I would have a wish for how the chronocam and the picture-in-picture functionality interface with each other. What I often do is send scouts out but then forget to see at that exact moment what they are seeing. Usually the fact that they have died following a set of waypoints tells a lot too. This is hardest when what and when they will detect is unpredictable. In current game I can go use the chronocam on what exactly was seen. However when I do that I can't give any commands. Any time used in this mode is "downtime". This is a pretty big disincentive to use it, althought the pacing of PA does allow such breaks. What I would like to do is keep my eyes on the present while searching out the scout information in chronocam. However now when you move the slider in chronocam it it does so for all viewports. Please make each window have its separate place in time? I know that the change might be quite invovled as now the game needs to handle two game states at once. Another suggestion to reduce down time in chronocam would be the ability to bookmark times. They would be accompanied by visible marks on the timeline slider. This way you would get a sense in terms of strategic importance when the event took place narrowing down the time used to wander about in time just getting a sense of direction. It would also be nice that each time the game makes a alert such as building construction and destruction that too would be plotted down into the timeline. I could also use a mode where the mini-picture would repeatedly sample the timeline on times when I have seen enemy units especially if I am not currently seeing them. Then I would not have to parse the scouting information just as it happens althought there is a chance of information overload. Say that I can dismiss a particular sighting out of the rotation where a sighting is defined as continously seeing atleast one enemy unit. I could then zone out and responds to emergencies on the main screen without paying attention to miniview and the ones that I want to watch more closely I could intentionally not remove from the queue. There could be a button or key binding to open chronocam at the time currently in the rotation where it would stop rotating (maybe just rotation off toggle). I imagine another rule for the rotation could be that I want to see the deaths of all of my units. The difficulty would be how to parse the death of a group as one death as opposed to multiple individual deaths. This could be defined as continous time where units either die or enemy units within range are shooting, so while friendlies are under fire the death would not be counted as separate (maybe friendlies firing would also count as the extension of the same fight). Also could we have strategic zooming on the chronocam slider so you can increase resolution at the expense of not showing all of time at once? If the alert markers are in I would imagine nearby markers would be melded into one marker at far zoom levels them becoming separate as they are zoomed into. These might not be obvious needs for a lot of users but I like my games to be able to keep up when I face the challenge of interfacing with the game state more directly. I would like to be able to utilise my time management skills from other games that I play.
One of the original goals for chronocam was to be able to click on a dead unit and click "watch this unit die." It is unclear exactly how that will work now, because most things don't leave wreckage. I think chronocam for pips is still planned though. For now, the best I can do for you is this mod, which you can download on the mod manager. It lets you select a unit and press ctrl+t to open a new pip that tracks the unit.
I like this idea. Would greatly improve the usefulness of Chrono Cam and PiP, as well as Notifications. It's been requested, and probably will be implemented, for the notification system and Chrono cam to be integrated. Do something like shift+click on a notification and the camera will jump 10 seconds back in time to the location of the notification so you can see what happened.
A trick Ive been using is to track you scout (T key) in the PiP so you can see everything what it sees like a mini map and have a fair chance of getting it out of trouble. This allows you to micro your base and expand at the same time.
@Cola_Colin has that in Alerts Manager, but it moves the entire chronocam back instead of just a pip.
Wow, dude great idea! I'd love it if you could either open chrono cam in the main view or for PIP, it would be nice to just chrono cam then hit "y" (which currently switches he two views)
Some more extensions tought. Make chronocam usable by the mouse scroll: ctrl - mouse wheel up zoom future and ctrl - mouse wheel down zoom past. Enable giving of orders to units while in chronocam. I know the only valid place to place orders is the present and it is not the time you are currently looking at. So it potentially might be confusing. I am requesting an advanced user feature. Can live with orders that make sense in the conetext I am seeing but extra points if command panel is filled according to the present state (ie whether the command bar includes unload or load) (or just include all orders discarding such context information (both load and unload giveable (incase giving a load order to a filled unit treat as no-op))). With these two you could locate a unit, dive into the past without menus see how it's mission went and then give a new misison - you wouldn't need to invoke chrono cam as a separate mode. The player would still have the present state fresh in her memory so that justifies saying the player knows what he is ordering despite not seeing the present at the moment she gives the order. And in all likelyhood the order will be a shift command adding to the units queue, it's not like there was any spesific timestamp on the intention anyway. Then a demanding dream-mode wish: extrapolation. In case zooming past the present in future direction use local (not server) processing power to predict how things will evolve according to what was scouted/ordered. This will mean most enemies will just be sitting ducks and not do manuvering what they will likely do. But then you could check for self-caused economy crashes. This might be a little edgy as it can be ramped as arbitrarily high as wanted which increases mutual system requirements if equal access to this feature should be provided to all players (instead of accurate simulation simplyfy mechanics in this mode? accuracy is lost anyway so might as well make the most of it and get a performance boost). When giving orders in future mode don't give them in the present but instead wait until the time comes and then give it (when that time is the present). Also when in future mode allow giving orders to enemy units, also allow placing enemy units and structures on the map. Backport this feature into the present mode or atleast show a shadow image how it played out in planning mode as things happen for real. Make it possible to give orders that are not based on id. For example "units here" move there where the selection would be an area command that selects whatever happens to be there (in the plan it migth be 100 bots but say that 30 were diverted to a side mission and so only 70 present there should be given the command)
Right now when you use picture-in-picture there is one copy of the world. A single unit for sample may be rendered twice from different perspectives. It's a lot slower to render things twice, but there is still just one "thing" whatever it may be. However if you render two viewpoints at two different moments in time suddenly you need two different things. In one view a unit may be alive but in the other it's wreckage. Or a factory may be idle in one view but in the middle of a build loop animation in the other. Or, the biggest example perhaps, one view may be pre-planet smash and the other post planet smash. In that case you need BOTH complete sets of geometry for the planet due to the deformation. So right now GPU perf is cut roughly I'm half with two viewpoints. To add chronocam to one would suddenly require even more CPU perf *and* roughly twice the ram! It would absolutely be awesome and is obviously something we've talked since the start but given how few players have machines that could readily take advantage of the feature it's not something that has been given a very high priority. But yes, yes it would be awesome.
I'm slightly going to wonder off-topic here, but I don't believe this question deserves it's own thread. Would it be possible to scale back PiP to save performance via applying lower graphics settings to the small window(s)? Either lower resolution and minimal visual settings, or just strategic icons or the very basics rendered? I'm only asking because, as you pointed it out, using PiP cuts performance in half. Would it be possible to improve upon that? Is this something being worked on? Also, will it be possible to have separate graphics settings for the main screen and the PiP window(s)?
