Unofficial "Official" GUI Discussion Thread

Added.
Thanks!

Suggestion: in the construction bar, put strategic icons near each unit to identify them faster.

What exactly do you include in GUI? I wouldn't call the ability to share resources and units a UI feature because it affects the game mechanics.

Do you include things like Custom Formations and Priority in GUI? I at least include them in the UI because if you think of the UI as linking the player to the underlying rules of the game then these features can be implemented entirely in the UI. As in they can be implemented with no change to the game rules.

A good economic UI should take into account the effect of factory downtime. It is very easy to predict and calculate the effects of rolloff but the system is often too complex for players to calculate on the fly and I don't think the skill should be rewarded. Given a set of factories, queues and assisters it is easy enough to calculate how many resources are being gained or lost on average and whether the current storage is sufficient to absorb local fluctuations. The current second-to-second income display tells you nothing about the larger system and the varied income and expenditure is probably confusing.

this is already possible to set in options

@dallonf that is genius.
I would even go as far to make "Overflow" red.
Just to help underline that economy overflow is a bad.

Totally added to the list!

@smallcpu Can you make that suggestion in the Confirmed Features List 2.0 thread?
That would be really helpful for newbies, but it's not strictly GUI I think?

@smallcpu Can you please elaborate on this?

Added!!!
I made the suggestion to use a contextual drag select.
There is a similar function in AutoCAD where left-drag selects only objects entirely encompassed. and Right-drag selects any objects you touch.
This can be easily adopted for "Army units only" and "Production units only".

My I ask why not?
I would presume shared army teamplay to be on voice chat already.
I don't think we should limit the GUI just because you don't talk to you teammate.

Added!!!

*Cursor should have less similar graphic between move and select, and it could use a different, better pointing system (actually it's a "crosshair" that select what's on the middle, under the cursor itself; personally i'd prefer having the good old "arrow" type successully used everywhere else, with it's selecting tip on the corner for more precision)
*Selecting "hitboxes" should be larger to avoid unsuccessful selections. (Many times i clicked on a unit/building without selecting it)
*Permanent cursor ping is annoying, cursor should adapt itself to what's being selected.
*Selected units should be visible in strategic/orbital view (how about some icon highlight like on FA?)

*Strategic zoom should be smoother (or is it my config that's too weak?), for more precision.
*Strategic zoom could use (optional) minimal inertia to help ergonomics and feel.
*Strategic zoom could use some "acceleration" (=the faster the mousewheel is activated, the faster the zoom work, like a combination of doubleclick and mouseaccel features)

*Astraeus should be selectable and viewable while travelling, and there should be a list of the operating astraeus somewhere (and why not a "flightplan" for each of them saying what they carry, the destination planet and ETA) to avoid losing them.
*Astraeus should have their orbit trail displayed with ETA on the orbital view, and orbits of all celestial (natural and artificial) bodies should be visible aswell in the orbital view. This way we could optimise launch, when destination planet is closer.
*Astraeus should use gravitationnal assistance of the celestial bodies to reach it's destination faster, instead of crossing the entire solar system on a slow, straight line... (Not UI)

*We should be able to switch from one unit on a planet to another unit located on a different planet WITHOUT being forced to use the orbital view (unzoom to orbital then zoom to the target planet and then select the unit, slow and painful.)
*The same way units located on a different planet but visible from the currently cam locked planet should be selectable aswell (happen because of the ridiculously tiny scale that allow peeking what's happening on a moon from the planet's surface)

*Mex upgrade option. (not really UI)

*snapshot integrated shortcut that automatically remove all UI in the saved picture.
*spacebar should allow movement on the planet surface (like on FA) without having to unlock camera for each move.

*Assist fabbers should assist on everything, actually the fabbers don't help for certain tasks (or it's the AI?)

Not the ability to share units and resources, but rather, the GUI for it.
I presume these will be on since they were in TA and SupCom.
Obviously, they wouldn't be added into the GUI unless the game mechanic was present.

I did not include anything for Stock or Custom Formations and nothing for Priorities.
I haven't really looked into these too much and I'm not sure what should be suggested.
Can you summarize how you suggest they be implemented?
If you can drum up an infographic, I think it'll be easier for the Devs to understand!
Thanks!

Wow. That actually sounds really complicated.
How do you think the player should receive this information?
At the cost of realism, do you feel that factory rolloff should even exist?
I always got really frustrated in SupCom when pathfinding got in way, specifically when a unit rolls off, but is blocked by engineers and the next unit can't build.

I'm hoping you can add some specific suggestions?
I'd like to try to keep this list as specific as possible for the devs.

Here's my suggestion for an interface option:
Health bars always on, but only show them for units with less than full health(like Starcraft 2: HOTS, AoEnline and a few other recent RTS games).

The problem with blanket 'Select All X' orders is that you can't see everything that you've selected, and there's very poor feedback on what you have selected or whether you should have selected it. That's not so much of a problem in small or straightforward games, but in large or team games with multiple fronts, I can only think that it would be detrimental, and it certainly has been in the past. 'Select All X Onscreen' orders do not have this problem as the units are necessarily onscreen, therefore you're aware of everything you've selected and immediately know if the orders you're giving are relevant to the situation.

Similarly, there is a reason why most games have implemented 'show one idle worker' rather than 'select all idle workers'.

There needs to be some way to mass deselect a subset of the selected units, particularly by type. (Surprisingly, you cannot click on or manipulate the icons that show the type and number of units you have selected. At least, I haven't been able to.)

Wow @kmastaba that is so much info.
I hope you don't mind me asking you to elaborate on them?

So you want a more precise cursor? A crosshair cursor like this?

And you want "on-click" for the movement command to change the cursor momentarily for a right-click?
Or are you referring to selecting it from the Order Panel?
Do you have any other games or programs that you think does this well?

How much larger? Where do you think they are now?

Agreed! There is no need for the cursor to ping as default.
It should only ping when when awaiting for you to complete an order.
Added!

Added!

Added! It's a pet peeve of mine.

Added!!!

Personally, I like my interface to be 1:1. I think each "click" my my mousewheel, should be 1-level of zoom. If I want out 5 levels, then I'll scroll out that many times.
But if people want acceleration, it also makes sense.

While I personally dislike this feature, some people would definitely like it.

Can the Astraeus not be selected right now? Are you telling me I can't change it's destination mid-flight?
I presume the waypoint system will be implemented for the Astraeus.
Is that what you want me to put in on the suggestions, that the Astraeus operate similar to other units including order queues (Similar to Supreme Commander).?

Agreed!!!
That makes total sense. Celestial body orbit path should be shown.

Boom!!! That's exactly what I'm talking about.
Pulling in the best-of-the-best!

Added like a mofo!!!

hmmmm. That's a pretty good point.
On the presumption that the Selection highlighting gets buffed and implemented in Strategic Zoom, would you still have a problem with it?

I'm going to use a SupCom example if that works for you...
Let's say I'm the north air player on Setons. I may be operating on multiple fronts.
- Scouting their air player
- ASFs in north sea
- ASFs in south sea
- Transports in ferry command for south island.

But limiting my "Select All X" orders in the GUI, you remove my ability to click an ASF and say "all ASFs gather here". I think "Select all on-screen" is a very powerful and important feature, in its own right, but wouldn't it be best if both options existed?

Now if we take Planetary Annihilation.
Let's say I have ferry commands running between all my worlds and moons and my fighters scattered on each of them.
Let's say I scout the enemy and they are gathering forces to mount a surprise attack on my secondary base.
I would want the ability to be like "omfg, air fleet gathering and likely headed to x-location, all air units gather here". I would have some sort of system-wide control off all my units.

I think this brings me back to the original point.
Let's say Mavor pulls it off and we get 1 million units split over 10 players in a 5v5.
That still leaves me with 100,000 units. This could be spread out over 10 Celestial Bodies. I don't want to have to click into each planet, locate all my forces on that planet, then assign them orders 10 different times.

I have never had an issue choosing my selected units in Supreme Commander or any other game.
Do you have an example for me when this could be a problem?

p.s.

I have integrated the suggestions from Confirmed Features List 2.0.
Keep the suggestions guys coming guys.
Try to keep them specific, we don't want Mavor to have a heart attack when he comes into work in a couple hours

I think I am more interested in the functionality and scriptability of the UI over what it actually looks like.

I too am more interested in the functionality than the current look.
I figure if the proper keys are coded in, then our modding guys can make it work for us.
What would you need from Uber as a modder to do GUI work?

Not really UI, but I really would like an orbiting planet to not go in front of my base when I'm zoomed out.
It's already an unreadable mess without, no need to entirely obstruct my view.