Suggestion: use TAB to see a flat strategic map overview

My suggestion is not a mini map in the corner of the screen cause this is also kinda useless with this the huge scale of planets. I suggest a dedicated view that shows a flat representation with strategic icons of all the planets that you occupied. This can be linked to a button like TAB. If you click some where in strategic map overview you travel there instantly and you are back in normal view.

This would be a way to have a really good overview of whats happening on your planet/planets. This without opening 4 different screens to see whats happening on your planets (could get confusing).

So in short hit the TAB button. There you'll see an overview of all your planets (flat representation of the planet/planets. This is a zoomed out map where you only see the map with strategic icons. Hit TAB again to go back to normal view or click some where in the strategic map overview.

Re: Sugestion: use TAB to see a flat strategic map overview

That's no different than suggesting a minimap.
With all of the same problems that minimaps have trying to project a sphere onto a flat surface.

Neutrino has said there will be no projecting of spheres onto any flat surface... period.

well my suggestion would occupy your whole screen when you hit TAB so I don't agree with you . I think this game would almost be impossible to play on multiple planets without this implementation. Also not everybody has multiple (big) monitors.

Re: Sugestion: use TAB to see a flat strategic map overview

not officially, but it could be done by a skilled modder. I imagine it could be useful to have the feature suggested by op. I suggested a mercator projection in another thread too.

I doubt that adding in map projections is something that is feasible at the mod level. It requires vector transformations that you really want to optimise at a low level if you don't want the performance to be arse.

If I understand the first post corretly, this sounds like a great idea; holding a key to pop up a new window temporarily that has the whole solar system in it (you get to see every planet/moon/asteroid in the area at a keypress without having to zoom out, and zoom back in). Release the key, the window disappears. Click in the window while it is up, and the 'main' or 'last used' viewport will go to that planet/asteroid.

I'm not sure what he means by 'flat' strategic map though...flattening each planet out? No, thanks, keep them as spheres but zoomed out all the way. And unless you are wearing 3d-glasses/occulus the projection onto your monitor's screen is a 2d representation of 3d anyways.

The answer is to just have multiple viewports looking at the globe zoomed out.

If you're able to fight on multiple planets, then you will have to choose yourself what things you want to look at, and a flat projection of one planet isn't going to cut it.

If you had a viewport of each planet, rotating in an "S" or similar pattern so over time you would see everything, that would help interrupt you with new information that comes in to play. You could spawn new viewports that are in fixed positions for particular places you care to monitor more closely.

There is no need for a flat projection if you can create unlimited viewports.

the effective usability of "unlimited" viewports will largely depend on how easily the information density can be scaled down.
for example:
the graphical requirements (aside from additional overhead) for nine 640x360 views on a HD screen instead of one 1920x1080 view should be roughly similar and not a big problem for a PC able to handle the big view. But you have to ensure that the required data transfers for client information for the small views don't exceed a ninth of the total view, if you want it to scale. Which mostly is a matter of reducing/aggregating data when in a zoomed out way, which might be useful for overview purposes anyhow.
From the ergonomic standpoint I would prefer a one view variant like you mentioned with a rotating view of the current planet and perhaps a synched list of current and past alerts which let you jump to the concerned locations with a short click. As long as the alerts are verbose and explicit enough you would get any relevant information without the need to loose the overview in half a dozen viewports.

I think a tab'ed view is an excellent idea. And I don't understand why projections are shunned in such a way by the devs, unless they've decided not to restrict themselves to spherical objects (in which case it would be a hassle).

If projections continue to be taboo, then I would suggest showing the planet from two opposite sides. You could make it intuitive by making the starting position (alternative, the position where the first scout touched down for additional planets) "view 1". Then under each set of half-planets, you could add simple statistics such as the "percentage explored", as was suggested in a thread in the backers forum.

Minimap projections are antiquated and do not work well for a sphere.
Two reasons they shouldn't be in PA. That is, as far as I can tell, Neutrino's Thinking.

By the way, Which Mini-map do you like?
http://xkcd.com/977/

How, why? What is it that you're trying to make them do? I want a locally continuous transform between a 2D view and a 2D planet surface. Something that will tell where everything is roughly at, and preferably something that I can click to change what part of the planet I am viewing. As to the xkcd, I would think Robinson, Winkel-Tripel, Goode Homolosine, Hobo-Dyer or Platé Carree would all serve this purpose.

I suspect that you brought up the comic thinking to make a clever point about the non-triviality of projections, but please understand that I have in fact taken a university degree, including courses on differential geometry, and as such I am well aware of the limitations of projections. And I don't think that these limitations decrease the usefulness of a minimap sufficiently to completely remove them. But I do think that a tab'ed view would be superior to a static 2D map in the corner.

As my last post stated: Jon Mavor disagrees with you.
That's literally all there is to it. Talk to him about it in a PM if you're so sure your way is better.

I may not have taken a university degree including courses on differential geometry (Mine is in Molecular Biology), but I think that even I understand that this is Neutrino's game. He's making it his way. If you don't like it, you are free to disagree... but as he's already said:

/thread

ok, now you're dodging the question. What you are saying is absolutely true - nothing will get into the product if the producers don't want it there (except for bugs of course . Also, we have been told that there will be no projections. But I was addressing your comment about minimaps being useless. That is not a fact.

I don't see why the present stance of the devs should discourage people from talking about any kind of 2D representations of the planets. Supposing that the alpha shows that people are severely confused with whatever solution Uber does have in mind, then I should hope that the developers are mature enough to go back and reevaluate their stance on overviews. In that case, it would be helpful if there already existed discussions of the topic. If you are sure that these discussions will never even be read by the developers, then why do you waste your time even reading the posts? You knew full well from the title of the topic what this was going to be about. If you know that Mr. Mavor is on your side, then why bother?

I'm dodging the question because Neutrino has already answered it.
I'm not in the habit of putting more words in people's mouths than they've already been saying.

I have no stake in this argument beyond what Jon has already stated. I don't use Minimaps when I play most RTS games anyway. I don't think they're useless... they're just useless to me nine times out of ten.

Neutrino's the one who's said they've had their day, not me.
I just happen to agree with him is all
Though probably for totally different reasons.