How can I see the map of the planet?

Are the 90$ I payed for this enough of an answer?
No, seriously. This map design is one of the best things about PA. I'm not saying that Uber should do nothing about the overview thingy. They are actually thinking and working on this, see all the other threads about this topic. But whatever Uber will introduce to help you, they will not scrap the design and give you a flat map. Because this is what every other RTS is doing, what caused major developers and publishers to turn away from this genre and let it nearly die. Because no one could come up with something that would be innovative in an RTS.
PA will never play like any of those RTS. Regardless of what Uber will develop to help the map overview, you will have to adapt in some way. If this isn't for you then maybe PA is not your kind of RTS at all. A mod that lets you throw asteroids on a SupCom map is perhaps a better idea?
So please don't demand a flat map view, I could play TA if i wanted that.

And you can't simply unwrap the planet into a flat map. Firstly the engine and mapping tech of PA is focused in spheres only. Take a read at Jon Mavors Blog for details. http://www.mavorsrants.com/
(In essence they would need a second engine for a flat map. PA uses complely new tech never used in an RTS)
And secondly there are huge issues with mapping a sphere on a flat surface. Read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_projection

So PA will need some special solution. Something new, like the spherical map itself.

For me its a great feature. Yes there are issues, Uber is working on them. This design encourages teamplay. It requires more attention. But I don't have the feeling of fighting the game itself.

Taking into account that you can only see half of one planet at a time, and there are multiple planets I think to enjoy PA you're going to have to get used to the idea you won't really know a lot of what is going on at any one moment.. but keeping in mind that's the same for your opponent it's still fair.

Wether that'll turn things into pot luck will be down to how well they tune the gameplay. For instance giving units lots of armour and low DPS so that if you're 30 seconds late getting to a battle the units can take care of themselves and you won't have lost your entire platoon of tanks because you weren't looking at that part of the map at that moment.

I can see them doing lots of things to counter this problem.. games like Devil May Cry managed to put complex fight mechanics in that were based around sound cue which made up for the fact you weren't quite sure where the enemies were or where you stood in relation to them thereby offsetting the innacuracy of a free roaming 3d beatemup versus a 2d beatemup.

Alternativelly you could get a text alert like a phone notification (say on the top of the screen) telling you your tanks are being attacked by another tank, or commander is under attack. Then hit F1, F2, F3 to jump to the planet and position where that happened.

Personally I'm not wild about the idea of not knowing what's going on. But that was always going to be a problem when they decided to go with spherical maps. In TA despite it's lack of strategic zoom the minimap told you enough that you'd a good idea what was going on and jumping to any point in one click was easy. I'm sure I'll get used to PA but I'll think of it as a very different animal than FAF or TA.

Stop over-reacting. Nobody is asking for a flat map but a lot of people are asking for a flat view. 3D sphere and 2d views are not mutually exclusive.

600 years of cartography proves otherwise.
(I know there is no perfect solution, we are not asking for perfect either).

Teamplay in 1v1, that's a new concept.

16 years ago. Like starcraft2 is doing now with a gameplay like 16 years ago. If I want to play an archaic game, I would play it, not FA or PA.
If the game "solve" the problem with a minimap or alter, it will be failure for me, even if the system works. I was hoping to not see such thing in a massive scaled RTS ever again (Ruse and Wargame were other proof of that).

This would be a very interesting feature, one I'd definitely like to try out! I'd imagine there could be a key which would transform the view between flat and spherical. And an option to do this automatically when zooming out or such.

To be honest, I don't see any other solution working. Not without having multiple and / or large monitors.

I think there can be other solutions than 2D view or minimap. Let Uber come up with something.
There was also a good suggestion from another player elsewhere on this forums, Trying to find it ...

Edit: hm, didn't find. In essence you would get a ring-like HUD around the planet that will show you where the enemy is and if there is something worth your attention happening on the other side.
I like it because it integrates into the current planet map without fancy things like unwrapping it. And it doesn't add some add-on UI like a minimap.

I'm against the idea of a flat view period.

I do not find looking around the sphere dyzzing, however for practical purposes allowing to zoom out more before going to galactic view would be nice, and of course having the strategic icons on the galactic view as well (although that's already part of the plan, since they appear on the sun : P ...)

It's just a question of adaptation and essentially requires an even more complex use of scrool wheel + mouse movement than FA (yes complex, it's hard for rookie FA players to get into at first) but essentially you have to ditch middle mouse button pan and scrool on the world borders. this is obviously facilitated by pole lock since the two only map pan dirrections left are right and left and those are the ones most readily available (due to our screens being wider than they are tall and the planets (spheres) bieng as wide as they are tall, this is also the reason why I think it should be allowed to zoom out more : to allow easyer access to the up and down pan).

but i suggest this for an even more practical use of the normal strategic view :

A modifier key (why not shift? I do not, in FA, zoom at the same time as I edit queues, I do sometimes view the queues at the same time as I zoom but this is not key, and another key could be chosen.)

once pressed, an interface would appear in the center allowing you to use the scroll wheel pan but in the center of the screen (going to the edges is what makes us loose that precious time, essencialy when playing PA your mouse pointer stays in the middle of the screen)


something smaller of course, this is just a mock-up

+1 for allowing a greater zoom distance.
That and removing the galactic view from the mouse wheel. There should be a button for this or a soft resistance for the camera zoom before going into galactic view mode.

uh-uhn gallactic view on the mouse wheel stays it looks to epic to go, just have there be a "lock" with a sensibility that you can set : two extra turns of the mouse wheel out when you've already zoomed out to maximum and PA understands you want to go to galactic view.

this way if you do a really energetic mouse wheel scroll (as i always do) it can go from ground to fully zoomed out without the gallactic view hassle.

I think it's important to get as much information as possible, but I'd don't really want them to go for the quick fix of flattening the map except as a last resort. IMO, flattening the map is the handy-man equivalent of "use more duct tape". I'd rather see other options explored first.

The biggest advantage that a flat mini-map has is that it can very easily show you information of the entire map.

Now we are limited to trying to pan around <50% of the map at a time to find what is going on while trying to do everything else (And can get quite disoriented without pole-lock on or constantly returning north to top of screen).

Some way of seeing the rest of the map is necessary, and a projected/flattened mini-map that is always centered on where you are currently viewing seems like the most efficient way to deal with this. (It show information relative to where you are currently looking so you know where to pan to in main view when you get alerts, and can easily see alerts no matter where they are on the world and quickly get to them).

I'm pretty against flattening the map. Not to mention the programming standpoint of what would be required to do that in this game at this point, it's in my opinion a bad idea for these reasons:

- It would look really ugly when in solar system view or in general.
- There is no good way to flatten out a sphere without distortion and the whole point of flattening it out was to make it easier to see what's going on, NOT HARDER. If you want to learn more go to the webpage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_projection
- Think of what the orbital units would look like when it's in flattened mode... Horribly confusing.
- And there are much easier and better ways to solve this problem.

One solution that I saw on these forums and I liked could be that there is a smaller view somewhere on your screen when your zoomed into a planet of exactly what's opposite of what your looking at. ( the other side of the planet )

A key - say, pressing the scroller (M3) - that would instantly rotate everything 180 degrees would also be handy.

And what about, while normal scrolling is zooming, Ctrl (or whatever) + scrolling is rotating? I don't know how rotation currently works, so this may not be necessary.

To try and get anywhere on this subject we first have to list and agree on what the function of this map would be. Right now we aren't getting anywhere.

give it up, it's just imposible, I don't want to know what a 2D representation of a sphere looks like, my guess is impractical and uninformative not to metion an incredible resource hog and a pain in the *** to figure out a code to.

as for a spherical minimap it adds nothing to what there already is there is no reason not to have the possibility to view half transparent strat icons of blips on the other side of your view. don't have the brain power to understand what you see? lucky you it only appears when you press a modifier key.

You´r points its something that is a shadow on ower mind....
We also got half off ower thoughts, think this strategic sphere zoom, might not grab players.
The other half we like but the zoom view its really (lets be honest) its really worry many ppl,iff we want a game to play long time lets talk serius off what will grab us or not...
Reason! Take us out the feeling off all action off the game.
just don´t feel that who not ust to hard rts tactical games.

The issue is that there are very few feasible ways to display concise information about military operations on a sphere. We have gone over the possibilities; picture in picture, holomaps, audio cues and alert messages. Unwrapping the planet simply is too much effort for a map that only mapmakers will be able to read and use as an advantage.

I will leave this here as its fits in this thread also. Its from a similar topic in the backers forum.
(Self-quoting ftw :? )

What about, instead of worrying about displaying a "minimap" of what's happening on the entire planet, just displaying a mini view (strategic, zoomed out, whatever) of the polar opposite side of the planet as is being viewed in the main display? Most of us are zooming in and out all the time while we're playing anyway, so what's the purpose of having mini view of the same side of the planet we're already looking at?

In addition to that, once extra-planetary play becomes available, what about a Sins of a Solar Empire-esque display to the side giving a quick glance of what's happening on the other planets in the system? It wouldn't have to be as detailed as showing each individual unit, or even representing any units at all, but there could be some kind of intuitive coloring system... I.E., orange shading means enemies are present on the same planet, red blinking means you have units/structures under attack, etc.

The only other option I can think of that might work, is that when you zoom out to 'strategic' level, that the planet you are viewing splits into two, and you get a view of both the front and back, linked together so that if you rotate one, the other one rotates too.

Then if you hover over an area on either planetary view and zoom in, the view merges into a single view.

This would give you an overview and allow for zoom out / zoom in type navigation, without making a mini-map a requirement.

It's less ideal than a Supcom-style strategic zoom because it makes you split your attention over two different areas of the screen, but it's would solve the issue of being able to navigate around the planet with a two-stroke motion.

What you're referring to could be achieved using multiple view-ports. That's actually a confirmed feature afaik.