Some UI Ideas

This is highly situational though; a T2 artillery tank has much higher DPS per metal than tanks, but that doesn't mean artillery is the best or only unit to build. DPS too doesn't give an accurate measurement of combat ability - a unit that fires 10 times a second and does 10 damage per shot has a very different function than a unit that fires once every 5 seconds and does 500 damage per shot, even though they have the same DPS. More information should be present, I agree, but sometimes raw stats like DPS aren't the way to go (in this case, I'm more in favour of better descriptions of unit roles. If a game is balanced, then knowing things like DPS matters less).

See https://forums.uberent.com/threads/rel-unit-info-56516.50894/.

Right, but you have to break stats down to something digestible. The UI currently only shows metal cost and not energy. It's OK to omit some details, but you need some sort of baseline. I understand that DPS isn't all powerful, but you need something for people to go on. And providing simpler numbers up-front, and then more detailed numbers when players dig in (in game contextual info panel or wiki) at least gives people a baseline to go off of.

PS - nice mod! That looks great. But, I do think that a game should be quite discoverable / researchable without mods. Especially since I think more veterans use mods than new / low key players, which are who need this information the most.

It's still more accurate than the other sources. If you notice errors, please let me know rather than just move on and let them stand. You can message me on the forums or use the handy "contribute to wiki" on the sidebar. With 128 Wiki entries, "going through with a fine tooth comb" is easier said than done. My process for maintaining the wiki has become more thorough for the past handful of patches, but before that, I admit, my process was somewhat shoddy.

If you have suggestions, I'm all ears. I'd love it if you'd message me with some suggestions. Specific suggestions other than "improve it" are greatly appreciated. PA Matches is turning into a huge website and is becoming difficult to manage all on my lonesome. I'm going to start seeking out help to maintain it soon. Probably mid-January. We'll see.

Huh?

Hello new member.

I never said after a minute or two. Don't put words in my mouth. I said after a few games or once they learn it. Players only need to learn the stats once. They don't need constant reminders of the stats thrown in their face when they've been playing for a few weeks.

Wouldn't that be an argument for not having the stats in the game? What's the difference between the stats in game and on a website? The only difference is the location and how it is accessed.

How is not including information making the game less fun? And how is the information displayed increasing the game enjoyment?

Less time going down fruitless paths? Didn't you just say the exploration was a large part of the fun? You seem to be flip flopping on your stance.

Those stats can be very very misleading. DPS means nothing without the range to be considered. The 120 range of Levelers is a huge deal when compared to the 100 range of Ants. And the massive arc and large time delay of the Sheller/Stomper when compared to the near instantaneous shot of the Leveler/Ant/Dox/Slammer is also a huge difference. And that doesn't even factor in mine layers or any other specialty units that we're not aware of. There very likely will be a sniper bot. When you look at the DPS, the unit would be completely pointless – unless you factor in range.

Displaying too few stats is misleading and more harmful than good. Displaying too many stats is cluttered and distracting, and thus more harmful than good.

Stats in the forum of pop ups in game are just all around not worth it.

If you want to explore the units through trial and error, go for it.

If you want to study the units and figure out what types of units to build based on stats, go for a wiki or booklet or in game browser. When you're playing a fast paced macro RTS, you don't have time in game to spend a minute or two browsing the unit stats. That should be reviewed before the game.

tldr: In game stats clutter the UI. If you spend a minute or two browsing the stats while in game, you've already lost the match. Studying the units should be done before the match starts.

As far as I know, the data for PA-DB is automatically generated directly from the unit files. As long as the build number in the top-right is the current build, the information should be 100% accurate.

It's often not maintained, by cola_colin's own admission. :-( (whooops)

It's not made by cola, it's made by yarmond - https://forums.uberent.com/threads/pa-unit-database.49663/

Hm... had that backwards in my head for some reason. whoops, lol

Either way. I've seen it can frequently take days or a week or two to be updated.

That's certainly possible. It can sometimes take me a few days to make updates when new builds come out for my various projects.

I believe your wiki and pa-db both have a place, as they cater to different audiences. The wiki is definitely more "newbie" friendly (and does more than just units), whereas pa-db is designed for people who know what bit of info they want to find and just need to look it up. I personally prefer the simplicity of the layout of pa-db, but then I fall into the group that knows what bit of info they need . I also find it useful because the URLs are easy to dynamically build.

I think we now have direct access to the unit files from the UI, so I'm thinking of updating the unit info mod to add some more details to the pop-up boxes. If you have any specific suggestions, post them in the unit info mod thread. I can make them optional via the settings manager too.

Ah, yes, you said matches not minutes. Your tone was still pretty one-sided. Not everyone can or wants to devote a chunk of their memory to those stats. My point was that some people might just leave them around. I personally would.

Accessibility is a huge difference. Information in game is quick to access and likely more accurate than 3rd party information, though perhaps not as fleshed out / analyzed. Information outside of a game is usually more complete, but it's annoying to get to and usually inconsistent.

This is a strategy game, and making strategies without any way of informing your decisions other than seeing what works is possible but very time consuming. Again, this boils down to accessibility.

In short, getting defeated repeatedly gets old. Exploration is definitely part of the fun, but it's also nice to have some information to go on. It's a balance. If you want to call it flip flopping to suggest that there are multiple needs that need to be satisfied here, that's a little disappointing. Your play style is not the only one, my play style is not the only one, and it's ok to represent or mention more than one at a time.

Not all playing is online. Some people like single player games. Some people play with friends, and are OK with pausing / less frantic gameplay. Some people just play against the computer at a difficulty where they can take a minute to refresh their memory on a unit's stats. Those are all ok. People who go through those stages and like what they find are the ones who sometimes go on to be huge fans of the genre. It's good to keep them in mind.

That was me, I'm pretty sure I said a few minutes, or something like that. Just mild exaggeration.

You can already see range in-game by selecting the units and holding ctrl, so range is not a stat that needs to be displayed.

When I go over the stats presented on most of the wikis, I come across a list of stats that goes something like this:

Metal Cost

Health

DPS, Damage per shot/shots fired per second
Range

Speed
Acceleration
Turning rate
Vision Range
Projectile Velocity
Breaking Rate

Now, let me go over this list, and explain why certain stats are important or unimportant for new players and moderate players.

Metal Cost: Very Important, however is already displayed in the appropriate build menu, which is where you care about seeing it.

Health: Very Important, lets you know/figure out how long your unit/structure will survive against any enemy fire.

DPS: Very Important, but can be broken down into Damage per shot, and shots fired per second, like this: 80 | 4
this shows that the hypothetical unit does 80 damage per shot, 4 shots in a second.

Range: Very Important, but as I said before can be seen by selecting a unit/group of units, and holding ctrl, therefore doesn't need to be displayed. Also, displaying range as a number is incredibly confusing, since you have no units of reference, and is much harder to use as an estimate than the already-implemented method, holding ctrl while having units selected.

Speed: Important, but can be quickly assessed by making the unit and running it around once, once you've seen it it's not that easy to forget as far as I know. Also, same complaint as before, having speed displayed as a number gives me no real information, as I have no reference distance. 5 units of speed. In what? Ant-lengths per second?

Acceleration: I've never seen this as an important stat to know on the spot, you already know speed, and I don't think it takes that long for most units to accelerate anyway. I've never seen the acceleration or deceleration of a group of units change the tide of a battle. Same argument applies for the following stats:

Turning Range, Breaking Rate

Vision Range: why do I need a stat for what my unit clearly shows on it's own? Some may say, but what If you have radar coverage? Well, in that case than the vision range doesn't matter much does it? The tank sees the target from far away anyway.

Projectile Velocity: Although this stat can be quite important for microing, I don't see how giving the stat will help, as, once again, there is no reference distance. It's like telling me, wow my car gets great gas mileage! and when I ask what that is you say, oh 10 per litre. 10 what, 10 meters? 10 Kilometers? 10 miles? 10 astronomical units? GIVE ME UNITS MAN!

In conclusion, I must once again point out, that the only stats people actually care about having up front are either already provided for them (metal cost, vision range, weapon range) or need to be implemented in such a fashion as I have suggested in earlier posts on this thread (Health and DPS/Damage |Shots fired per second).

TL;DR version:

Don't be lazy, read the damn thing.

Units of speed are radius per tick.


I'm pretty sure radius of planet is measured in kilometres. Compared to the size of trees and planets. And a tick is slightly less than a second.

@brianpurkiss

Pamatches less ergonomic than padb, sorry.

Yup I'll follow up to your PM. Err... sorry for passive aggressiveness, and a VERY Merry Christmas!

PA Matches has URL forwarders that follow the same scheme as the unit files. For example:
http://pamatches.com/units/air/bomber/
forwards to
http://pamatches.com/wiki/units/air/bumblebee/
It's what PA Stats uses to forward to the PA Matches Wiki

I did just make a few updates to the PA Matches Wiki make it easier to browse.

That's useful. I'll look into adding an option for people to choose which wiki to use for unit info.

Sahweet. :-D

That may be so, but when I look at the planet, I can't tell how far a tick is. Even if there are units, there is no reference distance, and I'm not actually going to care about the proper max speed of my unit, all I want to know is how much faster or slower it is than other units, which I can tell by building both of them and running them against each other, watching the tutorial or building an army containing both of the units in question, attacking an opponents base, and realizing pretty quickly that one is falling behind the other. I've never seen someone in a game actually even mention the speed stat of a unit, however damage and health come up a LOT.

If damage and health are not enough/too much information to give, depending on which direction you want to go with it, how come pretty much every single other RTS game I've played or have seen played has health and damage pretty clearly indicated on the hud, but left out speed and turning rate? I don't think that that is a design flaw...

Game is going to have 100+ units, and without any stats it will be impossible to know what units to build. Especially when scale is so big you are going to have very hard time figuring out what each unit does.
Just by watching losses you can't know how good each unit is.
In WW2 SU won Germany, yet their units were much weaker, without stats i might think they were stronger and i would loose all 1:1 fights.
Faaar from good example, but i hope you get my point.

Yes I understand what you're getting at, and that's why I thought I should post something like this. Thanks for being on-topic! (I'm still sour at the people debating wiki superiority)

But just throwing up 2-3 arbitrarily selected stats isn't doing any good for the reasons explained. I don't think anyone wants to hide the information, far from it, the problem is that you need to present all the information in order to ensure people are making educated choices. Sticking a few stats with no context is only going to create more confusion.

Mike

Brian took that to PM. I think we are friends again..

And I saw that as on topic, because I am most definitely nuts.

Someone may have mentioned my unmitigated forum spam to me recently too, and the consequences that was having on the way people view my posts.

If you and me can be friends again, that would be cool.

Looking at a road, I have no idea how far a Globby Glidge is

However I know that a rock has a speed of zero GGs.. And a Zog has speed of 5 GGs.. I know a Zig has speed of 9 GGs. And a Zip has speed of 29 GGs.

You do know what those numbers mean. It's the relative magnitude which is important, not what exactly a Globby Glidge is.

Personally I feel importantly stuff is weapon range, unit sight range, health as a value, damage, refire rate, splash damage and speed. Although speed can be implied in the unit description.

I think that health and damage should be displayed numerically on mouse over UI. I think the others should be displayed (or implied through unit description) at the factory.

I agree that DPS only really matters if you know the refire rate.