I think it would solve that pretty well. Well what would that solution be? The best mix to solve it as I imagine it would be multiple view support where views can be: 1. Normal strategic zoom views. You can move around the planets and zoom in and out as far as you like. 2. Wrapped camera around a planet. This would allow you to see the whole surface of an orbital body in 1 view. You should be able to give commands on this view but I'm not sure how zooming should work. 3. Solarsystem minimap view. On this map you see all orbital bodies of interest(it might not show uninhabited orbital bodies) and you see their current status. Status could be flashing if units on the orbital body is taking damage or if an enemy is spotted on that planet when there previously was no enemies spotted on that orbital body. The minimap should probably be zoom-able and if you zoom in on 1 specific orbital body it should probably turn into normal strategic zoom. Sound is an interesting question with multiple views. How should the player be able to identify the source of the sound? Should sound only come from the "main" view? Should sound come from all views? Should sound direction be determined from the location of the view on the screen? Should sound direction be determined from the place according to the main view? One alternative is that you only hear sounds from the view at which you hold your mouse cursor while notification sounds will always be heard.
It's an important point for me. I don't want to have to zoom out every 3 seconds just to be sure I'm not attacked elsewhere. Only seeing 50% of the planet make the problem worst. Still, I'm for removing the minimap, at least at the beginning just to see if alternate solution come up. For example, for the map awareness problem you could have a few viewports at the left of the screen that automatically popup when an enemy enter your field of view.
The point I'm trying to get at is that the problem is not 'player is unable to see entire playable area at the same time'. As a player viewing the map, you need to be able to see what is going on (point of interest), and the relative distance between those points of interest. Looking at a mini map with your base, the enemy, and a whole lot of empty planet is, for example, a waste of your attention and screen space. One solution that resolves this without a mini map: Automatically create a floating window for an area on the planet that is 'interesting'. This could be any area where the enemy was recently spotted, enemy forces, your forces, and your base. A floating window would only appear if the angle of the main camera to the location was too great (whatever angle it is that makes things start to squish together on a sphere). Put a literal line between where the camera for a view is pointing and the planet, and rotate this in real time, so that it's very very easy to understand exactly what the camera is pointing at. Fade the view away as the player rotates around the planet - duplicated views should not be visible. Link these windows to the planet itself, so that each planet has its own configuration of windows Pointing at a side view and double-clicking would rotate the planet into that view - your previous location becomes a side window and still keeps that relative distance fresh in your mind. Side view windows would be able to be interacted with just like the main view - give orders, select units, zoom in /out, just no planet rotation. As you zoom out from the planet, bring the other planets into view - these could each be focused on where the main camera was when you left the planet. Pointing the mouse at the planet and zooming in would center the planet in the camera view, activate the side windows and bring the entire planet's range of interesting areas into view. I'm not sure if that makes sense enough or if I have to provide visuals, but I think a clever usage of windows that show the player only information that they need to know is much better than a generic mini map that just shows every irrelevant detail.
You it might work but this relies heavily on that the algorithm that choses 'interesting' areas actually reflect what the players find interesting without spamming the player with views. Problem is that the game has to be designed to tell you what's important. If this hinders the player to focus on what the player thinks is important then it might actually be counterproductive. When a minimap tells you the exact location of your units and enemy units you can determine for yourself what is irrelevant and relevant information without intrusive pop-ups. Of course, now displaying the exact relative position of your units and spotted enemy units is probably not doable if you are playing in a solar system and only have 2-D screens. Now your idea might work if it manages to prioritize the views without being intrusive and show relevant information but I'd think I'd have to try it myself to determine that. It might even come down to customization though if players find different ways of commanding interstellar battle.
I like pawz's suggestion Though I still think some sort of "tab'ed" view would be very useful. Like a collection of strategic zooms of the planet from different angles - possibly for different planets side by side. Not to be used in getting a quick idea about what is going on (I think pawz's suggestion with smaller pop-ups with some line back to the main view works better for that) but more in planning, and "summing up" what is going on.
Maybe there could be a system that allows you to rank or 'create' your own custom Alerts. Hand control over to the player as to what they want to be alerted to and what level of severity they want attached to it Red, Orange, Yellow, Blue and Green alerts that you can slot different alert types into. and a "non" alert slot that you can put things you never want to be notified of into. Main Base under attack, Outpost Five spotted a large formation of tanks, Asteroid Collision Course detected, Currently Stalling on Metal/Energy, Metal/Energy reserves low, Surplus Metal... Build more storage, Factory Twelve has Completed it's Production Queue, Etc.
That's actually a nice idea. Adding some custom facilities for UI is nice. If only i'd have something like that in StarCraft2, SC:FA...
Here's my completely non artistic rendering of how it might look. Also, for points of interest, I was thinking it could be kept very simple - you follow these rules: Show a window - if there is enemy movement, enemy forces, or friendly forces AND - Angle from main camera > x degrees AND - combine areas of interest that are on the same plane (within x number of degrees of planetary surface), by zooming the side window out. AND - Target a maximum of 4 windows for a 5 window auto-view (main + 4)
The UI will probably rock and be totally useful and not require a mini map. For example, there might be a pop up that happens when units are attacked or engaged somewhere and you can click it to immediately go to that area. Then another button that allows you to immediately return to where you were: say you were doing some intensive base building on another planet and do not want to forget to complete that.
Do you realize the kind of twisted solutions we have to come up with, just to solve huge gameplay problems that did not exist on traditionnal flat-maps RTS games ? Except for the original graphics, the one and only advantage I see of having planets instead of flat maps is that there is no boundary that prevents you from moving in a direction. If you imagine a flat map as a planet, going all to the left side would make your units appear on the right side, as if they had turned around that planet. Well, on PA, it won't be "as if". They will indeed turn around the planet, which offers different possibilities to approach someone's base. However, this indeeed makes a "mini-map" or a fully operationnal "strategic zoom" even more important, as you will have to monitor more possible weak points that your opponent may take advantage of. Moreover, not only will you have to do that on one planet, but even of a plurality of planets. I guess this will make PA much more different from TA/SC than we can imagine today. I don't know if it'll be for the best or the worst. But whatever it is, I can't imagine that having multiple windows, alerts and so on will keep away the frustration and make it a fun game to play. On the contrary. The more invasive tools you try and add to compensate the problems caused by the "planets instead of a flat map" choice, the more silly this game design choice will look. Perhaps we need to accept the fact that PA won't be a "TA on planets", but a new kind of game with its own advantages and limitations.
A much more sane thought than trying to make Planetary Annihilation conform to the usual standards of more mainstream RTSs.
hmm, apparently something went wrong when I hit "submit" yesterday, so I'll have to retype... I was thinking that pawz' suggestion comes with a problem, namely that it becomes a viable strategy when mounting an offence to split it into multiple minor attacks to swamp the opponent's screen with windows, or alternatively have the notification of the main attack be replaced immediately by the notification decoy attacks. I realize that this may be regarded as a feature, since similar strategies would seem to apply in real combat, however, it seems to disable the notification system. Like the "hack" in starcraft where a protos player may mount a small attack with some throwaway units and a single dark templar, and hope that the opponent doesn't notice that the attack keeps going after all the visible units have been defeated.
on a round planet? it doesn't have to be succesfull attacks, just stuff that will trigger the alerts. sending in 10 t1 tanks to battle base defences in different positions would do the trick, as long they managed to get 1 shot off before getting squashed.
Assuming the most basic and simplistic of alarm systems, yeah that'd work. Of course, that's probably not a very smart assumption.
then I think you should improve upon it, I am basing the discussion upon the alert system as it has so far been described in this thread.
I'd like to point out that the window idea wouldn't be 'show a window for every unit / alert scenario'. If you have a window already looking at the area, it wouldn't pop up a new window - at most, the side window could zoom out a bit to cover more area and show the 'new' alerts. Ideally the auto-window system would create a maximum of 4 windows, which is enough already to cover the entire planet on all sides. If you have just landed and don't have any intel on the planet, you have no windows. You send out a scout and as soon as he is out of sight of the main camera, a little side window would pop up, tracking your scout. If he were to make it around the entire planet and end up back at your base without finding any enemies, the side window would simply fade away. If he were to run into an enemy base on the other side of the planet and get killed, the window would stay up, and the player could click a 'why is this area interesting' button, which would re-play the last trigger event (your scout getting shot). If you then send an air scout and does an overpass of the enemy base, the side window would zoom out a little to show the buildings that were discovered by the air scout. If your radar goes up and you spot some radar signatures between your base and his base, a 2nd window might pop up, focused on those radar signatures. If they move out of range, same thing - window stays open with a button to show the last couple seconds of trigger activity (where did those units go?). And so on.
Ooh, yes, this is a fantastic idea. The player won't be annoyed with how many alerts there are, because they set the alerts themselves. Awesome. I think a lot of people are going to be a bit shortsighted when it comes to the difficulty of how to display information on a spherical surface. It's not their fault, as this is one of the first times this has ever been important (Sins doesn't count, it may be 3D but everything takes place on a flat plane). It's also why a minimap is a lot more tricky than you think. I mean, think about all the different kind of map types there are. There are hundreds. And all of them, except maybe the orange peel one, are warped in some way. They would not provide an accurate depiction of where things are: you would have an idea, but there wouldn't be much you could do with it. Let's face it: spheres don't translate well to flat surfaces. They just don't. Every single attempt to do so results in a distortion. Add to that that we will be dealing with multiple planets. While each will effectively act sort of like an island would in a traditional RTS setting, things are going to be more complex. But that's besides the point. The point is, minimaps aren't going to cut it, because no matter what, they will be distorted. The only real way, as has been described, is basically to have mini screens that function similarly to your own. This will provide no distortion, and let you see what's going on (it may still be half, but you can effectively watch both halves of a planet). I can only imagine how complex a minimap would actually be to make. Suffice to say, we're going to have to get used to a new way of looking at things. This probably points even more to how important notifications and displays of general information will be for the player to even comprehend what all is going on at once.
Y'know what's really cool about the whole intelligent multi-window concept combined with alerts? It'll be dead easy to make the camera do a dramatic pan/zoom/orbit around the units in question during an alert. Which means that PA players could potentially spend a lot more time looking at the units at a reasonable zoom level, or at the very least, get much more feeling for what the dots on the main screen are doing. It would not be beyond imagining to have an optional 'action cam' that pops up and follows your troops into battle - through which you can also give orders and take that 'micro' control as necessary!
Micro-management of units and buildings has been ruled out, to make the game as simple as possible to play. I think it is fair to say that micro-management of alerts should be ruled out also, or it will make no sense.
