option toggle that when you zoom out all the way the goes flat?

Though, that defies the point of having spherical planets in the first place

I like the idea of the picture in picture view of the alerts rather then simply a notification images like in Sins of a Solar Empire. This is added to by the fact I believe much of the game will be separate picture windows of different camera positions so that a small alert view is not difficult functionality to implement.

I don't think a mini-map is really needed per-say due to the scale of the game but I think there should be a button to open up a flat map window of the planet with all the icons on it as one of the views. This enables you to see movements across the entire planet and see all known positions right away. This view is only of one planet and can be closed at any time. This gives the functionality of the mini-map when needed but doesn't take up unnecessary space.

This flattened world view would come in handy during a major battle to see all movements, or after a scouting mission with many scout units to be able to view the newly scouted areas easily. Mini-maps are somewhat old and are not hugely useful on such a large scale, but a focused view system could be very handy tactically or as a form of information display that can be opened and closed as needed. Since it is much easier to send many scouts to one planet and then look at a flat map of the surface when deciding where to land, then to swing the camera around the circular planet to try pick the best spot.

It's pre-alpha so I am not expecting much at this point. However as a Starcraft player, in my opinion this game is going to need more than just alerts. Alerts are not good enough I don't want to know about an attack after it is already taking place; I need to know about it before it takes place.

They said that they have ideas, and i'm all open to seeing those; not really going to judge until after that. However in my mind I can't see anything working other than allowing the player to make his own mini maps on the fly using the split screen stuff; however when you zoom ALL the way out everything should wrap out flat it should not just be a 1/6 planet view, as the OP states, I completely agree with that.

Please do a search before creating a new thread on ideas that had already been discussed. neutrino is already well aware of this problem.

For starters, there will be no unwrapping the worlds: Link

The main reasons is that it is very messy to code and it is not appealing. Try taking a globe, and unravel it in a way that it is easy to tell where things will be, so when you put it back into a sphere you will know exactly where it is. It is pretty impossible when you get close to the axis.

He does want something that does give a broad view of the entire game though. They are most likely going to experiment later as I don't think that is one of their top goals right now. Right now they are pushing to get the game in an alpha state, where they could fully experiment with things like some sort of broad view of the game.

If all else fails, there will be multiple windows to use to watch things that happen on the opposite side of the planet. And I'll be happy with that.

Ya, I remember them talking about how they were gonna manage the strategic zoom with multiple planets, and seems like they have plans in the future for some form of alternate view in which you can see several planets in a solar system. It is most likely that they just haven't implemented a good system yet. I don't necessarily disagree with the idea of a minimap but we'll have to see how they do it. I personally love strategic zoom and hope that they can get it working in a smooth manner.

Also I would like to mention that in supcom:fa they use sound as an indicator. If you hear a battle from the side of the map then you know that there is something going on there. I'm not sure how this would relate with multiple planets. But it is a very effective system without any graphical pop ups that lets you know that something is going on. (note: It only seemed to be noticeable if there was a battle between multiple units, covert bombing runs were much harder to hear.) Not sure if this was intentional or even balanced but ya.

I'm not looking for a system that unwraps the world to function as a mini-map that you can interact with, just a generated flat view of the entire surface of the planet with grid lines and such that show the curvature of the world and, while deformed, this gives a good overview of the entire world.

I understand this might not be a feature that it added right away into the game but odds are modders will add it in if the view is not included since it can be very handy to gameplay to see all of a planet that you can see in one nice screen.

Also the idea of sound notifications does work to a point, the problem is when large amounts of combat are all going on at once, artillery firing, artillery impacting, units building and units moving making walking sounds (for the massive walker types) all of the sounds end up mixed together and get tuned. A more dedicated alert system would come in handy if an enemy is approaching your planet or if a large amount of enemy units suddenly appear on radar in a short time period. It helps to focus the attention of the player to respond to threats.

Something that Empire Earth 2 did (if i remember right) was a Picture in Picture system where you could double click the PiP and the camera position of the main view would swap with the PiP, so that you could suddenly zoom to the location of the alert but your previous camera position is saved now on the PiP so that you could go back to it later. Just a handy feature but not core to the game.

I was a little surprised that Marc missed that army. I was wondering whether he was going to pull back or not. Turns out he wasn't paying attention. The idea of having a minimap style interface is interesting, but the logistics of creating such an interface would be nightmarish. Each suggestion requires a significant amount of programming and design time which could be better spent on other areas of the game.

One of the core skills of PA is going to be remembering what armies and bases you have where and maintaining effective enough scouting that you can be fairly confident of where your opponents are. If you have a surprise attack occur on a base or army you were not aware enough and active enough with your scouting.

I am confident that Uber will put in an effective alert system. If not they will hear about it's deficiencies quickly. For now wait and see whether they find or develop an effective replacement for the minimap.

I'm sure some don't see the necessity for mini maps. That doesn't mean there isn't a use for them.

For me, the main use of a mini-map is to gain an overview of the map I'm playing on. AFAICT that doesn't seem very likely with *standard* strategic zoom on a sphere.

I can't see it being very efficient to construct a mini-equivalent from multiple viewports either. Although I love the multi-viewport idea in it's own right.

HOWEVER...
I'll be happy as long as it's possible for modders to create their varying takes on a minimap.

That way Uber can spend their time on the main game and those who want a mini map can download whichever flavour they prefer.

What I didn't like there was the fact that the planetary navigation of the viewport felt very awkward and slow.

I hope they will get this improved somehow. I have a few ideas. If they don't, expect a badass UI mod from me again.

Actually, expect a badass UI mod anyway. ;-)

However, I don't like minimaps, so hold your breath there.

or, don't hold it, that might be wiser

I am well aware that this topic has been discussed previously. I am also well aware that the devs have routinely dismissed any suggestion of a projected mini map with the apparent argument that strategic zoom renders the mini map obsolete. My point is that it doesn't.

Lets say for the sake of argument that you "only" need 3 windows open to manage a single planet (1 zoomed in for giving orders, 1 zoomed out showing the entire near side of the planet, and 1 zoomed out showing the far side). What happens when you need to tend to your base on another planet? Do you:

• 
  A: spend 30 seconds manually moving all 3 cameras from planet A to planet B, perfectly adjusting each one to be at the proper zoom and orientation allowing you to see the whole planet (but leaving you with no idea what's happening on planet A)?
  
  B: only move 1 camera, and accept the risk that there may be a mass of bombers inbound just over the horizon?
  
  C: hotkey multiple camera views for each planet so you can quickly go from one planet to another (you need at least 2 for each planet; what happens when there are 4 planets in the system? How about 8? Do you set 16 hotkeys?)
  
  D: Spend $1000+ on 3 extra monitors, a second GPU to plug them into and a bigger desk to put them on, so you can monitor every planet in the system simultaneously?
  
  E: Only play on single planet systems?
  
  F: Some combination of options A through E?

Do any of these solutions appeal to you? I'm sure there are plenty of alternatives to a mini map for accomplishing the task of monitoring the current state of the entire playfield, but are any of them good ones? I know that the projected mini map has its own issues and isn't a perfectly elegant solution, but are any of the alternatives more convenient than simply having a window with a mini map open for each planet? I like strategic zoom and multiple windows, but I don't see them as a complete substitute for a mini map when the playfield consists of multiple spheres.

Interesting and complicated topic to which I have absolutely no solution for

100% Agree.
i believe a minimap is essential in gaining the proper intell necessary on any RTS. Does it work for for PA? No, probably not. Conventional methods may not be adequate solutions for unconventional ideas. I think the problem is clear: You cannot see more than 50% of the a map at any given moment with one window. The solution is a foggy mixture of splitscreen/minimap/togglemap ideas. They will all be difficult to code, but not impossible. The responsibility is upon us to come up with the requirements for our suggested Minimap idea, and trust that Uber will respond accordingly.

Requirements:
What: Interactive Flat-surface rendering of planet displaying 100% of planetary surface area.
REQ: can be static image, toggleable or window view
REQ: required for planet view only, disables when zoomed out further
REQ: Shows units; respects LOS and RADAR
REQ: Interactive: Allows user to give orders to units or navigate the camera
Bonus: Shows Topography
Bonus: map moves with compass rotation
Bonus: Dictation: Flagging, drop-pins, and Note keeping
Bonus: Alliance Maps: Plan strategic maneuvers with Alliance members
Bonus: Map Pinging: Send signals/beacons/waypoints to teammates

Not many things within my list are any different from previous RTS games or any different from Uber's preconceived ideas of what it may be like if they did make it. But i would like to make these suggestions while they are relevant. Fact is you cannot see the entire battlefield. No robot with even the sloppiest of programming would tolerate this as an acceptable way to plan a war for complete galactic dominance and control.

Please feel free to add to this list of requirements.

I'd just like to point out that with a curved surface, it's actually less than 50% that you can see - at a certain point the surface is still visible but the curvature is so extreme it's impossible to see/control.


On the flip side, what, really, are you looking for in a mini map? Namely, what functions will it perform?

WHY do we need an overall view of the battle that shows the entire planet? Especially considering that the same argument would hold for a view that shows *all* the planets.

If you think about it, when you're playing, you're really performing only 3 main functions:
1. Base management. Building & defending your base
2. Hostile troop assessment & movement tracking
3. Attack planning & engagement

In all these cases, the main consideration is that you want to be able to quickly get from A to B without scrolling around. Supcom allowed you to do that by zooming out - PA will have to figure out how to do it as well. But you cannot ignore the fact that the battlefield will be spread across multiple planets - so any mini-map type 'solution' is going to fail at solving the multi-planet problem.

I think a smooth and capable system to switch and control between multiple viewports is going to be the best way to deal with multiple planets. The key concept is that most of the map is not 'interesting' space - you don't need to see it. You just need the right information at your fingertips in order to decide where & what you want to look at.

One solution I was thinking of was some kind of automatic window split - select a group of units, and as soon as you zoom out / spin the planet, the view splits in two so the selected group has a camera above it, and the target location has a camera above it.

Another solution will be to allow commands to go from window A to window B seamlessly - you should be able to have a window open viewing your base, and a window open viewing the enemy, and be able to click between them. You should also be able to have several small viewports up, focused on 'interesting' parts of the map (your base, the enemy, troop movements), and be able to quickly swap any of those viewports into the main view and back.

Have a UI widget automatically setup the other views whenever you switch planets.

Wouldn't a minimap just be exactly what another window does, if that window was completely zoomed out?

I mean, you only need 2 windows. One completely zoomed out where you can see the whole planet, another for the dark side but really only optional because you could still use the one to see both sides, and one window to actually play on (move around, do unit selections, ect)

Everything else, can be simple hotkeying units, hotkeying camera positions, and grouping orders (like selecting all of certain units on a specific planet, so you don't choose incorrect units or choose units across every planet).

Even with multiple planets, you can use two windows and hotkeyed camera positions to move between planets quickly with as little as 2 keystrokes.