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Re: Friday, May 5, 2017

#61
You are already breaking down classes (eventually) for weapon size, why not do the same for ships, and assign Specific icons for different ship sizes.

Use the Homeworld ones for instance.

Triangle for Tiny Single Man strikecraft.
Square for Small Corvettes, maybe 2-5 man ships.
Diamond for Frigates, medium ships, maybe 10-100 man.
Rhombus for Cruisers, large ships, 150-500 man. (or much more idk)

etc.


This means even when approaching a large fight, you can clearly see the different ships involved.
The approximate scales of each one, and the balance of powers that you care about (green are allies, yellow neutral, red foes).

When you get closer you can fade them out, and just leave the ship models.
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WebGL Spaceships and Trails
<Cuisinart8> apparently without the demon driving him around Silver has the intelligence of a botched lobotomy patient ~ Mar 04 2020
console.log(`What's all ${this} ${Date.now()}`);
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Re: Friday, May 5, 2017

#62
Silverware wrote:
  • Triangle for Tiny Single Man strikecraft.
  • Square for Small Corvettes, maybe 2-5 man ships.
  • Diamond for Frigates, medium ships, maybe 10-100 man.
  • Rhombus for Cruisers, large ships, 150-500 man. (or much more idk)
Although this imposes a level of abstraction ("wait, what does a dodecahedron represent?"), it's a perfectly reasonable idea for a tactical view of multiple ships.

The idea of this being how ships appear on the main screen until they're close enough to have silhouettes... hmm. Need to think about that. Probably a good idea.

Still leaves open the question of how individual ship information might be displayed as progressively better sensor data becomes available. Although Josh did at one point post this (during the Return To Beta phase):
Image
Silverware wrote:The approximate scales of each one, and the balance of powers that you care about (green are allies, yellow neutral, red foes).
Gray for unknown (out of IFF transponder range, or no transponder signal being broadcast)?

(I really have missed these "Hey, Josh, let us design features of your game for you!" exchanges. :D )
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Re: Friday, May 5, 2017

#63
Silverware wrote:You are already breaking down classes (eventually) for weapon size, why not do the same for ships, and assign Specific icons for different ship sizes.

Use the Homeworld ones for instance.

Triangle for Tiny Single Man strikecraft.
Square for Small Corvettes, maybe 2-5 man ships.
Diamond for Frigates, medium ships, maybe 10-100 man.
Rhombus for Cruisers, large ships, 150-500 man. (or much more idk)

etc.


This means even when approaching a large fight, you can clearly see the different ships involved.
The approximate scales of each one, and the balance of powers that you care about (green are allies, yellow neutral, red foes).

When you get closer you can fade them out, and just leave the ship models.
Hmm...how about using the same system as Stellaris uses? You know, diamonds for the ships, and more diamonds mean larger ships? Or like diamonds and different numbers of angles above and below them? :eh:

Flatfingers wrote: (I really have missed these "Hey, Josh, let us design features of your game for you!" exchanges. :D )
You (we?) are doing very important work here! :D
Automation engineer, lateral thinker, soldier, addicted to music, books and gaming.
Nothing to see here
Flatfingers wrote: 23.01.2017: "Show me the smoldering corpse of Perfectionist Josh"
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Re: Friday, May 5, 2017

#64
JanB1 wrote:Hmm...how about using the same system as Stellaris uses? You know, diamonds for the ships, and more diamonds mean larger ships? Or like diamonds and different numbers of angles above and below them? :eh:
Because individual shapes, when overlapping, are easier to count.

A Battleship, in a large fight with the diamonds method, would look like 4 Small ships or two medium ones. Giving you bad info.

It works in Stellaris because you never have them overlapping much.


Also, throw in circles for when your system can't tell the size, and as said earlier, grey for when you don't get an IFF feed from them.
°˖◝(ಠ‸ಠ)◜˖°
WebGL Spaceships and Trails
<Cuisinart8> apparently without the demon driving him around Silver has the intelligence of a botched lobotomy patient ~ Mar 04 2020
console.log(`What's all ${this} ${Date.now()}`);
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Re: Friday, May 5, 2017

#65
In regards to radar, all I really care about is how the mass of another ship relates to the ship I'm in. You can compare it to difficulty indicators in RPGs. Where enemies that are much higher in level all have a dark red indicator. Those lower than you have a green indicator.

Maybe just add sliders to different roles of ships fighter/capital/transporter so experienced commanders can adjust what the radar tells them is too though.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
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Re: Friday, May 5, 2017

#67
But add different types (freighter/civ/transporter/cap/fighter/...) to this and you have a huge amount of icons.
So I'd rather have icons per type, with a different colour for mass.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
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Re: Friday, May 5, 2017

#68
HowSerendipitous wrote:zomg it's Katorone!

Okee, well, how about using a different shape for ship size... With the size based on the number of sides?

Triangle: Tiny ship.
Square: Medium sized ship.
Pentagon: Large ship.
Hexagon: Really fricking large ship.

I really went for it with the descriptions! :twisted:
This also works.


Katorone wrote:But add different types (freighter/civ/transporter/cap/fighter/...) to this and you have a huge amount of icons.
So I'd rather have icons per type, with a different colour for mass.
Ah, but you don't actually care about mass, you care about weapons power and shields power, and possibly armor/hull points.
These things would only really be shown, in my mind, once you actually target the ship and your systems start to analyse them.

They could show you relative percentages, or bars, or a skull and crossbones :V

Or a simple numeric readout from 1 - 5. Your own ship can show the same readout on the other side of your GUI.
(like how in Elite Dangerious you have your ship on the right and the target on the left.)
°˖◝(ಠ‸ಠ)◜˖°
WebGL Spaceships and Trails
<Cuisinart8> apparently without the demon driving him around Silver has the intelligence of a botched lobotomy patient ~ Mar 04 2020
console.log(`What's all ${this} ${Date.now()}`);
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Re: Friday, May 5, 2017

#69
Silverware wrote: Ah, but you don't actually care about mass, you care about weapons power and shields power, and possibly armor/hull points.
These things would only really be shown, in my mind, once you actually target the ship and your systems start to analyse them.
No, I do care about mass first. In a sector with maybe hundreds of ships, i'd like to be able to filter out easily what the more interesting targets are in my weight-class.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
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Re: Friday, May 5, 2017

#70
Katorone wrote:
Silverware wrote: Ah, but you don't actually care about mass, you care about weapons power and shields power, and possibly armor/hull points.
These things would only really be shown, in my mind, once you actually target the ship and your systems start to analyse them.
No, I do care about mass first. In a sector with maybe hundreds of ships, i'd like to be able to filter out easily what the more interesting targets are in my weight-class.

erm... how about symbols to denote type and some bars/dots around the symbol denoting mass/size of the object?
assuming we even can trivially tell type
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Re: Friday, May 5, 2017

#71
Bars and dots would mean there's a lower and upper limit to ship mass. (mods might add bigger ships)
What I'm thinking about is a different icon per ship type. Ships with a certain % of cargo are freighters, certain % of living space are transporters, for instance. I'm sure there are other smart ways to determine if a ship is a miner or a fighter.

Suppose there are 6 classes of ships (no difference between a corvette or destroyer for the sake of argument).
For each class you'd tell the radar to show the ships with masses of -x% < mass < +y% as viable targets. This can be done easily with a slider.

The scenario I have in mind is: you're in fleet combat with 100 ships around the sector. You'd want your "select nearest" to be smart enough to select a target you can handle. Maybe you want to punch below your weight, simply adjust the slider and you're good to go. Maybe you're in a bomber and you want to go after the biggest capital ships. Simply adjust the slider and your HUD/Radar will immediately tell you where your targets are.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
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Re: Friday, May 5, 2017

#75
Katorone wrote:But add different types (freighter/civ/transporter/cap/fighter/...) to this and you have a huge amount of icons.
So I'd rather have icons per type, with a different colour for mass.
Wouldn't color be better suited to determine if the ship is hostile, friendly or neutral? If mass is important it should be a number that appears after the ship is scanned. To me though, I'd prefer to know shield and hull strength, and how functional the systems of the specific ship are.
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