Feature Request: Tactical Zoning

[Revenantus]

Oh -- by the way, with the multiple monitor support, I meant to clarify.  The way I would see that working is to always show the galaxy view on the second monitor.  Then you could click planets over there, and it would bring them up on the first monitor.  With that sort of setup, the first monitor would never show the galaxy view, and the second monitor would never show the planetary view.  Otherwise you get into "being on two planets at once," which is not something the engine will support easily (and the performance would likely be bad with that, too).

Yeah, this is what we were thinking. Constant access to the Galaxy Map would be fantastic for discovering when/where all those pesky AI ships are coming into your space. Defense would become much more efficient.

I don't think I would show this just in far zoom (there doesn't seem to be a good reason for this)

I'll be honest in that I've actually forgotten what the initial reason for this was. It's likely a relic from an earlier manifestation of the idea that has become obsolete.

2. Designating certain systems as "monitored systems" is also interesting.  I take it that this would show warnings on the top left, like the "command stations under attack" thing does now?  

Yes, an option to make all/monitored systems automatically display their names and AI ship count above the button would solve this.

[Revenantus]

I also like Pandemic's addition of the persistent textual display of all the offscreen zone values for the current system.  I don't think I would show this just in far zoom (there doesn't seem to be a good reason for this), but rather would just show this all the time, if you happen to be at a place where you can see it.  I also don't think there's any reason to erase zones that are on planets you no longer have access to, since the persistent textual display would only work for planets that you are actively at (right?).  Or if not, then only at ones where you actually have ships would show data, anyway, but I think it would be too cluttered to show all of these from multiple planets.

That would make sense, and be better performance-wise, but I like the idea of having it show the stats on zones which are on other worlds. Say you're currently viewing planet X, and you have a Space Dock on planet Y. You put Zone 1 around the rally point for that dock. Now you can focus on the battle on planet X, while being aware of the exact point in time where the number of reinforcements on planet Y would be helpful for the take-over of planet X.

Dunno how much extra stress, if any, the idea of calculating how many ships are in a specific zone on another planet would put on the processor, though...

My main argument for the feature existing on a per system basis is that I think a likely use is the monitoring of hostile wormholes. Obviously this could rapidly amount to an unmanageable number of tactical zones if they were all constantly displayed.

I agree that some trans-planet tactical zones would be useful, especially for the purpose you described, but I would not want all of them to function this way. Perhaps there could be a separate class of zone that functions in this way?

[x4000]

Oh -- by the way, with the multiple monitor support, I meant to clarify.  The way I would see that working is to always show the galaxy view on the second monitor.  Then you could click planets over there, and it would bring them up on the first monitor.  With that sort of setup, the first monitor would never show the galaxy view, and the second monitor would never show the planetary view.  Otherwise you get into "being on two planets at once," which is not something the engine will support easily (and the performance would likely be bad with that, too).

Yeah, this is what we were thinking. Constant access to the Galaxy Map would be fantastic for discovering when/where all those pesky AI ships are coming into your space. Defense would become much more efficient.

Okay, good.  This sort of style is the easier one to code (and easier on the CPU/GPU), so that's great.  I actually really look forward to using this feature myself, now that the game has matured to the point where I don't have to worry about it being nonfunctional for people with only one monitor.

I don't think I would show this just in far zoom (there doesn't seem to be a good reason for this)

I'll be honest in that I've actually forgotten what the initial reason for this was. It's likely a relic from an earlier manifestation of the idea that has become obsolete.

Okay, no worries.

2. Designating certain systems as "monitored systems" is also interesting.  I take it that this would show warnings on the top left, like the "command stations under attack" thing does now?  

Yes, an option to make all/monitored systems automatically display their names and AI ship count above the button would solve this.

Excellent -- yeah, I think that would also cut down on the potential clutter in the upper-left, too.

[x4000]

My main argument for the feature existing on a per system basis is that I think a likely use is the monitoring of hostile wormholes. Obviously this could rapidly amount to an unmanageable number of tactical zones if they were all constantly displayed.

I agree that some trans-planet tactical zones would be useful, especially for the purpose you described, but I would not want all of them to function this way. Perhaps there could be a separate class of zone that functions in this way?

Oh -- you were originally thinking of this as being per-system?  Hmm.  I can definitely see both sides of this, and the logical thing to do is to split them into two variants of the feature.  This is one of those niche things that makes me really nervous, though, because I'm not sure how widely applicable this will be.  Ah, well.  I'll figure out a way to handle the key reuse.  I might be able to combine it with one of the display keys, like F5+1-0 for per-system ones, and F6+1-0 for the global ones.

[Pandemic]

I know how you feel... Having to make shit work on computers running IE on a 800x600 monitor... why do people need to be stupid?

Anyway, I digress . Dunno if you've played Total Annihilation, but I assume you might have. Anyway, if you haven't, it has a nice little feature that I haven't seen in a game since; the ability to both share resources, and see your partners resources. While this wouldn't be a bad idea, I'm not going to go into that right now . The point is, those stats are displayed in a box which is mobile. You can move it around, but there's no border or anything. I really liked it, because it was 100% transparent (except for the info, of course), and I could mov eit around so that it wasn't ever in my way.


-Pandemic

EDIT: I can see the other side well... I like the idea of having local and global variants of this though, that seems to solve most of the problems. What were you saying about being worried because of it's application?

[x4000]

I know how you feel... Having to make shit work on computers running IE on a 800x600 monitor... why do people need to be stupid?

Yeah, I've had a lot of that sort of thing, too.  Doing IE6 + Firefox support on a corporate javascript-heavy site is hard.

Anyway, I digress . Dunno if you've played Total Annihilation, but I assume you might have. Anyway, if you haven't, it has a nice little feature that I haven't seen in a game since; the ability to both share resources, and see your partners resources. While this wouldn't be a bad idea, I'm not going to go into that right now . The point is, those stats are displayed in a box which is mobile. You can move it around, but there's no border or anything. I really liked it, because it was 100% transparent (except for the info, of course), and I could mov eit around so that it wasn't ever in my way.

Yeah, they did something similar with SupCom, too (the sort of sequel to TA).  I never played TA, but I did like that in SupCom.  I'll have to think on this more, but it's not like drag-and-drop is hard to code.  The main issue is that most of the stuff in SupCom that was movable was of a fixed size, so players could easily position it and it would make sense.  But in AI War, you wind up with almost everything that you might want to move being variable-sized, which causes all sorts of potential logical problems. :/

[Pandemic]

Hm... if that proves to be too difficult, maybe you could just do like you originally planned (shoving it in with the alerts). I would give it a shot, or at least figure out exactly how much extra effort it would be, and weigh the cots vs. benefit, but I'm guessing you're already doing that .


-Pandemic

[x4000]

Yep, I'll take a look at it.

[Revenantus]

In the case of the global zones, I would appreciate a method of tagging each with information about what it relates to, for example;

Global Zone 1 (Main Shipyard) - My: 464
Global Zone 2 (Yepu Wormhole Front) - My: 62 Enemy: 135

The local, and often more transient, zones are much less likely to require tagging, but the option may be useful anyway.

Perhaps there could be a collapsible window containing this type of text, so players can choose to hide it if they wish.

With regards to Monitored Systems, maybe the system name and ship count should be displayed based on the planet's level of priority. I'm not sure if others feel differently, but I don't tend to make much use of the priority system on my own worlds and this could provide an incentive.

[x4000]

In the case of the global zones, I would appreciate a method of tagging each with information about what it relates to, for example;

Global Zone 1 (Main Shipyard) - My: 464
Global Zone 2 (Yepu Wormhole Front) - My: 62 Enemy: 135

The local, and often more transient, zones are much less likely to require tagging, but the option may be useful anyway.

Yeah, that's an interesting option.

Perhaps there could be a collapsible window containing this type of text, so players can choose to hide it if they wish.

That's true.  If I just put all of this new stuff for the tactical zones in a window that is mobile (as Pandemic suggests) and collapsible (as you suggest), then this is the best of all worlds.  Maybe I'll make it a completely separate actual application window (not a DirectX faux-window), so that it can even be moved between monitors, too.  That might be useful on multi-monitor systems.

With regards to Monitored Systems, maybe the system name and ship count should be displayed based on the planet's level of priority. I'm not sure if others feel differently, but I don't tend to make much use of the priority system on my own worlds and this could provide an incentive.

I don't tend to use it at all on my planets, except when they accidentally have a priority left over from after I capture them.  It could be interesting to have all P9s be treated as monitored, or something like that.  I wonder if that could get confusing, though.  I think maybe just having this as a new button in the galaxy map, with a new sort of display on the galaxy view, would be easier for people to understand.  Combining it with the priority levels is very efficient, but I'm not sure how intuitive the uninitiated will find it.

[Pandemic]

In the case of the global zones, I would appreciate a method of tagging each with information about what it relates to

Nice idea... getting to remember a bunch of numbers would be extremely difficult.

Perhaps there could be a collapsible window containing this type of text, so players can choose to hide it if they wish.

Ah-ha! That would be the best solution. I kept coming back to having certain global zones either hidden or visible, but couldn't think of a way to make this easily changable. That would solve the problem of it taking up space beautifully .


-Pandemic

[PhilRoi]

hmmm.  would it be terrible to tie this ability to a LVL 2 Scout?    park it somewhere, select the scout and have a small button in the bottem left to turn on an ability and it will send in a "detailed report" on everythign inside a predefined radius/sector that is persistant on the screen like the above?

just a passing thought.

[x4000]

Hmm, that is an interesting point, PhilRoi.

I don't know that I would want to tie it to a Mark II scout, specifically, but it would be potentially interesting to tie it to some sort of new ship.  Of course, I'd have to set up a few predefined "sector sizes" that would be less flexible overall than what Revenantus originally suggested, but it would also be easier to set up in some respects (especially easier to make small adjustments to, just move the new scout-thin a little), and also I wouldn't have to use any new hotkeys for this.

I'm on the fence with that one -- Pandemic, Reventantus, your thoughts?

[Admiral]

3. Actually, the dual monitor support is something that was on my original feature list, but it eventually fell by the wayside. ... It's not actually that hard to do
...
Oh, yeah -- the other reason I didn't add this feature before?  I knew that if I added it, I would use it all the time.  And most players of the game won't have multiple monitors, so if I designed the game around that concept, it might hurt the core experience for other people.

Here is my opinion on this: Make it so that you can split a single monitor into multiple virtual monitors within the game. SupCom could also do that.

Very useful when you have a 2560x1600 monitor: You can split it into two 1280x1600 sub-screens, or even four 1280x800 screens (which is just a little less than my monitor resolution on the laptop).

This way everyone can benefit.

The other thing I think needs to be added are planet bookmarks. Control-F# sets one, Alt-F# jumps back to that planet.

Whichever screen (virtual or multi) has mouse in it gets the keyboard focus.

Cheers!

[Admiral]

Another idea along the lines of the tactical zones and planet bookmarks:

Have a list of planets and tactical zones down the left side of the screen. (There's nothing currently there.)

The side could have three sets of icons, and mousing over would give pop-up details. Clicking would take you there, zooming to include the entire tactical zone on the screen if that is what you click.

The sets would be: Local tactical zones, global tactical zones, and remembered planets. This latter could be planets marked P0-P9 (in order) and/or bookmarked planets as per my previous comment.

The icons could have various colors indicating status: green - no enemies present, yellow - enemies present, red - enemies present and undergoing attack on important resources (e.g., fixed placements like command station or harvester, whatever).

Cheers!