Graphical Economic Overlay

Here's the idea:

Have an overlay toggle that shows current economic usage graphically so I can see easily where my resources are being spent or used at a glance on the map and allow me to re-prioritize when resources consumption is negative or running low. This would ideally function well at any zoom level on a map. The overlay in SupCom was numerical only and really didn't address this problem.
I'm thinking something like either a color intensity map (heat map) on the terrain or halos around units of increasing size that are consuming the most resources (or having the most resources pumped into them in the case of multiple engineers on one project). The halo option could be used to show through planets so you can see it on the backside of a planet (and look different on the backface and side so you can tell it's on the other side). Potential options for the overlay include targeting one specific resource (metal/mass or energy or both), and limiting the view to certain unit types (e.g. all units, factories, structures, under-construction, non-construction units, etc.).

I hate running into a resource bottleneck due to planning lots of things and having to pause/cancel them somewhat at random due to not remembering every little project I'm working on.

This is a really good idea.

It would need to have a good way to separate metal and energy. You could make the heatmap blobs made up of two different colours, one for each side of the circle.

The further zoomed out you got, the more clustered the blobs would become. So zoomed in you could see detail for a single engineer assisting a factory, but zoomed out you would see its resource consumption merged with the factory and other assisting engineers.

I would prefer vertical bars over blobs or numbers. Grouped when zooming out, so you can compare the different parts of your economy visually. The bar should show production, consumption and balance for both energy and metal.

Why bars? Numbers are hard to read / comprehend, blobs or heatmaps are not suited for multidimensional data (we have 6 values which are of interest).

I believe a poll is in order.

I can see bars working well, as long as they merged when zoomed like you are saying and were easy to distinguish at a glance (so I can focus on the important ones fast). I agree that a heatmap would need some thought to be more useful, particularly when glancing at the economy across multiple planets (assuming a per-solar-system type economy instead of a per-planet) since you can't see the backside of a planet without rotation.

I can see the 6 dimensions you are proposing, but I just see the need to map these two dimensions:
1) relative mass/metal income/expenditure (2 values on one axis)
2) relative energy income/expenditure (2 values on one axis)
Balance is a inferred fallout of this. What is really important is the relative scale of consumption/production in the global economy, not the actual absolute values. I also think it is important to be able to in some way show aggregate consumption for multiple engineers on a project (I don't care as much about each of the 40 engineers assisting is spending -2.5 metal, but rather that I am spending -100 metal per sec on building a fusion plant). I think the combining bars idea could handle this.

The heatmap idea could map this with two independent color axes for mass/metal and energy these would combine for a third color when used together. The intensity of consumption/production could correlate to intensity or saturation in color. You would want to scale the intensities to match your current global economy so that the highest usage is always mapped to the most intense colors regardless of current absolute income/usage.

Another option is to use a traditional heatmap (warmer colors for higher values) for one axis at a time (different heatmap for metal and energy). Think something along these lines: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Terra/Images/NPP_Globe.jpg

I personally see expenditure as the more important aspect than highlighting income/production and really I'm fine as long as this feature makes it in the game in some useful form since I've been wanting it since TA came out.

And I think a poll would make more sense once we have done more discussion on what the various graphical overlay options would look like (unless the poll is whether or not to include some sort of graphical overlay period).

Yeah I guess blobs are just a messy way of combining the information. You can easily aggregate bars by location, and they would be easier to compare to other bars on the map.

I think numbers should accomodate the bars, but should be easy to ignore with your eyes and just look at the bar colours.

What are the six values that you referred to, that should be visualized on the map?

I think I'd actually prefer numbers, since they'd be far easier to compare than any sort of map or bars spread across a 3D plane. (Would you rather have "that bar looks slightly bigger than the other" or "that says +300, the other says +320")

The numbers would indeed group together as you zoom out: Fully zoomed in shows each factory/plant's usage/production independently, then it gradually goes to the effective mass/energy gain/loss for a certain area/base, then for a certain planet, then potentially for an entire solar system.

It shouldn't be on permanently, though, just something to use to get a better overview when you're not sure where to allocate your resources. In fact, it'd also be neat if the numbers didn't just include mass and energy, but also population.

This is a really good idea, no matter what it's form it takes, I'd love to see something like this.

Many times in SupCom I'd be using tons of mass and have no idea what was using it. I'd have to first pause all my UEF drones, then pause the commander and the SCUs and keep going through pausing clumps of builders till I found what was using all the mass, and I'd usually just have one or maybe two bases in SupCom. PA we'll have to account for metal /energy usage across planets / moons and asteroids. Even if it was just as simple as having a numerical overly near each planet to say how much resources were being used that would help immensely.

The picture should be self explaining:

The size of the graph would be normed for the sum of all graphs visible in the current viewspot so relative sizes allow to compare the different graphs. The graphs for mass and metal would be scaled independently to avoid energy dwarfing metal.

I think the important point is to be able to quickly identify where the resource drains are visually (potentially production as well). This definitely should be a optional toggle option (like the overlays in SupCom). Numbers that group based on zoom would work as long as larger numbers are called out out somehow. This could be done with making relatively larger numbers be rendered larger in size (my preference) or have a color intensity for the numbers coloration (e.g. bright red for larger numbers, duller red for smaller numbers). This distinction should be done relative to your current economy's scale, not by absolute values.

The problem with the overlay in SupCom was that it 1) didn't group and 2) was hard to find the problematic numbers with so many numbers on the screen.

I like exterminans viewport-relative idea: zoom to your base and seem what's hogging resources there, zoom to the planet or solar-system and get a picture from that level.

I have to say, as a graphic designer, the bars / numbers ideas sound horrendous to me! When you are dealing with thousands of units -in various terrain, on planets/moons/etc, in a 3D environment, while moving around and being created/destroyed- simplicity is going to be paramount.
I think the heatmap is a great idea and can display everything you need. I can't imagine wanting to know the net balance of production vs. usage from a group of X units as being common enough to warrant an otherwise unwieldy UI of 3D candle graphs. (as shown earlier in thread)
Not meaning to flame, just put in my 2 cents.

I believe the idea with the bars/numbers is they intelligently group as you zoom.

Here's a (very) rough idea of numbers scaling according to size and grouping: first image shows interplanetary rocket taking a ton of resources and some more minor things in the base for production and consumption. Lower image shows zoomed out, we still see the rocket launcher and the rest of the base has all combined into one number that still isn't as important as the launcher.

Blue = negative metal, green = positive metal, red = negative energy, yellow = positive energy



For an idea of the heatmap, see this image from NASA (this one was too hard for me to do a mockup myself easily:

As long as it's a toggleable overlay, I don't see any problems with this idea.

In fact, I think it would be a very good way for quickly seeing where you're using a lot of your resources and where you are not.

I really like the idea of an economic heat map. The fewer numbers the better!

@dbclick Right, I totally understand, and I think your first image illustrates exactly why I don't like the numbers or bars. It's cluttered and uninformative. Until I read the numbers and do some math in my head, it's not useful at all. Even then, if it is grouped, I still don't know which units are the hogs. Whereas with the heatmap I can tell in a fraction of a second where my attention should go while still having a sense of the larger economy.

I agree that fewer numbers would be better (hence the whole "Graphical" economic overlay idea). I posted the image with numbers to provoke some solid discussion of its merits and downfalls since some seem to favor the idea. It is better than straight flat numbers with the larger sizes for larger numbers and grouping options but does have more overall visual complexity. It would certainly be an improvement overall compared to the pitiful options in SupCom/TA.

However, I am with you on that a relative scaled heat map would get the idea across much faster as long as it pooled unit resource usage appropriately - so my 50 engineers building a fusion plant look appropriately bright to my 1 mega-nuke builder where both are building with the same rough amount of resources. Hence the idea of taking into not just per-unit account resources used/produced, but also total current resources applied in the case of units under construction.

@dbclick
That number mock-up, that's exactly what I want. (Save for maybe the "group" number being super-imposed when you're zoomed in enough to see the individual stats.)

It might need a bit of cleaning up, graphically, but that's the exact kind of localized overview I'd like to be able to toggle on at times.

Numbers loose a lot of information when grouped. You can still see the balance, but you can't see any more where your energy is going to as nearby power plants and factories will show a seemingly unimportant balance close to zero while producing and consuming insane amounts of energy and possibly being your most important industrial estate. It would seem unimportant while hogging up most of your resources.

Thats why not only the absolute numbers are relevant, but also the rate at which energy and metal are consumed and produced. All 6 numbers (3 per resource) are important in order for the overlay to be helpful.

Numbers may have seemed to be the easiest solution to the problem, but either you cover the whole screen with numbers (to put all the information in it) or you loose much data at the attempt to simplify the information. Visualizations are more comfortable when it comes to presenting statistical data.

Heatmaps loose even more data, they are even incapable of displaying energy and metal at the same time and they suffer the same problem as when grouping numbers: Areas with an high flow rate but balanced economy will seem far less important then they actually are.

Economy values should not be in the middle of the screen. There will already be strategic icons for units, so the goal cant be to have the screen flooded completely with icons at the end.

Please read at least the initial post of the thread before participating in the discussion. Thank you.

It has said multiple times, that this would only be an optional overlay which you activate only when you need it. It won't be active all the time as it does cover large parts of the screen. But that is necessary since you don't only want to see the global balance, but you also need to see which parts of your economy have which impact and where you could save resources in case of a shortage.