Unofficial "Official" GUI Discussion Thread

I think something that should be in, in some form to allow a few customisation options prior to launching the game, via a separate launcher before launching the game:

- Have options to change the standard colour of the UI
- On/Off's for UI segments
- Control UI size independent of resolution, for example if you want the orders bar smaller than others, and the income rate larger than normal
Those are the ones on my head I can think of right now, the main point being a way of choosing what to have available before the game launches (Also to not worry about changing the long list of settings ingame)

Another few things that I've formatted to the main post list:

Events:
Superweapon building detected - eg when flying a scout over, if a superweapon comes into view, warn the player.
Superweapon ammo detected - this is basically 'oh **** theres a nuke that's come into view, you have a few seconds to prepare yourself for the wreckage before it hits'.
Inbound orbital-fired Units - With the unit launcher, this seems a good thing to have, and I think it should activate when they pass the layer where satellites move, not before.

Simulation View:
Be able to draw on the map - much like in communication, however you can add names to the map, areas, or link to commanders.

Name links - can't think of a better name, but this is like control groups: you have a list of say 8 renameable links, and can assign them to planets, commanders, or general areas of the map, allowing commentators/players to zoom to where they want to be.

This would be incredible useful for team play!

I'm glad a thread like this finally came up, since I've been wondering for a long time how unit management is going to work at this scale.

It seems clear that with more than 10,000 units scattered across a solar system per player being likely, that the old global 0-9 keybindings system for group selection isn't going to be adequate any longer. I'd like to see a couple of things:

• Quick navigation to celestial bodies (planets, asteroids, etc.) that you have units stationed on, either through the UI or through key commands.
• Local control group keybinding sets per celestial body, i.e. your control group bindings are specifc for the particular planet you're zoomed in to.
• A squadron manager mechanism. An old hybrid RTS named Urban Assault had a small, resizable window that displayed the unit composition of a group (strategic icons) and what they were doing (moving, attacking, idle, etc.). It was possible to drag and drop units between groups.
  
  The most important idea is that control groups were not necessarily coupled to a keybinding. You could have an unlimited number of "anonymous groups" that were selectable only through the squadron manager window. Units freshly produced would automatically go to a default group. What this means is that you could have a handful of groups bound to keys for quick selection through the usual 0-9 keybindings and still be able to have as many additional groups as you needed that were selectable (albeit more slowly) through the squadron manager window for less frequently accessed groups.

When buildings snap to other buildings, especially larger buildings, their placement is sometimes considered invalid, and it also forces their orientation. If you want to place adjacent buildings with a different orientation, or if you want buildings close together in messy terrain, the snap to nearby buildings can make it impossible.

The suggestion was about binding multiple functions to a single hotkey.
How 'Focus on last event' works wasn't really relevant, but it's been successfully implemented in every other RTS so I don't imagine it would be a problem in PA.

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I never really used it in SupCom, but then again, I never played multiplayer. It could be more useful in PA, given the spherical maps.

This looks awesome!

I guess there were over 9000 similar suggestions but here it is:

Obviously, the power of strategic zoom is greatly reduced by having spherical maps instead of flat ones. You can't see everything when zoomed out like in supcom. I propose making an projection-mode. Say, you press some hotkey, which brings a full screen planet Mercator projection like this one (maybe some other projection would be better):
Edit: it won't allow me to insert images and links. Google mercator projection.

Then, after you click somewhere it brings you back to regular view, fully zoomed out over the place you picked. Essentially, a full screen mini-map. Imo, it would help very much with navigation, seeing incoming threats, seeing the "frontline", deciding where to build mexes etc.

Not sure if it makes sense to allow giving orders while in that mode, like with regular strategic zoom, since distances would be distorted, no poles, etc. But players might adapt to it better than having to constantly scroll the map.

Yes with spherical map ,i really dont see how they will fix this problem,but they need to think in something.
All the time you zoom out you lost the track.

1. Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think Uber is going to do this.
   I don't think changing the color of the GUI will provide any useful function right now as there is no benefit to gameplay and conveying information to the player.
   I think as a community, we should ask for the functional stuff before we ask for the pretty stuff?
2. Which features would you want to turn off in the GUI? and Why would you want this prior to launching the game?
3. Why do you think settings need to be in a launcher before entering the game?
   Why not just have everything built into the options menu?

Added!
I have filed these all under "Communication" section.
[SUGGESTION] Map marker (temporary pings). (Similar to F5-57 keys in SupCom)
[SUGGESTION] Map marker ~ Persistent text message (Similar to F8 key in SupCom)
[SUGGESTION] Drawing on the map.

Are you referring to a "saved camera location"?
Such as: Center of Base, Enemy Front Lines, Last known commander location, Moon base, etc...?

Can you elaborate on "link to commanders"?
Would this be any different from having him in the current "C" button shortcut key?

I think all celestial bodies makes the most sense. That way, they stay in order of "shortcuts" whether you have troops on them or not. More consistency will be easier to manage I think.
I will try to include this in my next mockup.

Like as in your 0-9 shortcuts switch when you zoom into view different planets?
Might take some time getting used to, but I'd be ok with that.
But if we have the squadron manager your propose, 0-9 time 6 celestial bodies is going to be hella, hella confusing.
But it might actually be our best option anyways, just because it could be a much bigger mess without the localized groupings.

omg. That is so freaking smart.
Not having all the control groups tied to a keybinding is the best thing I read all day!

Can you elaborate on the "squadron manager"?
How were the units sorted? Did the group themselves by type?
Is it a kind of glorified control groups thing? Or is there more functionality to it than just unit selection?

First off, Welcome to the forums!

This is a has been a pretty serious ongoing discussion for many of us.
Come join the discussion here: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/idea-minimap.51928/

Many of us have come over from SupCom and missed being able to get an instant game-wide overview of everything.
It's one of the reasons Mavor said he would revisit the idea of a minimap.
I think thus far, the one point the community has agreed upon is that "whatever this will be" would be a projection, not a crippled minimap. So while skewed, sliced or stretched, you still retain full functionality.

Keep the suggestions coming!

Dunno if this has being suggested, but:

ALT + RIGHT MOUSE = ATTACK MOVE.

ENGINEER + ATTACK MOVE = RECLAIM ALL IN PATH

ENGINEER + ANY BUILDING = RECLAIM ALL WRECKS IN BUILDINGS WAY, THEN BUILD.

WRECKS DO NOT BLOCK BULDINGS.

wreckage is sooo frustrating right now!!

also:

I read this, was immediately against this, then thought about it for 3 seconds, and was for it. This is a good idea.

1: I can't remember my logic entirely, but I was thinking of being able to change the base colour of icons like in the building bar to have them stand out more; being able to change the base colour of these other ideas to have one stand out, and have that be a choose-able option (between presets if need be) - although this is after most of this is implemented, don't hurt to prepare for it
- so say I want the events to be a strong red vs the other standard bars as a cold blue, rather than a simple red that the events would be so that it doesn't leave a hole in people's eye

2: A lot of these ideas will fill up the screen fast, and if I just bought the game and am new to it, all of it will be over-dominating and could scare me off, or if I just want to have a dirt simple *Spam Teh Nueks* compstomp, I may want to drop a lot of the complicated stuff and go back to basics.

End of 2 & 3: My logic with it being in a separate launcher was so that the options could be changed without something going crazy ingame, it would also have screenshots when selecting windows to add for new players, showing an image of what it looks like ingame and having a little readme next to it - this was mostly after thinking a lot on something for my course and looking at Darthmod a bit; so in this, ignore it.
However, I think a useful feature (whenever we could consider to put it in), would be to have a realtime mini-view in the options menu where after setting an option it reacts and shows it - best example would be Bioshock Infinite's options menu;

Name links:
Yeah in a way, with the added ability to rename the text of what the camera location is.

'Link to Commander': So pretty much after you mentioned it: a C command (or C key command itself) of some sort for replays which allows you to hop from one commander to the next without needing to scroll around.

Yes that would make the most sense.
But there should also be a way to set a rally point for individual units, so you don't have to go to 5 different places to collect that one unit. I'm thinking fabrication units here.

I like your idea about groups. We could apply groups like we apply rally point for factories. Units produced by a factory will automatically go to the rally point, it would be very great that the unit also automatically join a chosen group.

Some genius ideas floating around in this thread!

On top of an Idle Fabricator tab, please also add an Idle Factory tab. Thanks!

some ideas i had this afternoon, which i just couldnt find inside the friggin huge list you got there allready:

some sort of "area command painting" for assist/attack order, so you paint an area in "assist/blue" and all structures/units in this area gets assisted automaticly by the selected fabbers, like factories gets assisted in production, or damaged buildings (esp. towers) gets repaired, the latter has priority, and the former is so that the fabbers actually look for a factory which needs help (AI may inteligently select production, the more a unit is finished the less likely the fabber will work there).

"attack/red" orders would also be painted, like you can in supcom2, but it doesnt actually works like this way, because in supcom2, if you paint an area for attack, the "objects/units" in that area gets selected in the order the painting tool went over them. pretty much just like you shift-clicked on them after each other.
i would give the system a spin of "threat priority" which means if your unit A is shooting at unit B, which is exactly in weapons range, it keeps shooting at him, until either unit B dies or another unit, eg unit C moves closer into range. this unit C is now closer to a threat to unit A.
so unit A then selects unit C as a new target, and forgets about B for the time it needs to kill C or C moves out of range again.

well. in my head it all sounds usefull : / hope its understandable

Deka

PS: i also couldnt fint a thing about factory assisting other factories in their production queue, like in supcom.
AND i BADLY want that repeat production button on Factories
And to add something interesting to that, i would go and add some sort of "shuffle" button, which means you add some units, eg 2 Tanks, 1 Arty and 2 AA to a Factory and hit shuffle/repeat, so the units gets randomly selected from that queue for production until ordered otherwise, and if you order aditional units they just get selected like the allready queued units.

well. my ideas sound quite randomly i think.

Unsure if this has already been mentioned, couldn't find anything in the confirmed features thread (neither a 'suggestion' nor a 'will not be' for that matter) or may even be in the game already, i have no access to BETA.

For defensive structures, a toggle type button to specify advanced targeting behaviour (not just 'hold fire/return/fire at will' but also 'engage only ground/air/all')

My thinking behind this is from when i used to play TA, i enjoyed building large bases and whenever an enemy aircraft would be across the other side of my base, my guardian cannons would turn to fire (usually ineffectively) and from the other side for example, a group of kbots would get into the base because the cannons were either preoccupied shooting into the air in the opposite direction, or taking too long to turn back and engage the attacking ground units in time. or my anti-air tower would be destroyed because it was busy shooting a heavy tank instead of the incoming bomber.
Although of course this may not be relevant, the playstyle i enjoyed most in TA was more of a turtle player vs AI, but this looks like turtling may not be a viable tactic in PA (?).

anyway just my $0.02, can't wait for the full release!

Expanding on what japporo was talking about with the window'd fleet/squadron example I decided to put my idea in a visual sort of way, in the example down below. (sorry for quality I'm not an artist)



Basically you have this seperate window to control and visually see your units across all planets, you click on the relevant planet at the top which then takes you to the hot-key'd groups/units that you have hot-key'd on that particular planet, and a single click on the relevant group will just take you right to them, not in a zoomed out center of the planet type of way, zoomed on the units that you've selected (which selects all of them) but not zoomed right at the closest zoom, medium zoom'd out I guess. This window you can minimize or drag around to position where you want, this way you can basically have multiple key bindings that are set on a "per planet" basis instead of 1 set of hot keys for absolutely everything. 2 clicks and your instantly taken to your units on your specific planet. Quick, easy, and efficient I thought.

Edit: forgot to add, the numbers on the left hand size are just place holders, there would be you Alt+1 or whatever keys you have bounded to that group. This helps visually those like me, who often forget which keys you have binded to particular groups in case you forget

I personally dont have a huge issue with the way it works now, but I thought I would give this idea a shot and see if what some of ya think, if this would be viable, if this is good enough and clear enough with the current solar system planet selection at the top to add like a drop-down menu if you like to your units.... anyways thanks!

you guys should check out economy UI mod by yourlolcalmadsci. really basically what you describe but with some more features. like a build-slowdown meter.
It can be edited to be used with current ver. of the game.

YES, how many times must we say this for it to be taken into account?
same for ranges there should at least be an option in the menu for you to leave it standard on if so please you.

Am I the only one who thinks this is perfect?!