How can I see the map of the planet?

My guess is having a viewport that you link rotation with other viewport at 180 degrees rotation is the way to go...

This would be very useful for alerts, you would know where to pan to in relation to where you are currently looking and therefore be able to quickly respond to important issues.

However what all would you display on this so that it could give useful information but not be a complete clutter? If all that is wanted are directional alerts based on current view, this could be accomplished with a HUD around the edge of the screen or something.


Now a way to toggle a view that lets you see through the planet to the other side would be nice but it would only lessen the current problems we are having with the current setup (could miss important information when not using the view).

What happens with larger globes where if you are zoomed out to see one complete side the strategic icons are jumbled or hard to accurately read.

What happens when you zoom in closer in your main view and lose vision of part of your half of the world?

The 180 viewport does seem like the best working solution right now, I'm just not sure how it will work with alerts/flares/pings, or on a solar system scale.


So again what is it everyone is looking for with a new map view?
- A way to see what is happening on the entire globe at one time/glance.
- A view that alerts/flares/pings would be useful on (you would know exactly where the alert is coming from and be able to quickly see what is happening).
- An easier/quicker way to control unit movement.
- Something that will work on a solar system scale.
- What else?

Minimaps are going to be very hard to implement, especially with multiple planets, (they would take up a lot of valuable screen space in order to be usable. Ideally we'd need some sort of system which provides intelligence without having to move the camera around too much (except zooming out of course, which is how Supreme Commander did it).

I'm not quite sure if people in this thread have seen this other one http://forums.uberent.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=49275
but it would be nice if we can all pool together UI idea implementations to try and come up with some solutions which people can all agree on.

Namely put the suggestion I had was to have an inverted sphere representation by having strat icons of units behind the planet appear on stalks at varying heights above the horizon (the higher they are the further they are in that direction) crudely like so:

(The green and red markers are entirely optional and does need refinement, such as clumping icons together into one (such as in SupCom 2, but with refinements, such as a unit composition bars on hover over)

double post, delete please. - Sorry

I very much agree with this. It is one of the reasons I think there could be a better solution than the one you came up with. I really like your idea but I don't think it provides enough needed information at a glance.

For example in a traditional square map, a mini-map could show you information of the entire map at a glance, along with alerts, no matter how far you were zoomed in or where you were looking in your main view. It would be nice to have this just not sure how it can be done with a sphere.

I hope we can get a main thread that will be stickied and monitored where we can have all the ideas together and have more constructive feedback. I believe it is definitely important enough.

OUHH I like that!
coupled with the center rotation hotkey it could be killer !

Ill just say I wish we had a bit more zoom on mouse wheel, but other than that I love it the way it is.

I have no problem navigating my scouts or any other unit just wish I didn't keep accidentally hitting the galaxy map.

Like a flashlight projecting a transparent globe to a piece of paper (or your monitor


The planet will still be there for you to smash.

Im not interest on minimap.
Do not want to play and be constantly fighting with zoom in and out, for not having a clear view of the entire map.
This is a real problem, and I do not see uber, speak clearly or talking on this important aspect.
without any easy view off what is happend on battle,will be like is now ,confuse try even to take a bit fun.
How we are supose to grab or fight all important tactic points off all planet, iff we will fight vs the view.
Im already imagine try to see where air is,where naval is,where eatch ground units are to micro all,without a cleary and easy view.
There will be a lot action on planet,and i ask Uber plz give us a solution to this big problem.

not sure if we confirmed digging up this thread

I do like the UI you presented to show the attacking forces as well as friendly forces on a planet.

There are plenty of RTS games with Flat maps and you will continue to see more that will be using a flat map so you may want to stick with those RTS if this is to much for you to handle... I my self find it very easy to navigate and play... I am glad Uber has moved away from the traditional small flat maps and if some of you are already complaining about a single planet then how will you be able to handle multiple planets? I am against flat maps because PA is not about flat maps... What would be great is if Uber creates a satellite unit that you can build with a camera that you can move to a specific location and give you a view of that side of the planet... When your units are being attacked the camera will flash red and if you click on it the camera will instantly focused on that location... The only problem is your enemy can destroy the camera satellite if they spot it... But the camera satellite will only give you Intel on the enemies that your units are able to see... Combine it with a spy satellite and you will be able to see the enemy...

Yeah, that's exactly the problem, and why a overview of the planet is needed.

There are realy nice ideas in this thread and yes i also think we need a mini map.

Spending in-game resources so you don't have to fight the UI as much? That's like spending an extra 25 minerals per marine, but these marines will stutter step on their own. I don't know what to think about that?

Just because PA moved away from a model that was dominant because of technical limitations, doesn't mean that the presence of certain utility is a step backwards.
A minimap has nothing to do with maintaining a paradigm, what it does though, it let you quickly asses(read:see a general summary of) what is going.
A minimap is critically imperative to have any level of serious competition. You could argue that the better player will be better at spinning the globe around every few seconds, but we both know that isn't the spirit of RTS.

I'm going to make a correction to your post.

Faster APM is part of RTS. It's part of StarCraft 2.

I wasn't necessarily talking about APM.
What I meant was that RTS is about doing things with your units, not fighting the interface in order to execute your plan. This is often brought up in arguments about APM and micro, but what you're thinking of is very similar to what I was trying to convey.
This is what I was trying to say:
The rule of thumb in SC2 is that you glance at the minmap every 3-5 seconds or so. You can only be so good at looking at your minimap.
Currently, the better microing player will win in SC2
If we remove the minimap, that would be such a detriment to the utility of the interface that it would be beneficial for players to manually scan the map with their screen. So much usefulness would be gone that the person that has a better technique for scanning the map will win. In this case it would be better for players to practice quickly and efficiently scanning the map instead of playing the actual bulk of the game.

In this way a minimap is essential for maintaining players' focus on the game-play and not state awareness.