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RE: Weather - 12/19/2006 8:23:38 PM   
Shannon V. OKeets

 

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline 		12th and last in the series. I'll close with the area that bothers me the most. Here the white seems to overwhelm the other terrain features. Restoring the missing default black hexagon grid lines will help somewhat. I like the the way this choice of colors works almost every where, so I am reluctant to make a dramatic changes. Perhaps I should change the weather zone boundary color to silver when it abuts both an all sea hex and a coastal hex.

Comments yay or nay for this design overall?




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Post #: 61
RE: Weather - 12/19/2006 8:24:04 PM   
lomyrin


Posts: 3741
Joined: 12/21/2005
From: San Diego
Status: offline 		The weather zone lines are visible but could they perhaps be another pixel wide to show up better in all terrains and zoom levels?

Lars

(in reply to Shannon V. OKeets)
Post #: 62
RE: Weather - 12/19/2006 8:27:44 PM   
Shannon V. OKeets

 

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
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quote:

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

The weather zone lines are visible but could they perhaps be another pixel wide to show up better in all terrains and zoom levels?

Lars

Could you give me an example of where you find them hard to see?

Because of zoom levels distortion effects I stay with odd number thicknesses for hexgrid lines (1, 3, and 5 presently).

_____________________________

Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.

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Post #: 63
RE: Weather - 12/19/2006 9:52:35 PM   
Froonp


Posts: 7995
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Marseilles, France
Status: offline 		Well.... I for one am not quite happy with these.

I would have prefered if the weather boundaries were always the same color, and the Sea area boundaries always the same color, and the borders always the same color, and when they overlap, have them displayed side by side.

Having the colors change is quite disturbing, at least to me, and as a result, countries & weather areas are not immediately discernable to me.

For the current colors, I have difficulties to immediately understand if a sea area boundary is overlaping a weather zone boundary. The light blue color is not evident to me from the dark blue at first glance, especially if there is no "normal" sea area boundary in the screen displayed, for comparison.

The white is not bad, better than the green, it is easily seen quite everywhere, but what bothers me is to have the color change when there is overlapping. On shots taken from afar (small hexes) I find that the white weather zone boundary can be mistaken with the railways. It's true too that it is not very pretty when the weather zone is around a sea area. Well, I think that finaly I do not like it very much.

Will those Weather boundaries be able to be toggle off ?

If the Weather boundaries can be toggled off, why not make them in a color totaly forgeign to the map, such as yellow for example ? Also, they could be thicker.

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Post #: 64
RE: Weather - 12/19/2006 9:58:44 PM   
Froonp


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From: Marseilles, France
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Here is one of the more confusing sea area - weather zone boundary places in the Pacific. It makes me wonder if the weather zone for the southern islands is correct.

They are correct.
All the Caroline Islands and Marshall Islands are in the North Monsoon weather zone in WiF FE.




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Post #: 65
RE: Weather - 12/19/2006 10:04:37 PM   
Ballista


Posts: 183
Joined: 1/21/2005
Status: offline 		Would it be possible to say use 2 lines spaced apart (maybe by a 3-4 pixels or so) that allowed the solid line in the middle to stay the same color instead of a solid line that overrides the current line ?

(Example- colors and lines not to scale obviously- blue dashed is the weather line. Weather line can be any color (I picked blue just for an example))

[image][/image]

< Message edited by Ballista -- 12/19/2006 10:19:13 PM >

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Post #: 66
RE: Weather - 12/19/2006 10:28:37 PM   
lomyrin


Posts: 3741
Joined: 12/21/2005
From: San Diego
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets


quote:

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

The weather zone lines are visible but could they perhaps be another pixel wide to show up better in all terrains and zoom levels?

Lars

Could you give me an example of where you find them hard to see?

Because of zoom levels distortion effects I stay with odd number thicknesses for hexgrid lines (1, 3, and 5 presently).


No specific example, just would like the boundaries to stand out more. Patrice's comments are in line with that also I believe.

Lars

(in reply to Shannon V. OKeets)
Post #: 67
RE: Weather - 12/19/2006 10:43:55 PM   
Incy

 

Posts: 336
Joined: 10/25/2003
Status: offline 		I tend to agree with Froonp on this one.

But how about redoing the wether zoning in oceans a bit?
If the weather zones can be drawn a bit more "natural", rather than follow seazone boundaries, I think it would look a lot better.

For sea zones, instead of following the circumference of a seazone, the weather zones could go throgh/across the sea zone. But the weather of a seazone would always be the part of the zone where the seabox was located.

Example 1, Baltic:
Weather boundary would cross straight from south of stockholm across to Estonia, taking care to put all the search boxes in the temperate zone.

Example 2, Solomons sea:
Weather boundary goes further east & south, so no island are in the "wrong" weather zone

Example 3, Bismarch + South China seas:
Weather boundary goes roughly straight eastwards from (a hex south of) Singapore through these 2 sea areas

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Post #: 68
RE: Weather - 12/19/2006 11:43:28 PM   
Shannon V. OKeets

 

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Incy
I tend to agree with Froonp on this one.

But how about redoing the wether zoning in oceans a bit?
If the weather zones can be drawn a bit more "natural", rather than follow seazone boundaries, I think it would look a lot better.

For sea zones, instead of following the circumference of a seazone, the weather zones could go throgh/across the sea zone. But the weather of a seazone would always be the part of the zone where the seabox was located.

Example 1, Baltic:
Weather boundary would cross straight from south of stockholm across to Estonia, taking care to put all the search boxes in the temperate zone.

Example 2, Solomons sea:
Weather boundary goes further east & south, so no island are in the "wrong" weather zone

Example 3, Bismarch + South China seas:
Weather boundary goes roughly straight eastwards from (a hex south of) Singapore through these 2 sea areas


I think some of the changes you propose here would change game play. Or at least make it more likely for the players to become confused. Shore bombardment and invasions depend on the weather in the sea area. If an all sea hex is adjacent to a coastal hex but the weather boundary is drawn such that the all sea hex is in a different weather zone from the rest of the sea area, which weather zone applies isn't obvious. By the rules, it is determined by where the sea boxes are located (I believe). but having the immediately adjacent all sea hex clearly placed in a different weather zone will make that more difficult for the players to see/understand/accept.

I looked at drawing the sea area boundaries as straight lines (as in the WIF FE paper maps) but that is tricky to do, especially because the location of the center dots in the all sea hexes has to be perfect in every instance - because the placement of the center dots determines the movement cost for air units to fly into sea areas.

_____________________________

Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.

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Post #: 69
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 12:06:06 AM   
Froonp


Posts: 7995
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Marseilles, France
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Incy
But how about redoing the wether zoning in oceans a bit?
If the weather zones can be drawn a bit more "natural", rather than follow seazone boundaries, I think it would look a lot better.

For sea zones, instead of following the circumference of a seazone, the weather zones could go throgh/across the sea zone. But the weather of a seazone would always be the part of the zone where the seabox was located.

I think this would be a bad idea.
The weather in a given Sea Area is the same in all the sea area, so having the Weather zone boundary cross a sea area in 2 would be very confusing.

(in reply to Incy)
Post #: 70
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 2:08:13 AM   
Shannon V. OKeets

 

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

The weather zone lines are visible but could they perhaps be another pixel wide to show up better in all terrains and zoom levels?

Lars

Here is another set of screen shots. I have widened the hexside lines for the country, sea area, and weather zone borders. Instead of 5 and 3 they are now 7 and 5 pixels wide.




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Post #: 71
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 2:10:14 AM   
Shannon V. OKeets

 

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline 		The last screen shot was zoom level 3. This is zoom level 4.




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Post #: 72
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 2:11:51 AM   
Shannon V. OKeets

 

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline 		Here is another at zoom level 4. Notice that the country borders stand out more because they have been widened.




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Post #: 73
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 2:13:51 AM   
Shannon V. OKeets

 

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline 		This is zoom level 2 (which removes the default black hexgird from the land hexes). I expect a lot of naval decisions to be made at this zoom level.




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Post #: 74
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 2:16:09 AM   
Shannon V. OKeets

 

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline 		Zoom level 6. It's clear that Tenerife borders 2 sea areas but is in only one weather zone. Of course, every hex in the game is in only one weather zone.




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Post #: 75
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 2:17:27 AM   
Shannon V. OKeets

 

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline 		Unusual, but accurate.




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Post #: 76
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 2:19:13 AM   
Shannon V. OKeets

 

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline 		The white is very powerful but I need that for when it crosses all the different types of land terrain. It is actually thinner than the blue lines (5 versus 7), but still jumps out more.




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Perfection is an elusive goal.

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Post #: 77
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 2:19:41 AM   
Shannon V. OKeets

 

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline 		Another zoom level 2.




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< Message edited by Shannon V. OKeets -- 12/20/2006 2:30:01 AM >

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Post #: 78
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 2:21:56 AM   
Shannon V. OKeets

 

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline 		yet another zoom level 2.




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Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.

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Post #: 79
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 2:27:02 AM   
Shannon V. OKeets

 

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline 		10th and last in the series. Zoom level 3. Most of the map will look like this, with the weather zone boundary extending roughly horizontally and only occasionally paralleling a country border. I do not believe the width should be increased more than what is shown in this set of screen shots (7 pixels wide). I prefer 5 but only marginally more than 7 - either works for me.

If I get a chance tomorrow, I'll explore lines with two-tone colors. But don't get your hopes up, I expect them to be unpleasant to look at.




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Perfection is an elusive goal.

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Post #: 80
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 2:34:19 AM   
lomyrin


Posts: 3741
Joined: 12/21/2005
From: San Diego
Status: offline 		Yes, I like the latest series of weather boundary lines.  They are now clearly visible at a glance for all zoom levels.

The only remaining visibility question areas are the sea boundaries with the a little lighter blue line where they coincide with weather boundaries. That could still use a more discernible difference.

Lars 

(in reply to Shannon V. OKeets)
Post #: 81
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 2:35:57 AM   
Incy

 

Posts: 336
Joined: 10/25/2003
Status: offline 		It's the weather in the hex (and not in the seazone) that matters for invasions and shore bombardment.
You can have an invasion fleet in a blizzard seazone, but still unload + shore bombard into a non-blizzard weather hex adjacent to (or inside!) that seazone.

The weather in the seazone is ONLY used for modifying naval combats. As long as the search boxes are inside the correct weather zone I think there will not be any confusion. Any unit doing something will always be inside the right weather zone!!

On the other hand, I think not being able to read/understand national borders/weather borders/seazone borders properly without a lot of knowledge about how the various borders switch color all the time might be VERY confusing to newbies.

btw, I don't think you should use straight lines, but hoped you could be able to lay out the weather boundary (mostly) along other hexsides than those with sea borders. It would make for a whole lot less weather boundary clutter on the map, because there would be no more "weather islands" like seen in the baltic, pacific, etc. I do not understand how it can lead to misunderstanding.

Incy

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

quote:

ORIGINAL: Incy
I tend to agree with Froonp on this one.

But how about redoing the wether zoning in oceans a bit?
If the weather zones can be drawn a bit more "natural", rather than follow seazone boundaries, I think it would look a lot better.

For sea zones, instead of following the circumference of a seazone, the weather zones could go throgh/across the sea zone. But the weather of a seazone would always be the part of the zone where the seabox was located.

Example 1, Baltic:
Weather boundary would cross straight from south of stockholm across to Estonia, taking care to put all the search boxes in the temperate zone.

Example 2, Solomons sea:
Weather boundary goes further east & south, so no island are in the "wrong" weather zone

Example 3, Bismarch + South China seas:
Weather boundary goes roughly straight eastwards from (a hex south of) Singapore through these 2 sea areas


I think some of the changes you propose here would change game play. Or at least make it more likely for the players to become confused. Shore bombardment and invasions depend on the weather in the sea area. If an all sea hex is adjacent to a coastal hex but the weather boundary is drawn such that the all sea hex is in a different weather zone from the rest of the sea area, which weather zone applies isn't obvious. By the rules, it is determined by where the sea boxes are located (I believe). but having the immediately adjacent all sea hex clearly placed in a different weather zone will make that more difficult for the players to see/understand/accept.

I looked at drawing the sea area boundaries as straight lines (as in the WIF FE paper maps) but that is tricky to do, especially because the location of the center dots in the all sea hexes has to be perfect in every instance - because the placement of the center dots determines the movement cost for air units to fly into sea areas.


(in reply to Shannon V. OKeets)
Post #: 82
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 3:37:28 AM   
Shannon V. OKeets

 

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Incy

It's the weather in the hex (and not in the seazone) that matters for invasions and shore bombardment.
You can have an invasion fleet in a blizzard seazone, but still unload + shore bombard into a non-blizzard weather hex adjacent to (or inside!) that seazone.

The weather in the seazone is ONLY used for modifying naval combats. As long as the search boxes are inside the correct weather zone I think there will not be any confusion. Any unit doing something will always be inside the right weather zone!!

On the other hand, I think not being able to read/understand national borders/weather borders/seazone borders properly without a lot of knowledge about how the various borders switch color all the time might be VERY confusing to newbies.

btw, I don't think you should use straight lines, but hoped you could be able to lay out the weather boundary (mostly) along other hexsides than those with sea borders. It would make for a whole lot less weather boundary clutter on the map, because there would be no more "weather islands" like seen in the baltic, pacific, etc. I do not understand how it can lead to misunderstanding.

Incy


Removing the pockets of "weather islands" changes WIF FE dramatically by changing the weather zone for those islands.

Parallel lines running across the ocean (sea area and weather zone boundaries) not only changes the game from WIF FE, it also would be visually unappealing (at least to me).

< Message edited by Shannon V. OKeets -- 12/20/2006 3:47:06 AM >

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Post #: 83
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 4:46:02 AM   
Incy

 

Posts: 336
Joined: 10/25/2003
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Removing the pockets of "weather islands" changes WIF FE dramatically by changing the weather zone for those islands.

Parallel lines running across the ocean (sea area and weather zone boundaries) not only changes the game from WIF FE, it also would be visually unappealing (at least to me).


I don't propose changing the weather in those island hexes!
I just propose drawing the borders differently so there are no borders around islands anymore.

And I also don't propose using straight lines, I still want hexside lines. Se pickture for example of what I mean. I've drawn in some extra boundaries in white, and yellow is boundary that can be deleted




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Post #: 84
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 5:19:57 AM   
Shannon V. OKeets

 

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Incy
quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Removing the pockets of "weather islands" changes WIF FE dramatically by changing the weather zone for those islands.

Parallel lines running across the ocean (sea area and weather zone boundaries) not only changes the game from WIF FE, it also would be visually unappealing (at least to me).

I don't propose changing the weather in those island hexes!
I just propose drawing the borders differently so there are no borders around islands anymore.

And I also don't propose using straight lines, I still want hexside lines. Se pickture for example of what I mean. I've drawn in some extra boundaries in white, and yellow is boundary that can be deleted


Ah, now I understand what you mean.

Actually this simply reveals a weakness of the WIF design: when a sea area is bisected by a weather zone boundary, the whole sea area is considered to be experiencing one type of weather, though the land masses within the sea area can have different weather depending on whether thaey are above or below the weather zone boundary.

The trouble I have with your proposal (which looks very nice in fine weather, as shown in your drawing) is that when I draw in the weather effects (rain, storm, etc.), they should either:
(a) be the same for the entire sea area, which goes against the location of the weather zone boundary, or
(b) follow the weather zone boundary, which goes against what the weather is in the sea area.


_____________________________

Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.

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Post #: 85
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 5:44:44 AM   
Incy

 

Posts: 336
Joined: 10/25/2003
Status: offline 		Good question. I have 3 proposals:

1) Just draw the weather as today (even if it doesn't match the weather zone)
2) Draw the weather according to weather zones even if some seazones get two weatherpatterns (the actual ships will always be placed inside a zone with correct weather anyways, because the search boxes are on the correct side of the seazone)
3) Is a bit more fancy. At sea, there is no difference between rain/snow and storm/blizzard. Why not use a separate weather overlay for sea hexes? For example small waves for rain/snow, and big waves for storm/blizzard? It would add to the graphic variation of the game, and it won't look that wierd when "waves" rather than "weather" crosses boundaries. It will also "remove" information where it's not needed, it will be easier for players to think about fine/bad/very bad weather for seas, rather than consider all 5 weather types and understanding how each of them work at sea.

(in reply to Shannon V. OKeets)
Post #: 86
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 5:50:55 AM   
Incy

 

Posts: 336
Joined: 10/25/2003
Status: offline 		A variation of 3) could be to not draw separate sea weather, but rather a big weather system graphic centered around each searchbox. Smallish weather system for "bad" weather, big storm system for "very bad" weather. Make it a huge graphic maybe 6 by 6 hexes? The map would look just like a satelite photo !!

(in reply to Incy)
Post #: 87
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 8:09:01 AM   
Shannon V. OKeets

 

Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Incy

A variation of 3) could be to not draw separate sea weather, but rather a big weather system graphic centered around each searchbox. Smallish weather system for "bad" weather, big storm system for "very bad" weather. Make it a huge graphic maybe 6 by 6 hexes? The map would look just like a satelite photo !!

This would be rather easy to do. All sea hexes would not display a weather overlay and an extra 'weather sea box' could be added the the 10 existing sea boxes to indicate weather. It could also be simplified, as you noted, to bad versus very bad. Downside is that is doesn't match the rest of the weather depictions in the land hexes.

I am still open on this design issue. I expected that the addition of weather zone boundaries would cause us to have to revisit weather overlays (though I definitely do not want to start from scratch).

What do other forum readers think?

_____________________________

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Post #: 88
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 9:43:33 AM   
Froonp


Posts: 7995
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Marseilles, France
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
The white is very powerful but I need that for when it crosses all the different types of land terrain. It is actually thinner than the blue lines (5 versus 7), but still jumps out more.

Why not making the weather zone boundary thinner when it is adjacent to sea ?

(in reply to Shannon V. OKeets)
Post #: 89
RE: Weather - 12/20/2006 9:46:06 AM   
Froonp


Posts: 7995
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Marseilles, France
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

10th and last in the series. Zoom level 3. Most of the map will look like this, with the weather zone boundary extending roughly horizontally and only occasionally paralleling a country border. I do not believe the width should be increased more than what is shown in this set of screen shots (7 pixels wide). I prefer 5 but only marginally more than 7 - either works for me.

Why not 6 pixel wide then ?

(in reply to Shannon V. OKeets)
Post #: 90
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