How many people would like the 2D version included?

I would like the ability to collapse the planets onto a flat 2d version at will. Was wondering if this will be incorporated and if anyone else was interested in this?

If you are looking at a sphere and you zoom out you will not get more info because the rest of the map is behind the sphere? Your gonna want to see a 2D image to see the whole map at once?

I could certainly see them collapsing planets to planes for minimaps.

Perhaps but not to be played at the same time, with the same people who are playing it 3D, otherwise you may get people with an advantage. It could be like a mod I suppose.

I dont see how it gives any advantage if every1 has access to the same tools.?

If it was something you could do on the fly, for a moment to get a quick understanding of the battlefield then I suppose. But what I mean is if everyone competitive stays in 2D mode and the 3D mode gets left then the team who have put all this effort into the 3D part will have wasted a lot of time.

The fact its fully 3D planets is part of the unique aspect of the game, I know you said you may have just preferd a basic TA remake but I fear this idea would make it easier seeing all the map at once, so much so that fewer peopel will end up the unique 3D that the team are developing.

I can see how this would be useful from a display perspective, particularly if they plan to make extensive use of separate windows, as has been hinted.

However, a slight complication - turning 3D planets into 2D representations is a science all to itself.

Quite how you'd be able to effectively switch between one and the other (other than by just zooming in to the extent that it looks more 2D, as per Google Earth) is a conundrum for minds far greater than mine.

I would like to play a minigame based purely on the kickstarter video just that solarsystem with a base version of two groundunits two air units and the buildings of the video

just a paly test game for fun and promotion of the idea of PA ....









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ahh. the question of how to display an easy to use "at a glance" implementation of the radar/map,

there are arguments for and against the implementation of rendering multiple planetary landscapes as flat 2d landscapes but realisticly i think any implementation of Radar/minimap will likely be an interactive 3d radar/ minimap system displayed in an additional window

Edit: Nvm didnt read the whole post before commenting, disregard this post.

We should open yet another poll.
This time: Which map projection would you like to see in PA? :lol:

But seriously, I am curious how the radar/minimap will work if there is going to be one.

A 2d representation won't work in the way that a classic minimap would, so the ability to understand the content on it would be greatly hindered.

Much in the same way that it's a shorter flight from Seattle to London to go up over Canada and Greenland rather than to just go "straight" across the eastern USA and Atlantic, any 2d representation of a 3d object is going to make sacrifices, and trying to get people to agree on what sacrifice to make would be impossible, and they haven't budgeted such that they could just provide all of them so that people don't complain.

I'd recommend reading up on the wiki article about map projections, as it will have the detail to explain why we can't just go from one to the next easily:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_projection

I think this is probably the main reason they have mentioned they will be making extensive use of in-game windows.

I can imagine your default view is a zoomed out image of the solar system, and each colonised planet is a small box at the side / bottom of your screen. That would eradicate the need for a minimap.
Warning systems for attacks would need to be paramount, methinks.

Allow a button to collapse it to a 2d projection. Nothing too fancy, allow 3d, but make the 2d map a hotkey you can press, or make it so that if you click a certain button then it collapses.

Instead of a viewing it as a static object, like, the camera moves to different placed of the make, the current part the camera is over is treated as the center, as to minimize any distortion.

And no projections that are too fancy; something easily recognizable and readable, just try and keep area/distances as undistorted as possible.

So that's a vote for the Gall-Peters Projection?

thinking about it further, i'm not sure that this would work, you have to remember that a spherical environment cannot be remapped to form a rectangle without distorting the terrain to form the rectangle, similarly to how atlas representations of the world aren't actually all that accurate to reality.

additionally when viewing the 2d map you would also have to understand the distortion aspect and remember that the primary mapped object is a sphere and the actual position of anything appearing on the map in relation to other objects on the map would be distorted by where you decide to cut the map to form a rectangle,

ie. if you're at the top right on a flat 2d map depicting a spherical environment you can easily and instantly get to the top left by going up rather than across the whole world, its a difficult concept to explain but basically you're crossing the planetary pole as opposed to going horizontally across the planet surface, theres just no easy way to depict this on a flat 2d map in any way to make the whole concept easily and instantly understandable, its vastly simpler and far easier to understand if depicted as a 3d planetary representation,

i'm not sure but this may prove to be a limitation that cannot be overcome when dealing with maps on a planetary scale, 2d maps worked great when the areas were localized to regions that physically could not be connected top to bottom and left to right, but for a sphere this just wont work.

I'm kinda worried about the whole "Little Prince" planet thing. I fear it might prove a little too wacky and unfamiliar for a lot of players. I certainly found it a little hard to take seriously, at least in the Kickstarter movies. I think I'd prefer each world having a couple battlefields with realistic natural planetary curvature if the maps were large enough.

i don't think they've nailed down a scale yet, so the planet as depicted in the trailer could be "theoretically", much smaller than the reality, we'll just have to wait and see

This idea could be implemented simply by using a large enough planet and restricting the player from going outside a certain area (square for traditional maps, other shapes could be possible too). No need for a completely separate 2d version or mapping the sphere to anything.

if I'm reading this properly, you want to restrict players to something approximating the equatorial belt?, doesn't this impose limits on the basic concept of planetary annihilation? is it not better to try to expand our horizons and try new concepts and see how new methods of gameplay can be applied to old genre's?

Maybe its a problem that applies more to younger players (and i'm sorry i'm making a huge assumption here) who have grown up on more recent RTS releases, but im old enough and have played enough titles previously to have become if not bored then at least ambivalent the rehashing of old concepts and applying them to new projects and i'm quite eager to explore how the concept of RTS gameplay can evolve and change with the introduction of new gamestyles rather than repeat applying the limitations of the past on the games of the future

I'm sorry - this is literally the worst idea I've seen here about the planets.

Just... no. When you begin restricting player freedoms and strategies so you can show a flat map, something's gone wrong.