Resource Stream Interface Suggestions

So, resource stream economy is confirmed. PA will have a rate economy, not lump-sum transactions. Discussion over.

What I want to discuss here is interface. In the Total Biscut interview this is mentioned as one of the largest challenges in the interface design. Let's get some good ideas and help them out!

In TA (and others) the interface displays a "bar" for the quantity of resource "stock" and then a numerical value for the rate of change. The odd thing (to me) was that the rate of change was really the most relevant value. Stock was almost always quickly consumed (because it's a rate economy!) and the little numbers were hard to read quickly.

I don't have any good answers, but here's a suggestion. Switch it up, and make the visual bar display the rate, and the numbers display the stock. This way the critical value is easy to read visually. Also, it would be good to have a graph view that pops up when you hover on the resource bars, that displays the recent rate history.

Here's a (poorly implemented) example of what a (recently balanced) economy bar would look like when you hover over it.


Other ideas? Discuss.

I actually like the numbers displaying the rate. Mostly the income stays constant (it'll only change if you build new stuff or stuff gets destroyed) so you'll only have to look at the cost most of the time.
So I have 12K comming in and 10K going out, it's just a little sum to see I've got 2K to spent without my stock going down.
I find your example bar harder to read then to calculate 12-10=2. Also the stock won't go down so fast if you build a couple of storages.

I do like the concept of graphing the changes over time, which several people, including myself, have suggested. The idea of making it visible only on mouse-over is a good one.

I don't have a problem with a graph on mouse-over.
However I cannot extract any useful information out of a graph of data of the past. Has anyone a example of useful information I could get?

Agreed, I don't need to know what I was doing 5 minutes ago. Might be nice in a replay or any other kind of post-game stats review. But from the in game aspect all I am really interested in is knowing 3 things:
1.) What's coming in
2.) What's going out
3.) What's left in my storage

1 & 2 can be solved in the way dffmmm describes, which is the way the streamed economy has been done in the previous games. All I want to see is if I am gaining or losing resource. I don't need to be troubled by superfluous figures and graphs.

Ideally I need a number to represent how much storage I have and how full it is. A simple bar is fine to show a percentage, but I need to know how much resource at my disposal with when planning a build. Something like 1,000/20,000 would be sufficient. This brings me nicely on to my next point:

When I want to plan something, what I need is to see what my building costs overall and what rate the unit I am using to build it is going to consume resources. This then allows me to calculate how a multitude of options will effect my economy. From how quickly 100 T2 engineers will drain my storage to how much production I can sustain without going into deficit. This is simply a case of build power and once I know the value of each unit, the maths can be replicated for each subsequent unit I use to assist the build.

Example:
1.) A single T1 engineer builds a building costing 1000 mass at a rate of -5/s. The building takes 200s and the engineer consumes -5 mass per second .
2.) Two T1 engineers build a building costing 1000 mass at a rate of -5/s each. The building takes only 100s and the combined consumption is -10/s.
3.) Two T1 engineers and a T2 build the same building. If a T2 engineer uses mass at -10/s then the building only takes 50s and mass is consumed at a rate of -20/s.

This is easy to understand when the information is in front of you like this. The information needs to be displayed so that a player can calculate the impact on his economy without doing anything more than a simple sum, such as 5x T1 engineers + 2 T2 engineers = -45/s mass and my income is +50/s, so this can be sustained. Build power of a unit should be constant and therefore predictable. It should be displayed so that it is easily accessible to the player.

This is a very basic interface with all resource data I need. It's not a beauty, however it shows absolute amount, relative filled storage, absolute positive, negative and delta flow. Every interface that gives me this data quickly is a good interface imo.


Edit:
There is one situation, where I can think of the data graph as a useful instrument. When sharing resources flow in a team-match, it could be useful to determine who consumes what amount of resources. However in this situation the graph shouldn't show the absolute amount, but the delta flow.
Not sure if this is a good argument. Perhaps someone else has a better one.

Storage, income, outcome and net?

Could a player modify their UI?

Because as a player I only really look at the storage bar and the net income/outcome.

Otherwise nice idea, could there be a UI Popup hen you go to have an engineer/s assist and the like so they know hoe the current economy will change when the assist order is given?

That would help me.

Probably, through modding.

I've been thinking about this as well, and I think this would help new (and veteran) players a lot in keeping their economy stable.

I'd like to see an option that shows you how a building something will increase your resource draw. For instance, say you're using 5 resources for general building (-5), and you're getting 10 from mexes (+10).

Now you want to build something else that will drain an additional 2 resources. When you hover over the selection and you get a tool tip that shows -5-2/+10. That way at a glance you could see where you are and where you'll be once you start the building/unit.

If you're building units, the red number will be in relation to what you're currently building. IE, (starting with the previous example) if the factory is using -5 on the current unit, but you hover over a unit that is only -3, you'll get a tool tip that shows: -5+2/+10. Alternately, this could be shown in a colored bar graph by player option or when the numbers get large enough.

I remember in Forged Alliance there was a button you could press that would display the resource production/consumption for each building and relevant unit in the game. Perhaps something similar could be coded so, if a deficit should happen, you can properly decide what to keep, what to reclaim/shut down and which production sequence to halt.

True, but it would be nice to know beforehand with your mouse pointer showing what will happen if X assists Y economically.

It would be nice if you could get one graph for all units selected as well.

I think that would only work for buildings, since most units don't take from the energy pool...or do they? I honestly can't remember.

Engineers? But yeah, obviously any unit that doesn't give/draw resources wouldn't count towards the graph. Perhaps non-engineer units shouldn't count regardless of their resource draw...or maybe it could be toggleable?

I think only TA had units majorly tied into the economy, but they usually generated the power they required and only used it when moving/fighting.

Of course you would need to show units that do spens the actual power economy like TA's energy weapon units.

How about a heat map with large green and red splotches over the chunks of map that are producing or taking up resources.

Has its merits maybe as a post-game thing but during? It's too general if you want to find a specific monster that's eating your energy and mass up.

Awesome idea. Put in some Bar-graph style "columns" that show where the resources are being stored as well.

One of the problems with visualizing a flow-based economy is that it is intrinsically based on integration over time. This is not something easy or natural for most people. There has to be a way to display this information, maybe "time to completion" and "projected resource surplus/debt rate" or something. I'm not one of those people who can do integral calculus in my head on the fly while trying to choose a strategy to defend my base from robots.

You do realise both TA and supcom had a time to completion on everything.