Drox Operative

[Cyborg]

It may be that this game is just peculiarly suited to me and to none of you.  Some games thrive off of mentally filling in details, but having played Crusader Kings 2 recently I found that I thoroughly enjoyed it almost entirely because of mentally filling in details

I love Crusader Kings 2. I bought it when it came out (rarely do I purchase games new). I wholeheartedly agree that it needs a little bit of imagination to enjoy the drama as it plays out. My favorite country to play is Ireland. I have started many different games trying different strategies just in Ireland, as a lot of the other countries have so much crap going on that it can get out of control to manage without really documenting everything.

I'm just not seeing that in Drox Operative. I'm going to wait for another patch to see if there are any mechanic changes that bring some excitement, but right now this game is way too slow for me.

Like others, I think we assumed that a 4x game was being played by the computer while we were playing a part, but that's just not getting across right now, and the combat mechanics need an overhaul. Right now I'm just spamming weapons at the greatest range possible.

[keith.lamothe]

Like others, I think we assumed that a 4x game was being played by the computer while we were playing a part, but that's just not getting across right now

Yea, it does feel that way to me, but I agree that it could come across a lot clearer (just having per-planet displays of how much stockpile/income/expenditure of each resource and what is building and how long it will take would go a long way, I think).

and the combat mechanics need an overhaul. Right now I'm just spamming weapons at the greatest range possible.

I ran a two-missile build for the first few sectors and it was really effective.  So effective I didn't really feel the need to try mass drivers or beams.

Then I ran into the monsters that can cause your missiles to reflect back against you.  Ow.  Manageable, and two-missile was still a viable choice, but I now run beam-missile and probably get more kills with the beam than the missile now.  For a while I considered two-beam but some monsters (who I'd been facing for a long time, just hadn't noticed this as being so significant) would heal others which made my "takes multiple shots to kill a monster" beams way less effective than the usually-one-shotting missiles.

Unless I'm bombarding a planet, then it's two-missile all the way, but hopefully at some point planet guards will actually, you know, take exception to the guy dumping nukes on their planet from a couple meters out of their range.

And long-range kiting was really effective but I ran into problems with that sooner: generally in the fights that really mattered doing much kiting would almost inevitably lead to me running into another pack of monsters.  Not great for survival.  So a kind of preplanned kiting path combined with mixed weapons for handling various foes (and, at least unless energy costs are toned back down from their .901 levels, a lot of energy consumable spam) is how I tend to run now for serious fights.

[eRe4s3r]

Here is my newest GUI mockup for the one I did before, just.. you know, way better



I put way more effort into this one, actually, I would consider this the kind effort I do for professional projects (well, in the first revision stage, anyway ,p).. not sure the 100% isn't too small but short of using Arial at 10pt I have no idea how to do that better.

The font's used are Tahoma (because it's on every Windows Machine) and Tajan Pro for the 100% numbers.

Font sizes are 10pt for the Shield/HP/AP/Power on bold Tahoma
and 8pt Tajan Pro for the %

The background of the GUI isn't exactly "solid" in the sense that you could put it in the game but the hud would work even against bright white BG. Gonna post that on my DA page because I kinda like it ;P

The PSD with INTACT /but unnamed\ LAYERS can be gotten here -> http://filesmelt.com/dl/Drox_Mockup_2.psd and you can reuse all . Well, except of course the fonts as I don't own them.

[zebramatt]

That GUI is gorgeous - well done!

[eRe4s3r]

Well this is the extended version of that Now my mockup frenzy is over for a while

PSD V3 -> http://filesmelt.com/dl/Drox_Mockup_3.psd

Click on image for full res


Most of the details have transparent BG for now.. makes it easier to change stuff ,)

I guess it's now too chaotic or something.. but I can't decide where this best goes, top or buttom.. hence the "open" placement of various boxes There are 10 XP crystals which can display the usual percentage value.

In drox there are 9 colored icons to various screens which I think have absolutely NO place in the bottom center of the GUI and the skill bar could still fit beneath the GUI design so far, obviously 5 left and 5 right slots, not 10 connected ones (for that the cargo space thing would have to either move on top of the credits bar or to the side of it... Imo this consolidates the GUI nicely (the top left thingy is completely replaced) and the current bottom is taking less space and looks spiffy. Level and Ship Name are yet to be decided.. no idea where that would be best displayed..

Ah well, Somehow It is turning into a masterpiece Now with 10 skill slots and better layout

[keith.lamothe]

I can has that GUI in Drox now?

[Mánagarmr]

That's a very spiffy UI. If I'm not mistaken, I'd say you've worked with art design?

[Bluddy]

Very nice. I'd say it's a little too busy now with all the text -- I'd remove the percentages and switch back to mouseovers. Also pretty similar to what I did with the DC and DoP GUIs, though I didn't put effort into drawing any more than I absolutely had to 

[Bluddy]

I'm just not seeing that in Drox Operative. I'm going to wait for another patch to see if there are any mechanic changes that bring some excitement, but right now this game is way too slow for me.

Like others, I think we assumed that a 4x game was being played by the computer while we were playing a part, but that's just not getting across right now, and the combat mechanics need an overhaul. Right now I'm just spamming weapons at the greatest range possible.

You can find many of my criticisms of the current build on the Soldak forums. However, I will say that there are certain things that make the game more fun. If you get a sector where everybody's allied with everyone else and there's no fighting, just dump it and move to another sector. IMO it's a bug in the behavior of the AI. You'll run into sectors where the only known species are duking it out, and then you get to choose sides and it's awesome.

Another thing is, playing a sector for a long time will mean that you're probably much higher level than the monsters in any system. That's a recipe for boredom, and it's a result of using the same monster level mechanics from DoP and DC (which worked in those games but doesn't work so well here). If there's nothing special going on at that point, feel free to move to another sector.

In general, the victory (and losing) conditions suck. They want you to keep plodding along until everyone's allied with you, which can take forever and makes the game feel MMOish (doing favors for factions just so they like you a little more), which it really shouldn't. The problem with this type of game is that it's really hard to come up with good victory conditions. Hopefully these will change with time though. The good news is that for now, since you're always advancing in levels and gear, you could just get your fill of a sector, and when you get bored, move on to the next one for a different experience.

Also, once you get to have mines, combat will become more interesting -- dropping mines behind you and having them blow up anyone chasing you is very satisfying. I'm working on ideas to improve combat though and hopefully Steven will make some good changes in the next patches on that front as well.

[eRe4s3r]

I am just self-taught freelance 3d render artist tbh, usually I don't do pixel art or GUI's and I never saw an art or digital design school from the inside but.. well I do freelance and so some work was in that direction even though not directly... and it is my hobby too ^^ And while it's nice to look at turning it into a game GUI would likely take some decent coder quite a while to do. In fact you'd likely have to code the GUI systems to transform values into percentages and then how those affect the image you are trying to blend in a position and stuff.... I think, that is the reason you don't see that many decent gui's around, it isn't exactly something you get working without a LOT of effort. And I mean hard, coding, effort.

And most of the really bad GUI comes from people just choosing really really bad names for stuff and generally ignoring how Information and color flows, bright colors in a gui are hotspots, thus if anything in your guy is bright in any way, it better be an important info (or guiding the eyes to relevant info). In Drox the GUI is glowing blue (I call it, the indy bright color blindness syndrome) because SOTS2 has the same problem... and it makes using the GUI extremely evil.

And second thing to do in GUI. Information likes company

@Bluddy (partially ,p)
That means, even though the % is not vital to be displayed displaying it in the same color as the descriptor and bar creates visual coherence and a "block", without the % value the information would not be visually distinct to other information. And obviously my color choices just flow nicely because I am 25% red/green color blind, so you will NEVER see me use true 0,255,0 or 255,0,0 colors (RGB). ^^ the % would need to be done with whatever the in-game engine can do anyway so it could easily be made a toggle, however, I absolutely hate when a GUI does not give me information on first glance, and mouse over is not first glance and impracticable in combat. As this GUI is a lot less bright than the default you wouldn't even notice the % unless you were explicitly looking at it. (obviously you are doing that now, because it is a mockup so you got nothing else to look at

The idea behind the % is by the way. Normal pattern of eye movement, first to name then bar then %, and you got instant visual feedback, you don't even need to read it, most humans understand the % scale without thinking about it. (often even to their detriment ,p) Yes, 50% health is very very relative. I know But there is no way around that. Mouse Over should display the ACTUAL values though.

And lastly, as humans love patterns it just takes little effort in arranging information clusters /Shield/Energy fit together, as does AP (Armor Points) and HP (Health Points). It isn't exactly rocket science, and you can get that knowledge basically from just looking at how most decent AAA games make their GUI. Then just keep some basic symmetry and you can't fail.

But really, all a good GUI needs is a good font, a good layout and a good flow. It ain't rocket science, but when I look at most Indy games (AI War is a nice exception ,p) I get severe cringes. And then there is of course, that in-game the realities of most font renderers means that everything would need VERY careful formating and placing and a very decent font renderer to begin with, one that can do colors and opacity and blending effects, at the very least.

One of the only things this mockup does not tackle is how to keep the game background from flowing into the GUI. I would probably need to do some actual 75% opaque "underlay" of some kidn that sits beneath the GUI graphics and darkens everything behind it but does not fully hide it. Otherwise everything would have to be protected by full opaqueness.

Anyway, don't forget that it's easier to create mock-ups than it is to make that work in a game This just was really fun to tackle because nobody ever asks me to prototype a GUI and I wanted to do it for a while now, well nobody asked me but the game GUI made me think "how can it look better" and that's usually leading to pretty images, at least most of the time

[Mánagarmr]

I can attest to Bluddy's awesomeness. What he did for Din's Curse is nothing short of amazing!

[Bluddy]

@eRe4s3r: I think it's not easy for Indie devs because you need a good aesthetic sense to do GUIs right, just as you do for all art, even if GUIs are relatively simple art. Most Indie devs just can't do art.

I have to say I'm surprised at how good Drox looks. I knew spaceships are easier to make pretty, but Steven really outdid himself with those new particle effects and explosions. It looks much better than anything in his previous games.

@Moonshine Fox: Thanks!

One of these days I really have to sit down and finish that balance mod, especially the mage part.

[keith.lamothe]

Most Indie devs just can't do art.

Is that the part that isn't numbers or letters?

[eRe4s3r]

I don't buy that. I know coders have to be creative, they also have taste. I guess it is just.. you know.. tunnel vision just for developers? They have a GUI, it works. They have no reason to change it even if isn't pretty. Except it is ugly and most people who see the videos of these games with GUI are not even considering playing the demo.

And then of course, most developers also have nobody that is bugging them to change the GUI showing how it could look (and this mock-up is not what I consider super-pretty, it is merely "acceptable" pixel art, imo). Also as you demonstrate the idea how information has to be arranged is not alien to humans, your GUI mod does the same thing (well, as far as rearranging goes). I think with Drox it's "sticking to a layout" because it is very much the same same to Din (the top left "bars of rainbow doom" so to speak ,p)

That said, I do post these mockups for feedback and I love all feedback ;P

[Bluddy]

BTW I don't think this GUI would be too hard to do using Drox's code ie no real changes to the code would be necessary for the most part. The only thing the code wouldn't support is to have the experience bar the way you have it with shapes filling in rather than a bar filling up. I think the percentages are doable. The font would also have to be created -- there's no truetype support.