Are UI improvements coming?

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by thundercleez, September 10, 2014.

  1. chronosoul

    chronosoul Well-Known Member

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    I would very much like for this to be added into the game. +1.
    Currently there is a notification that tells you when a unit has landed on a planet. Are you saying you would like a notification of pending arrival?

    This is really saying."I want a mini map" more then radar. There is Picture in picture. have you tried that?

    I think they were coming up with a low graphic version of the PIP. but i'm not entirely sure.

    I agree with this point. However, i haven't played in a good while, so i'm not sure if its already an option in game.
    can't you see idle workers on the bottom left hand corner of the screen? I swear that was an option a few builds ago.
  2. thepilot

    thepilot Well-Known Member

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    PiP is a poor man version of a minimap. It doesn't give you any overview.

    They are too spammy and doesn't put behind important informations.
  3. igncom1

    igncom1 Post Master General

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  4. idsan

    idsan Member

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    I agree with this, displayed group icons with quantity and hotkey would be useful. IMO it's not a dealbreaker at the moment, but it would certainly help.

    Other RTS games are on a two-dimensional plane, which can be shrunk down to a navigable minimap without a thought. When playing on a 3D sphere, how does one do that? As mentioned, with the PIP (Picture in Picture). Its' toggle button is on the bottom right of the game UI. Does its job very well when you use it, and I don't even use it all the time. A quick zoom out, pan, and refocus takes a second, at most two.

    There's been a ton of debate around this with no single answer proving to solve everything. I'd like to see it somehow altered as well, but thanks to the vertical orbital tracking lines I don't get everything confused with my ground forces anymore, at least. To manage orbital by itself, zoom out a bit and change your viewing angle - it makes it quite manageable.
  5. thundercleez

    thundercleez Member

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    Spore did it just fine. Representing a globe on a 2D plane is a problem that was solved over 100 years ago. I don't see why anyone would say this is an issue. A quick zoom out, pan, and refocus takes at least 2 seconds and that's only if you already know where you want to go. 2 seconds is a long time for an action that takes usually .1 seconds or less.

    A minimap is also useful for scouting. In many RTSs you can send a scout out, focus on building your base, and periodically glance at the minimap to see if any enemies come into your scout's view. Sure PA notifies you that your scout found something, but you can't really tell where that is in relation to your base right away.
  6. igncom1

    igncom1 Post Master General

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    Maps are not representative to the proper size of the continents.

    A sphere doesn't translate well to a map, and spores minimap was absolutely terrible for it.

    The best way of getting a mini map would be to have a 3D projection ball for a minimap, and even that can only let you see half of a planet, and only the one.
  7. squishypon3

    squishypon3 Post Master General

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    What sort of minimap would you prefer? Like someone else said, spheres don't transfer to flat maps well, I'd even go to say that it'd be confusing for quite a few players.
  8. lilbthebasedlord

    lilbthebasedlord Active Member

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    My UI used to be laggy and icky to deal with, I upgraded to an i5 from a Phenom 960T and reformatted, now the menus and UI are a lot more snappy.

    With that said, what this game promised to be...
    With the current UI, aside from infinite build, zoom, and area commands, it's about as "powerful" as the TA UI. SupCom had the best RTS UI I've ever seen, but that had its issues too.

    Some area commands don't work as they should. There is no reason to give bombers an area command attack order because they will circle around for a bit and get killed by some puny AA before doing any damage, so you have to resort to manual targeting from a far. That way, the bombers have time to line up and take out the defensive structures.

    What comes to mind recently, I wanted to raid multiple places at once. So the plan was to have about 4 separate groups guard a unit, and then shift-order them to go through a teleporter and go to their raiding locations. Then you destroy the guarded unit, their last order is cancelled and they move on in the queue, well that didn't work.

    I agree with most of the stuff pilot says, he can sound a bit whiny at times.

    EDIT: don't want to be a negative Nancy, but this was extremely disappointing/depressing:
    http://www.reddit.com/r/planetaryan...nihilation_qa_with_neutrino/cj5oi6q?context=3
  9. thepilot

    thepilot Well-Known Member

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    The current 3d view is heavily distorted as well (look around the edges, but it's everywhere really). Is that a problem? Why should it be a problem for another projection? (Because the "3d view" is a 2d projection too).
  10. igncom1

    igncom1 Post Master General

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    The what you are saying, is that the pip works exactly as you are expecting it should.

    Because thats how it's works, it's the same as the main screen.
  11. thepilot

    thepilot Well-Known Member

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    What? Since when the PiP show an entire planet at once?

    What I'm saying is that a 2d distorted view is not a problem, because you are already looking at one, and nobody is disturbed by it.
  12. igncom1

    igncom1 Post Master General

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    When you zoom out, it's the same as the supcom minimap.
  13. cdrkf

    cdrkf Post Master General

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    The PIP works the same as main view, including camera controls. It can also be set to 'mirror' the planet (so you can use PIP to look at the opposite side of the planet to main view). It's pretty flexible :)
    kayonsmit101 likes this.
  14. thepilot

    thepilot Well-Known Member

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    No?
  15. squishypon3

    squishypon3 Post Master General

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    As others have said, pip is literally the main view, only smaller. o_O
  16. thepilot

    thepilot Well-Known Member

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    Yes, so not displaying the whole planet. Thanks for confirming this.
  17. thepilot

    thepilot Well-Known Member

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    And? I am not asking for the main view, I'm asking for a global view, like a minimap (that doesn't need to be mini really). Would be just another kind of 2d projection than the one currently used for the main view.
  18. cdrkf

    cdrkf Post Master General

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    It can zoom out the same as the main view so you can see the planet.... it doesn't 'unwrap' the planet.
  19. thepilot

    thepilot Well-Known Member

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    Exactly. But I already know that, why are you telling me?
  20. squishypon3

    squishypon3 Post Master General

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    And I'd never use it if it did. :p

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