A couple of UI pointers

I enjoyed the FA Hud much more than Original SupCom.

Everyone did. The people that worked on it did a damn fine job at UX (the code was a little messy though).

Don't just be a contrarian, explain why, preferably in relation to what I didn't like. Otherwise we can't have a conversation that is much more sophisticated than "no u".

I liked that it was semi-transparent so I had a less claustrophobic view of the battlefield.
I liked that it was more geared to a Widescreen setup.
I liked modularity of moving things where I wanted them to be (even if I had to do it during the first 30 seconds of ever game)

I liked how clean and minimal it was. It never felt in the way of what I was doing. I can not say the same of the Original SupCom UI, nor Starcraft II's UI... nor any other RTS that comes to mind actually.

SupCom FA had the closest I've seen to perfect UI of any game to date, in my opinion.

I use a 16:10 resolution monitor, so I really notice when a UI is not geared towards Widescreen.

You couldn't move anything around other than the minimaps though. Only hide a few things.

Transparancy and contextual elements like only showing the build menu when you have builders selected are ok. But I prefer when UI elements are constant. Things that pop out in general can be a nuisance. And transparancy can make it hard to read if not done well.

The FA UI was constantly in the way of what I wanted to do and all the things I used to be able to do easily in vanilla are hard or broken in FA.

This is the screen you are greeted with upon gating in for OSupCom:

Verses This same starting shot for FA:

---

Both these shots are me (hence my Commander name there) at the same screen resolution of 1680x1050 (16:10)

---

In my mind there is no competition. FA wins by a country mile when it comes to HUD.

I have no idea how you can say "The FA UI was constantly in the way of what I wanted to do." When it comes to the HUD, FA is the best that I've ever been privileged enough to work with.

Edit: God damn FA is pretty....

I direct you to a previous post of mine on the subject
viewtopic.php?p=709640#p709640

The horizontal bar concept is unfit for widescreen in general. Whether it's a narrow taskbar or the RTS standard UI since AOE made it popular. It works pretty damn well on 4:3. FA is only a little better and only because it sacrifices space in the build menu to become flatter.

Your HUD still takes up more space than FA's does As Standard.
Also I disagree with you on the position of Mass and Energy bars being "easier" to see.
I don't want to look at separate corners to find only one of my economy bars.

It doesn't matter, I can see everything I need to see and do everything I need to do. It is functional. I can't say the same for FA.

The extra space taken up is particularly irrelevant because a square viewport offers you more vertical view space for a more balanced perspective.

Balanced perspective... are you trolling me now?

I can see MORE than you with PAs HUD... at all times. I don't sacrifice vertical or horizontal viewing angle. OSupCom forced you to compromise on one or the other.

You have a more restricted viewing angle in OSupCom. period.

Supcom uses horizontal FOV. If you make the view narrower you literally get more view space up top. A perfectly square view would afford you the same amount of view space in all directions. While a tall one would give you more vertical than horizontal.

Due to the angle of the camera of course, you see slightly more vertical anyway, so a slightly wider view gives you about equal in the end. So it's pretty much a perfect aspect that you end up with.

Let me see now... I can see 1050 pixels vertically and 1680 pixels horizontally in SupComFA.
Some of that has HUD on top, but it's mostly transparent, so it doesn't block my viewport. I have practically 95% of my total monitor resolution as an active viewport into the game.

In OSupCom my viewport is 800 pixels vertically and 1680 pixels horizontally... the rest is obscured by opaque HUD elements (~50 pixels at the top and ~200 at the bottom)...

That's 24% of my screen... covered by opaque HUD. My viewing angle is LESS than SupComFA. period.

Stop arguing this point bmb. I refuse to argue with someone who's telling me the sky is purple.

Space isn't everything. FA simply isn't functional. No UI would be the best UI according to your logic.

The fact is that the vertical layout doesn't block anything you need to see on widescreen.

If you got all the functionality of a UI, without having a UI... then it really would be best.

I found FA's HUD more than just functional. I found it aesthetically pleasing to boot.

There is no such thing as 'no UI'. Without a 'User Interface' you would be unable to control the system. If you want to talk about the HUD, then call it the HUD... because the HUD is a small element of the overall UI... the terms are not interchangeable.

So you enjoy having to open a modal dialog to toggle the minimap? Do you like having to open a dropdown to change a units stance? Try putting FA in vertical mode for a bit, see how easy it is to build things. Is it ok that a lot of useful information is now gone from the mouseover tooltip?

I don't care if the static parts of the UI are a bit big, what really grinds my gears is when the UI covers the viewport. That is selection, health bars, range rings etc. I turn most of this off and only turn it back on exactly when I need to see it. FA makes toggling these things on the fly very hard whereas in vanilla it is a one click operation.

You never adress my issues you just keep saying no u and harping on about how it's slighty bigger.

Because for me, I don't NEED it in vertical mode, nor do I even want to play in Vertical Mode. I'm very happy with how it is as standard.

I would also call a jump of 76% viewable space to 95% viewable space as not "Slight".

---

I'm not arguing with you anymore here bmb. You have a personal gripe about the HUD. I am unable to reproduce your "problem" with the HUD, because I don't have a problem.

The only Range Rings I care about are for stationary units... which shows me their Range Rings before I place them, I barely EVER change unit stances and I don't use the minimap, I use strategic zoom. So Yea, I'm not having the same problems you're having.

You dislike the HUD and UI for reasons that sound to me like Bugs when in Vertical Mode. Sorry, that's not my fault.

I always found Zulan's hotbuild mod to be rather confusing.

But my brain is not *quite* neurotypical anyway.

Personally, my preference would be escalation through modifier keys:

B-P = T1 Power.
B-AltP = T2 Power
B-CtrlP = T3 Power.

Or maybe apply the modifier to the "B" key instead. Or B-1P, B-2P, B-3P, or even better, B-P1/2/3, with the default being the engineer level.

As long as I can remap the keys any way I please (maybe even adding some logic to compensate for those common typos I make in stressful situations) I am happy.

I once wrote a script for RtCW that almost doubled my performance in clan wars because it ensured that when surprised with the wrong weapon, *any* of my hotkeys would give me a useful one to defend myself, and *any* additional weapon keypress would then give me something with AoE damage. It was glorious and deadly effective.

Some of my TigerUI modifications I made to GAZUI for Forged Alliance are also based on this concept - if there's a common typo I make, write a script that instead does something that causes the least damage and has the greatest payoff (ideally guessing what I meant),

I don't use the minimap either but it is a fault whether it affects me or not.

The FA UI is just poorly designed.

What I meant was to adopt that kind of "higher level monitoring" of your resources, but for other things too, not just econ.