Community Requested UI Features 0.1

Some suggestions for making logistics easy:
*Edit: GoogleFrog already suggested a lot of these in his own thread on Zero-K macro-micro. Removed the ones that were similar to his thread ( "Ideas from Zero-K") Check them out!

Preset formations could come up via a quick menu hotkey (ctrl + move gives the option to move as a formation selected from a marking menu). Optimally this would include a formation editor to let you specify behaviours of your different types of units (Heavies in front, strikers units in the back, scouting units running reconnaisance around the formation centre)

For Logistics units: If you have seleced transport units and valid units that can be transported in on selection group, ordering them to move should have the empty transports automatically pick up and move as many as they can to the target location, saving the hassle of loading/unloading.

put this somewhere in the UI please:

I think the orbital shell could work really well as a minimap replacement. Not only for orbital, but also for ground units.

Maybe there could be strategic symbols on it representing a base on the ground or some other point of interest.
Or maybe it could turn red to signalize you where fighting is taking place.

Do you have any videos or pictures of:
- Siege Attack
- Escort behavior

thanks!

So essentially, a "saved view" that can be shared?
I'm of the assumption that everything should be modifiable...

So who should get control of this camera?
The person who placed it? Or allies allowed to move?
Would this have to be another subset of saved views distinct from your own?

wait WHAT?
You could link a camera in SupCom?

are you serious right now? Ofc you could !(i admit the camera icon was discrete and it took the faf tutorials for me to notice.)

yeah sure. It won't take me five minutes to make such a video once I have reinstalled the game

Edit: @Culverin

Siege attacking - when the army all rushes in, they aren't siege attacking.

Most of the time I alt-click, so the army creates a protective "v" around siege units

(You can see that sometimes this doesn't quite work)

actually, i really liked the UI in sup'com, especially regarding the building queues and stuff.

for example, i have one factory, i want it to make 25% anti air units and 75% anti-land units, in sup com i could just put 3 tanks and one AA in the queue, then make it loop forevever. in PA, i'm screwed, the only thing i can do is build 4 factories, set 3 on tanks and one on AA, which drains a lot more energy and metal. and i can't even loop this forever, i'll have to come back from time to time to add an other 50 units to the queue.

the same goes for buildings : i order a fabber to go build mexes and turrets a bit everywhere, and at some point i missclick or whatever, i have something that is not placed correctly and I'm crewed. i have no way to cancel only that building, and no way to just move it either. all i can do is cancel everything and give manually every order again and try not screw it up this time.

maybe someone will tell me "no, you just have to do [whatever command], it does just what you want !", but that doesn't change much, if it's not intuitive it's as good as if it wasn't there. in sup'com you had the build queue displayed and could just right-click on whatever you wanted to remove.

these are the main point i'm concerned about, i know uber is working on improving the UI (it means User Interface, right ?), so what i want to say is basically that the UI in sup'com was in my opinion, simply perfect.

Check out the mod forum. I requested this in @cola_colin s hot build. He provided a temporary solution until Uber implement it

Started a thread to specifically to discuss orbital stuff...

I'm trying to keep all the features logged here so I can backtrack for the list.
So I'm putting the tl;dr version here as well.

1. Push Orbital out further. (Should not affect balance as long as we keep the same angular speeds
   
   
2. Orbital should get a shell for it's playing "surface".
   
   
   
3. Use leaders for orbital that goes to both shell AND planet surface.
   Maybe the color of the line changes?

From what I've read so far, this thread seems to be focusing a lot on the UI visualising data.
Yes, that needs a lot of work, but it's a modular problem that I have confidence will be solved in small steps by looking at the right other games. (Sins of a Solar empire for the left-hand sidebar for example)
Some problems are of course more unique to PA, like the Planetary Overview Problem. So I've prepared a little document that we will get to shortly.

There are two other things I need to mention first:

A) If there's one thing I learned from working for a decision maker (instead of being self-employed) is, that you don't hand your boss a large list of collected, possible solutions from several sources. Instead you compile and prune the list, and sort them by order of importance. Simply because they will think it's quicker to find the info themselves otherwise than searching through a list of things that is mostly uninteresting for them already (and you just didn't know that yet, since you don't know everything that's on their desk). So that's the approach I will make. Screw democracy, because the second thing you quickly learn, is that the customer always knows that something is wrong, but never what is wrong, and especially not how to fix it (no matter what he tells you). Cause he is not the professional, you are.

B) The next thing is, that I personally think the improvements I see thrown around are always small, evolutionary steps at best. Noone thinks in revolutionary terms for the UI. ("Evolutionary [is] incremental change and Revolutionary [is] transformational change")
And I think we'll get a lot further with some revolutionary changes to the way the game is controlled. So that is exactly what I will focus on instead: not data visualisation (UI output), but commanding the troops (UI input). Not gonna repeat anything, though, just check out my thread at: forums.uberent.com/threads/learning-from-the-obscure.54699/

Now, as promised, here's the approach to the planetary battlefield overview problem. Wrote it up as a PDF, since the forum's RTE is somewhat awful.

Very impressive write-up in the pdf, hope it find its way up.

PDF by igjarjuk

Planetary Annihilation – The Planetary Battlefield
Overview Problem

A) Intro
Problem Definition
• Players are not used to seamless battlefields with little boundaries like planets
• Showing the whole battlefield (all sides of the planet) at once, is not a straight-forward
option, if any at all

Solution Requirements
• The player must be able to gain a complete overview of one planet in under three seconds,
and be able to maintain that overview
• The learning curve must be low, since there is no campaign to gradually get players used to
it

Commonly used Terms
Tactical View
A view where single units have been abstracted away in favor of player colors, forming imaginary
borders, showing player territory at a glance. Can be used as an overlay or replacement for normal
unit view. Under the fog of war, these colors turn dark but stay until updated, to represent the last
known status.

B) Solution Approaches
1) The 3D-Compass
A small sphere or cube overlayed by a Tactical View. Floating to the side of the screen.
Advantages
• serves as a good mini-map since viewing is possible at any moment without intermediate
action (such as zooming out)
• Represents the planet on one side well

Disadvantages
• Does not show the far side of the planetary

2) The Orbit Projection
Zooming out into orbit (a few steps before leaving the planet) overlays the planet with Tactical
View. Unit groups are represented by needles to be visible on and just over the horizon. In
addition, the orbit of the planet is mirroring the colors on the ground, allowing for a completer
view of the planet.

The upper 90 degree field represents the visibility of the painted orbit, pushing the coverage of the
Tactical View to 75% on the cross section, given enough camera distance.

Advantages
• Highest overview possible for a direct view on the planet
• User-set camera tilt can increase visibility in one important direction even at lower camera
distance
• No disconnect in context

Disadvantages
• Projection visibility shrinks at lower camera distance to the planet
• Black spot at the back of the planetary

3) The Hollow Compass
A hollow half-sphere as a compass, painting the back half of the planet as if viewed from the
inside.

Advantages
• Full view of the back without changing camera context

Disadvantages
• Overview not as clear on the edges, which might often be more important than the back

CAM
4) The flat compass
An Aitoff projection as a mini-map, with option to center continually on the camera, or be dragged
to a specific center point. Painted in Tactical View.

Advantages
• Complete overview without holes
• Will always provide good overview over periphery when following camera

Disadvantages
• Flattening of the battlefield requires may result in slightly steeper learning curve to
translate it back for commands

C) Conclusion
While I see no way around a Tactical View of some sort, there is no one perfect solution to the
Battlefield Overview Problem. The best approach would contain letting the player select one of the
described compasses, since every one will have personal preferences.
Special consideration should be given to modding capabilities. While multiple compasses can
probably be added by modding support, the Tactical View and Orbital Projection can not. Also,
many players will want to play the game first without mods, to have the real, intended experience,
before modding the game. Thus, if the base experience will not hold up, they might never get as
far as looking for mods.

PDF by igjarjuk

I had made a thread because I couldn't find it due to either the search function or my internet being silly. However, tatsu kindly sent me a link to help find this thread, and so here I am to post some Ideas of my own.

Here is the thread in which I posted my ideas, I'll summarize the list, but the thread has some debating in it, so the list is not completely correct, as opinions can change.
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/some-ui-ideas.55079/

-when selecting units, it should bring up the names and stats of the different types of units being selected
-Minimap (we've seen this suggestion a bunch already, but what the heck, I'll include it anyway)
-Have the unit/building description show up when you hover your mouse over the unit/building in question
-Allow the commander to be selected as a combat unit and a builder unit, not just as a builder unit (for when you want to have him join an assault early on)

Also I included an image of what selected combat unit stats might look like:



Notice for the attack damage stat, each unit has an attack type, missile being anti-air, crosshairs being surface to surface, bombs being air-to-ground. Something like this would be helpful for beginner players and advanced players alike, in my opinion.

That could be implemented as a mod, similar to the build power mod that I wrote - there is a way for mods to get access to all those stats and then show them in some UI element.

I've sometimes wished to be able to see in-game the vision and firing ranges of units when deciding on what to build as a counter for some other units or defences. For the firing power of unit types it's quite quick to get a feel, but it's harder to remember that which unit has larger range. It would also be nice to see the range of enemy turrents visually, so that you could place your counters just out of their range.

Currently it's hard to distinguish between ground/air and orbital units.
Therefore it would be nice if there was another option for the strategic icons where when zoomed in it only shows ground/air units and when zoomed out only orbital units. Also a hotkey to switch between showing only ground/air or orbital units would be nice, especially as it may hard to find the right balance on when to switch automatically.
Also I'd like to see whether the currently selected nuke launcher has a nuke ready or not by only looking at the UI - a hotkey to select the nearest ready nuke without the camera changing its view would be greatly appreciated.

Heya guys,
I think it's time to officially send in our requests to Uber.

I really thought I would get a lot more done to help organize the community's thoughts on UI
But alas, there is still life to live, my apologies for not getting more done.
I'm sure most of this list won't be done by Uber, but I feel it's part of our "due diligence" that they at least be made aware we have thoughts on the UI as well.

Aside from this thread, I'm going to link them these as well:
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/...ures-section-4-panels-not-56k-friendly.53659/
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/ui-discussion-improving-the-feel-of-orbital.54611/
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/principles-of-ui-design-the-4-cs.52756/
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/gui-mock-up.52739/

The "mock-up" thread is a lot of my own interpretations, so it's rather "skewed".
But I think there are some good ideas in there from other people too so I think it's ok to include?



If you guys are happy with the current list of requests,
Just reply here and write "signed".