Seems like orienting oneself to the battlescape in the alpha right now can be a little finnicky. I've got a simple, effective solution: Just mark the polar caps with thin lines, straight out of the whole command-themed UI, and mark the equator with a similar ring line. The polar markers could shorten as you zoom in, and could just be very subtle "NORTH" and "SOUTH" labels that blend in once the bullets begin to fly. And the equatorial ring could float within the commander's view above the battlefield, and as one zooms out to a planetary view, a disk would emerge from the planet to meet the ring and sort of slice the planet, so we can see its axial orientation from afar. This would help players orient their view when commanding such a large volume of units and expansions, and could be the root of a system whereby the camera can be set to auto-orient northwards if a player needs such assistance.
There is already a option in Game Setting called Planet Pole Lock, you can also press N to orientate to North. I hope this improves your gaming experience, but in the long run there is nothing wrong with markers like you have said, some people may like to be locked to North, others may just want know which way North is.
Another solution would be a compass in the corner of the ui that only appears when you're not in galactic view
Pole lock helps a lot with orientation for me as long as I don't plan to fight near the poles, then it makes it a horrible experience. IIRC they said that they planned to add something like this eventually and also other options to make orientation easier.
Also keys that just rotate your view would be nice. Although those could exist and I haven't managed to hit them yet.
Hey Guys, My apologies if it's been discussed before but the whole orientation markers idea got me thinking. Firstly I like the idea nervecenter but it would be nice to see it fleshed out even further to a full overlay which of course could be customized/toggled on or off. In my mind it would be a high tech looking overlay which could have as much or as little information as you wanted. There have been ALOT of discussions about minimaps and what to do. Perhaps this overlay could be a solution. Im sure the developers have some cool ideas to implement so i'm not too worried about it anyway. Sorry for going off topic nervecenter. I think your idea is great and it really just stirred up a whole lot of other neat ideas in my head. Cheers, -Todd
I just saw this implemented in the latest live stream which is excellent. In addition to the pole markers, I think there should also be equator and prime meridian lines which can be switched on or off.
I even saw ingame now right in front of me. Very helpful already. I think the should be always visible. When the planet hides them make them halftransparent.
