Unofficial "Official" GUI Discussion Thread

In my previous post, I dramatically unmasked the economy panel as a liar bent on teaching new players how to lose, and promised a follow-up regarding the similarly sinful build interface. Here is that follow-up, albeit a few weeks later than I promised.

If I were to describe the build interface in one word, it would be “useless”. Not as damning as “deceptive”, which is the word I would use to describe the economy panel, but nonetheless unacceptable in a game of this scale.

The build interface’s primary job is to allow the player to issue orders to build stuff. (I’m trying to balance out the big words in the last two paragraphs) And it does that well enough. Its secondary responsibilities are to help the player make the most crucial decisions in the game: “Can I afford to build this?” And that is where it fails spectacularly. It’s not that it’s hard to read; it’s a lovely clean design. The problem is that the necessary information isn’t even there. How much metal-per-second and energy-per-second does it cost to run this factory or fabricator? How long will it take to produce this unit or building? Don’t ask the build interface. You’d be better off to pull out some scratch paper and do some math. Make sure your base doesn’t get destroyed while you work, and don’t forget to carry the one.

Here is my proposed design:

(Edit: Oh joy, Google Drawings botched some of the text. Ignore the text that doesn't look like it should be wrapped and pretend it's all on one line...)


This is a more dramatic overhaul, unlike my economy panel redesign, so I am much less attached to the particulars of this design. Look at the key features to see the spirit of this suggestion: showing resource usage per builder, including assistance in calculations, and showing the time to build something. Less important, though still things I’d love to see, are unit names below the icons, a feature to pause a queue, and the ability to set certain units to build indefinitely.

I’m not sure what I’d like to redesign next. Perhaps my take on a notification or map awareness system would be interesting, although I’m curious to see what Uber has in mind already.

One more thing: I see a lot of the talk of the UI focusing on “features”. Features are great, but a good UI is not simply a pile of features. The entire interface must be designed as a whole at the high level to be intuitive, readable, and helpful. The goal, however unattainable it might be, is that a new player can learn how to play effectively, how to avoid beginner mistakes, and how to approximate optimal strategies simply by watching the interface, without doing any extra homework.

Let’s not take any interface component for granted here. I don’t care if it’s already in the game and is aesthetically pleasing. If it’s confusing, if it doesn’t tell a new player the implications of what they’re doing, if it doesn’t give them the tools to develop a strategy, it needs to be rethought. Let’s make this a game for all skill levels, that encourages and guides beginners to at least the next rung on the ladder.

Wow. dat wall of text.
You're as serious about this stuff as I am....
Good to meet a fellow fanatic


To put into context of what dallonf said.

“Can I afford to build this?”
Context of immediate impact on econ.

How much metal-per-second and energy-per-second does it cost to run this factory or fabricator?
Context of impact on econ after unit is produced.

How long will it take to produce this unit or building?
Context of to time your strategies". <- Putting the "time strategy" in RTS
Context of opportunity cost of fabbers kept busy.

showing resource usage per builder, including assistance in calculations
Context of econ with unit assists

a feature to pause a queue
Control of production facility.

and the ability to set certain units to build indefinitely.
Control of production facility that is holds some intelligence.

+1 to that post about the "endless production thing while still be able to add single time orders" explained in the last picture in the last post above me, even before culverins ... (damn ninjas)


to add to the list, i want to see how long a full buildqueue for a fabber takes, in minutes:seconds ...
just like supcom, inclusive the time decrease for assisting fabbers

Hi Culverin, i had a closer look at your GUI mock-up, just brainstorming with you and throwing it out there

the viewcube, i feel it would be better placed in the lower right corner. That way you can pan and then either choose something to build or select a control group. This would limit the distance you'd have to move the mouse after panning.

chat window , can't really tell from the picture but would be nice if you could open and close it to reduce clutter when not chatting or playing vs AI

mikeylow,
I responded in the GUI mock-up thread.


As per tatsujb's suggestion.
I added an "idle factories panel" to the list (similar to SupCom)

SupCom even shows the ETA to specific patrol waypoints. I think that was amazing.
I have updated this based on your feedback.

[SUGGESTION] Orders ~ Show "ETA" of to complete order (move, specific patrol waypoints, time to complete building production. (Similar to SupCom)

we've been all over ETAs like bees on honey since the begining, everyone.
I really, really hope they come in soon. they'll require work in any case.

Yes, this is a super nice model. I love the efficiency percentages and colors. It explains how your economy is doing at a simple glance and does not change from what is already in the game too much.

On another note I think it would solve a ton of issues with unit selection if selected units changed color in strategic view (and the outline selection box we have now is improved when zoomed in). For example any Starcraft players know how your own units show up in bright green on your minimap. This color is only used in this way. It would be nice if selected units had their strategic icons changed to this color when in strategic view.

Yep, that's already in the suggested list too.
[SUGGESTION] Strategic Icons ~ Selected units have a highlighted Strategic Icon. Currently user does is unaware of selected units.

Color is a pretty good suggestion. I think SupCom had a 1-pixel white outline over the Strategic Icon.
But a simple color swap for "selected" might actually be easier to code for them.
And it's less pixels.
I'm all for minimizing cleaner look.

@neapolitanfrenchfrie mentioned Maya.
Did a quick search and found some much better reference pictures for the ViewCube!
Good call mate!



Viewcube is broken up into default Saved Views.
So not only does the player get to define his own Saved Views.
We are already supplied with a whole bunch out-of-the-box.



You can do perfect 90 degree rotations with the supplied arrows.
Normally, these would not be shown so the UI has a cleaner look.
The only appear on mouse-over to the Viewcube area of the screen.


Also, there is a "ring" projected aligned with the planetary latitude.

I suggest that this changes once the player zoom out further to Celestial View.
In Celestial view, this would align with the Solar latitude.





And this little mod would amuse me to no end.

the view cube would blow people minds.

take my idea and put tiny strat info on the view cube, making it dual-use : minimap and viewpoint rotation tool, not wasting screen space.

That's genius.

Like use a sphere and embed into the cube?


Like this?

It is so obvious, right?

I like. I was also thinking of having icons and pings in a very summed up, overviewish manner projected onto a cube.


throw in some transpanrency in there and you can see what's on the other side.
the idea is only to place on the cube the pings and blips of last immediate importance, like the ones concerning a warning issued by the game

for example:

My #1 UI issue is with different planets. I can learn a planet for the most part in a few minutes, and navigating a single planet is fine enough for me (but could be improved, sure).

I love your cube mapping of a planet, and that globe-map is fantastic, but I can't see myself being the kind of gamer who would or could make use of the robust map features you're talking about. Multiple saved map locations/screens? Hnnn...

So - I am throwing my thoughts into the melting pot that, for me, personally, interplanetary switching would be the most useful UI addition.

good news! it's in the next patch ^=^ !

Code:

http://youtu.be/SHX1RGanEWA?t=48m52s

The feature suggestions are too disorganized now and things are in the wrong categories.
The forum Ordered List feature just won't cut it.
I need something a bit more robust in order to help it from being unruly.

I'm going to reorganize and retype the list in Google Doc.

I asked in the Uber section of the forum if this forum can handle Google Doc embeds.
No answer yet. If it can't. I'll just make the link ginormous on the front page.



Does anybody have any objections?

nnnnnnnnnnnope
it should handle this embed as it handles various other embeds (right? :/ )
I remember an embed for an updating gentleman's ladder, but that was on the old forum.

just test it on an old post then edit it out

Not taking
Trying to embed this:
1Ef3DmBUsW3faaoqqmhZFgZsyO5JUXSETY5JmXLFIPlQ

Using this:
http://xenforo.com/community/resources/bb-code-media-site-support-for-google-documents.658/

I like the idea of the ViewCube being used, especially as a large overlay on top of the planet. I would also suggest keeping up/down / left right /front back - North/south, East/West just doesn't really cut it anymore does it?