Forums » Suggestions
more visual cues/information; dealing with items
i think this is a good idea. It may cause performance problems, and may be distracting. If thats the case, dont abandon it... make it an option (off by default).
Since were on the subject, how about a 3d spacemap (like in TIE Fighter) in the shape of a sphere (radius is your detection range. center it on you) that can be viewed with a key and rotated with other keys.... or add it to the hud as a 'contact display'... basically a 3D sensor display. Ive seen that method used it other games and i like it better than a 2-pane 2d sensor. Easier to notice if things are trying to follow/surround you. Really helps with your spacial awareness.
Since were on the subject, how about a 3d spacemap (like in TIE Fighter) in the shape of a sphere (radius is your detection range. center it on you) that can be viewed with a key and rotated with other keys.... or add it to the hud as a 'contact display'... basically a 3D sensor display. Ive seen that method used it other games and i like it better than a 2-pane 2d sensor. Easier to notice if things are trying to follow/surround you. Really helps with your spacial awareness.
It would be really nice if there was a way to turn on a mode where all objects would get bounding boxes, probably dimmer than the selected object, but the same colour as they would be if they were selected, and smaller, dimmer leader markers.
For that matter, it would also be cool to be able to toggle on some extra text directly over the 3-D view which contained the object's name, perhaps just to the right of its bounding box.
Also, this is probably already planned, but the ability to see what's inside a cargo package (while it's still in space) and the ability to drop items selectively are both things I think are important. The text-overlay mode if implemented would probably display the names of cargo in this case as well, as it could be irritating to have to select a whole bunch of things to figure out which ones you wanted. Standard issue "tractor beams" which could pick out the selected object, or just grab everything in a short range would also help with this aspect at some point. There will eventually probably be lots of different kinds of items (as there generally are in RPGs), so helping players sort through them and work with them is important.
For that matter, it would also be cool to be able to toggle on some extra text directly over the 3-D view which contained the object's name, perhaps just to the right of its bounding box.
Also, this is probably already planned, but the ability to see what's inside a cargo package (while it's still in space) and the ability to drop items selectively are both things I think are important. The text-overlay mode if implemented would probably display the names of cargo in this case as well, as it could be irritating to have to select a whole bunch of things to figure out which ones you wanted. Standard issue "tractor beams" which could pick out the selected object, or just grab everything in a short range would also help with this aspect at some point. There will eventually probably be lots of different kinds of items (as there generally are in RPGs), so helping players sort through them and work with them is important.
Personally, I'd like a little rangefinder over the targetting reticle. That would be really nice, just aim it at something without even targetting and get a range.
'Select all' idea would make it much harder for someone to sneak up on another person. It would definately be advantagious to fly around with it on all the time since you will be able to see other ships much better, but it will make the game look fairly ugly. For these reasons I think it shouldn't be done.
Well, I don't think there's a reason it would have to look ugly per-se. I'll agree that if it does look ugly that it has to go though. If it looks bad then it's probably also distracting, in which case it isn't doing what it's supposed to be doing, which is helping the pilot locate and target mid-range objects.
Is there alpha support in the region of code that draws the boxes? Nice thin lines at 25 to 50% opacity probably wouldn't look bad. Other designs might be possible as well. Perhaps get away from bounding boxes and use a wireframe mesh, or take the wireframe mesh, multiply the size by about 1.25, drop a bunch of vertices from it to simplify and take the convex closure of that to make a rough "bounding polyhedron" or perhaps go simple and use 2-D bounding boxes, or circles, mimicking the radar. You'd have to play around with it a bit to see what would look best.
Also note that the range on such an effect might be limited to keep things looking good. Objects which are close (around 100-400 m, would need testing) are generally clearly visible, so drawing the boxes is redundant for all but the selected object in that range. So as things moved from z to z' metres getting closer, their boxes would fade out and disappear entirely within z' metres. Also, there's no need to clutter the view with lots of faraway dots - the radar handles those nicely, so we'd get an outer range, say Z to Z' metres (maybe around 1500-2000?) where the boxes would fade out and finally disappear. Presumably for larger objects you might want to modify the values. One way to handle things might be to specify the ranges in terms of the radius of the bounding circle on the view. This would prevent capital class ships from looking silly, as they'd only get boxed at a somewhat farther range.
The goal here is to allow the pilot to see things at medium range clearly without having to stare at the radar and select things constantly.
We already have the radar and select nearest enemy making it pretty much impossible to sneak up on someone. Given the effectiveness of the sensors at giving you away, being sneaky would mean messing around with them (or having the environment do that for you, I'd like to see sensor jamming / scattering clouds of some sort myself) - I've seen various ideas posted in the forums about the requisite widgets for doing this, all sorts of ECM and sensor jamming ideas, powering down your ship, and such. Presumably any information beyond visual info would be coming from sensors, so the boxes on sensor-cloaked ships would either be dimmer still, shaky, or not available. (As would the selection box.)
Is there alpha support in the region of code that draws the boxes? Nice thin lines at 25 to 50% opacity probably wouldn't look bad. Other designs might be possible as well. Perhaps get away from bounding boxes and use a wireframe mesh, or take the wireframe mesh, multiply the size by about 1.25, drop a bunch of vertices from it to simplify and take the convex closure of that to make a rough "bounding polyhedron" or perhaps go simple and use 2-D bounding boxes, or circles, mimicking the radar. You'd have to play around with it a bit to see what would look best.
Also note that the range on such an effect might be limited to keep things looking good. Objects which are close (around 100-400 m, would need testing) are generally clearly visible, so drawing the boxes is redundant for all but the selected object in that range. So as things moved from z to z' metres getting closer, their boxes would fade out and disappear entirely within z' metres. Also, there's no need to clutter the view with lots of faraway dots - the radar handles those nicely, so we'd get an outer range, say Z to Z' metres (maybe around 1500-2000?) where the boxes would fade out and finally disappear. Presumably for larger objects you might want to modify the values. One way to handle things might be to specify the ranges in terms of the radius of the bounding circle on the view. This would prevent capital class ships from looking silly, as they'd only get boxed at a somewhat farther range.
The goal here is to allow the pilot to see things at medium range clearly without having to stare at the radar and select things constantly.
We already have the radar and select nearest enemy making it pretty much impossible to sneak up on someone. Given the effectiveness of the sensors at giving you away, being sneaky would mean messing around with them (or having the environment do that for you, I'd like to see sensor jamming / scattering clouds of some sort myself) - I've seen various ideas posted in the forums about the requisite widgets for doing this, all sorts of ECM and sensor jamming ideas, powering down your ship, and such. Presumably any information beyond visual info would be coming from sensors, so the boxes on sensor-cloaked ships would either be dimmer still, shaky, or not available. (As would the selection box.)