UI Concerns (Full Version)

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Flef -> UI Concerns (10/9/2014 10:22:36 AM)

Basically all informations and many actions are accessible through multiple windows. Can it be possible to think about a better ergonomy?

As an example I can't easily know to what weapon is related a red circle. May be a label could solve that. Or an additional information in the mouse popup displaying the ground information.

In addition it could be nice to have an easy way to activate/deactivate a weapon. Something like a on/off switch to click (or a red/green light)seems simple to understand for everybody.


Another nice idea would be to have the remaining fuel (the remaining time of flight at the current speed?) displayed and also an indicator of the remaining ammo.

May be a mouse-over popup?

A ToT indication would be appreciated too.(may be I missed it?)

In the right click contextual menu a "rename group" function could be a cool stuff.


Some thoughts:

By default during the installation of the game, I think the radiuses should be merged and the ghosts into the groups sjould be displayed. It was one of the first things that completely bothered me when I discovered the game.what I saw was "Circles everywhere and ungrouped units displayed except the group leaders". I really believed the ghosts not appearing were a bug issue. It is just a matter to parameter



ComDev -> RE: UI Concerns (10/9/2014 6:26:07 PM)

Hi Flef, thanks for your input [8D]

I'm curious what you mean by 'activate/deactivate a weapon'. Didn't quite get that.

The fuel suggestion is good. The ammo indicator is already there, or did you mean something else?

I believe ToT for waypoints is already there through the F2 'Speed/Altitude' window? The functionality is currently somewhat limited but will be much expanded once we start working on the Advanced Strike Planner.

To rename a unit, simply press 'R'. You can also rename reference points through Ctrl + R.

I have also taken note of your the default game configuration suggestion.



Flef -> RE: UI Concerns (10/10/2014 8:51:24 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: emsoy

I'm curious what you mean by 'activate/deactivate a weapon'. Didn't quite get that.



Let's say you have a group constituted by a Sovremeny and 2 Nanushka III.
And then a Norwegian MTB pops from behind an island in the range of the Russian ASh Missiles. The three units fire 6 missiles to the target. I could have wished to only have 1 nanushka III firing its missiles.
On the defensive side I could have also wished to spare my Geckos and only rely on the CIWS to protect my ships

Other example

A PE3 Orion is flying all sensors off. In addition, there is 2 groups of 2 F14 Tomcats. Both groups are equipped with 2 AIM54 Phoenix and other missiles. The groups are flying a bit close, one covering the other.
I turn on the radar of my PE3 Orion and a pair of bombers appears on screen and in firing range of the phoenixs. Both groups of F14 fire their phoenixs.

In conclusion I have lost the possibility of very long range interception. And I have to rearm the F14s and if a Mig31M appears, the Orion is lost. It could be avoided by simply "switching off" the possibility for a group to launch the phoenixes while I still want them to be able to launch other missiles for their own auto-defense.


quote:

I believe ToT for waypoints is already there through the F2 'Speed/Altitude' window? The functionality is currently somewhat limited but will be much expanded once we start working on the Advanced Strike Planner

Yep, it is called TTG in this Speed/altitude-window. Ok I'm eager to see the Advance strike planner. I currently do epic fail with a manual planning. I can't wait to do advanced epic fails. :D


quote:

The ammo indicator is already there, or did you mean something else?


I'll read the manual harder then. I play with a 1980*1080 monitor, a few things are tiny :D But I didn't noticed something particular on my planes when they ran out of a particular ammunition. At least it didn't appeared to me as a "your plane didn't have any more AMRAAMs" warning.

quote:

To rename a unit, simply press 'R'. You can also rename reference points through Ctrl + R.

There is a menu for renaming reference points and not for groups. that's why I was speaking of a right click contextual menu for groups (as all unit/group action are listed here too). It is only a matter of consistency. I wasn't meaning the function wasn't here. I can have missed the function in a menu too :p.
Minor stuff anyway.






Blas de Lezo -> RE: UI Concerns (10/10/2014 2:38:39 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Flef


Let's say you have a group constituted by a Sovremeny and 2 Nanushka III.
And then a Norwegian MTB pops from behind an island in the range of the Russian ASh Missiles. The three units fire 6 missiles to the target. I could have wished to only have 1 nanushka III firing its missiles.
On the defensive side I could have also wished to spare my Geckos and only rely on the CIWS to protect my ships


Press 9 in the numpad to go to unit view, then select the units you want to hold fire... a bit risky because then itīs up to you to give then weapons free again...



quote:

To rename a unit, simply press 'R'. You can also rename reference points through Ctrl + R.
There is a menu for renaming reference points and not for groups. that's why I was speaking of a right click contextual menu for groups (as all unit/group action are listed here too). It is only a matter of consistency. I wasn't meaning the function wasn't here. I can have missed the function in a menu too :p.
Minor stuff anyway.


To rename a group, just select it and press "R"...be sure you are in Group View...


Best



Flef -> RE: UI Concerns (10/10/2014 4:27:42 PM)

@emsoy
You remember I've said I wasn't seeing the Speed and the depth/altitude of the unit?
I was wrong. But look carefully:
[image]http://i.imgur.com/UxVQeCS.png[/image]
[:'(]
Just move the text box associated to the cursor. I've configured the game to put the cursor text box on the bottom of the screen since then.



ComDev -> RE: UI Concerns (10/12/2014 4:58:01 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Flef


quote:

ORIGINAL: emsoy

I'm curious what you mean by 'activate/deactivate a weapon'. Didn't quite get that.



Let's say you have a group constituted by a Sovremeny and 2 Nanushka III.
And then a Norwegian MTB pops from behind an island in the range of the Russian ASh Missiles. The three units fire 6 missiles to the target. I could have wished to only have 1 nanushka III firing its missiles.
On the defensive side I could have also wished to spare my Geckos and only rely on the CIWS to protect my ships

Other example

A PE3 Orion is flying all sensors off. In addition, there is 2 groups of 2 F14 Tomcats. Both groups are equipped with 2 AIM54 Phoenix and other missiles. The groups are flying a bit close, one covering the other.
I turn on the radar of my PE3 Orion and a pair of bombers appears on screen and in firing range of the phoenixs. Both groups of F14 fire their phoenixs.

In conclusion I have lost the possibility of very long range interception. And I have to rearm the F14s and if a Mig31M appears, the Orion is lost. It could be avoided by simply "switching off" the possibility for a group to launch the phoenixes while I still want them to be able to launch other missiles for their own auto-defense.



Ah I see what you mean. Some kind of 'Commander's Guidance' that tells the unit what munitions & quantities to use against a given target.

We've thought about how to do this in-game but haven't been able to come up with a (relatively) simple way to implement it. So we're open for suggestions [8D]


quote:

ORIGINAL: Flef

quote:

I believe ToT for waypoints is already there through the F2 'Speed/Altitude' window? The functionality is currently somewhat limited but will be much expanded once we start working on the Advanced Strike Planner

Yep, it is called TTG in this Speed/altitude-window. Ok I'm eager to see the Advance strike planner. I currently do epic fail with a manual planning. I can't wait to do advanced epic fails. :D


quote:

The ammo indicator is already there, or did you mean something else?


I'll read the manual harder then. I play with a 1980*1080 monitor, a few things are tiny :D But I didn't noticed something particular on my planes when they ran out of a particular ammunition. At least it didn't appeared to me as a "your plane didn't have any more AMRAAMs" warning.



Okay there are no messages like that but there is a weapon qty list in the Unit Status pane. Guess that's the closest you get :)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Flef

quote:

To rename a unit, simply press 'R'. You can also rename reference points through Ctrl + R.

There is a menu for renaming reference points and not for groups. that's why I was speaking of a right click contextual menu for groups (as all unit/group action are listed here too). It is only a matter of consistency. I wasn't meaning the function wasn't here. I can have missed the function in a menu too :p.
Minor stuff anyway.


I understand. The 'Rename Unit' functionality was really only intended for the scenario editor, you find it under Editor -> Rename Unit. In-game you can use the R hotkey to rename.

You can go to Help -> Hotkeys for the complete list [8D]



Flef -> RE: UI Concerns (10/13/2014 10:21:09 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: emsoy


quote:

ORIGINAL: Flef


quote:

ORIGINAL: emsoy

I'm curious what you mean by 'activate/deactivate a weapon'. Didn't quite get that.



Let's say you have a group constituted by a Sovremeny and 2 Nanushka III.
And then a Norwegian MTB pops from behind an island in the range of the Russian ASh Missiles. The three units fire 6 missiles to the target. I could have wished to only have 1 nanushka III firing its missiles.
On the defensive side I could have also wished to spare my Geckos and only rely on the CIWS to protect my ships

Other example

A PE3 Orion is flying all sensors off. In addition, there is 2 groups of 2 F14 Tomcats. Both groups are equipped with 2 AIM54 Phoenix and other missiles. The groups are flying a bit close, one covering the other.
I turn on the radar of my PE3 Orion and a pair of bombers appears on screen and in firing range of the phoenixs. Both groups of F14 fire their phoenixs.

In conclusion I have lost the possibility of very long range interception. And I have to rearm the F14s and if a Mig31M appears, the Orion is lost. It could be avoided by simply "switching off" the possibility for a group to launch the phoenixes while I still want them to be able to launch other missiles for their own auto-defense.



Ah I see what you mean. Some kind of 'Commander's Guidance' that tells the unit what munitions & quantities to use against a given target.

We've thought about how to do this in-game but haven't been able to come up with a (relatively) simple way to implement it. So we're open for suggestions [8D]



Not even a "commander's guidance". Something a lot lighter in terms of development -I guess. Just a "use this weapon and not this one" button.

Let's have some paint skills

I want the HMS Edinburgh in the group to not use her torpedoes (just imagine: Scottish drunken torpedoes in the water in the middle of a carrier group). in addition I want the Edinburg to avoid to launch the Sea Darts. But I want her to keep her Phalanx actives

In the weapon screen, we could eventually have a on/off column on which we could click on to activate/deactivate a weapon (or tick boxes or whatever seems comfortable to code. Just like the sensors' window but for the weapons.
[image]http://i.imgur.com/bWoGyyz.jpg[/image]
We can eventually have the same kind of on/off buttons in the weapon group pane of the main screen. May be I miss something?


For the commander guidance that you seem to have in mind:

in fact it can be modelized by a filter on the target selection of the unit/group. The database classifies the units.
So I imagine you could integrate a filter (in the weapons' screen?) to allow to fire a weapon on a given kind of target.
As an example you could associate a dropdown list to a weapon and filter on the type of unit.
You would like to have the fast-firing 100mm of a Lafayette to focus on only FF and FFG ships while the Exocets would target any ship from DD/DDG and above but never below. Same thing for the handful of Crotale NG2 onboard the Lafayette that you would like to attack only anti-ship missile as a pair of Rafale M is surveying the sky.

So this involves to have a serie of filters.




kaburke61 -> RE: UI Concerns (10/13/2014 3:41:58 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Flef



Not even a "commander's guidance". Something a lot lighter in terms of development -I guess. Just a "use this weapon and not this one" button.

Let's have some paint skills

I want the HMS Edinburgh in the group to not use her torpedoes (just imagine: Scottish drunken torpedoes in the water in the middle of a carrier group). in addition I want the Edinburg to avoid to launch the Sea Darts. But I want her to keep her Phalanx actives

In the weapon screen, we could eventually have a on/off column on which we could click on to activate/deactivate a weapon (or tick boxes or whatever seems comfortable to code. Just like the sensors' window but for the weapons.
[image]http://i.imgur.com/bWoGyyz.jpg[/image]
We can eventually have the same kind of on/off buttons in the weapon group pane of the main screen. May be I miss something?


For the commander guidance that you seem to have in mind:

in fact it can be modelized by a filter on the target selection of the unit/group. The database classifies the units.
So I imagine you could integrate a filter (in the weapons' screen?) to allow to fire a weapon on a given kind of target.
As an example you could associate a dropdown list to a weapon and filter on the type of unit.
You would like to have the fast-firing 100mm of a Lafayette to focus on only FF and FFG ships while the Exocets would target any ship from DD/DDG and above but never below. Same thing for the handful of Crotale NG2 onboard the Lafayette that you would like to attack only anti-ship missile as a pair of Rafale M is surveying the sky.

So this involves to have a serie of filters.




Man, a big +1 to that (weapons screen like the sensors screen) idea. That would be immensely useful.




jrotaetxe -> RE: UI Concerns (10/14/2014 10:24:29 AM)

Hi, guys.
Will take the advantage of this thread already created to make a couple of suggestions. And a +1 to have some help about te meaning of the rings overing the mouse...

Do not know if its modelled, but some kind of "equipment atrittion" would add realism, based in the cycles one plane is used or thow long a radar is connected (or how many times has been switched). This index shoud be low for Naval units (but not for the onboard electronics) and higher for planes, even more for rotary.

Another suggestion is to add some kind of "learning mode" at the beginning of a scenario. If such is on (you are playing in cheat mode), you can see the things from the oponent point of view, so a newbie in the game would be able to understand the consequences of having or not ECM, Offensive ECN, or avaliate the consequences of destroying this or that radar, or notice the difference in making 8 to 4 knots so close to that suonoboy. This would allow the customers to take all the juice of the lime...

If you find this should not be here, please feel free to delete it or to move from here to another place.
Regards

Jon



Agathosdaimon -> RE: UI Concerns (10/14/2014 10:55:19 AM)

a simple yes/no field for weapons would be awesome +10 to that!



chrispman -> RE: UI Concerns (10/14/2014 8:05:00 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Agathosdaimon

a simple yes/no field for weapons would be awesome +10 to that!


Oh yes please!



ComDev -> RE: UI Concerns (10/16/2014 5:47:11 AM)

Noted. Thanks guys [8D]



snowburn -> RE: UI Concerns (10/16/2014 3:50:01 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Agathosdaimon

a simple yes/no field for weapons would be awesome +10 to that!



this switch can have 3 positions:

Weapons Safe(Hold Fire/OFF) - Weapons Hold (only self-defense) - Weapons Free (Fire at Will)

for example, on one Lafayette i can have the Crotale Sams on Weapons Hold, the CIWS on Weapons Free and the Exocets on Weapons Safe.



Flef -> RE: UI Concerns (10/16/2014 4:35:43 PM)

Still on the UI subject.

Is it possible(or a good idea [:'(] ) to have an overlay to visualize the ground illuminated by a radar. Just to see where are the shadows.

In the civilian industry, when you put on the seabed a sonar you can get something like that on which it is easy to see where the sound has been reflected and where the shadows are

[image]http://imgur.com/uLygUdt.png[/image]

An overlay to see the illuminated ground or the visualization of the horizon on thee relief would be a nice aid to see if it is possible to sneak a handful of planes.



DeSade -> RE: UI Concerns (10/18/2014 12:09:50 AM)

you would need info about max shadowed altitude - above it there is no shadow. It would add lot of clutter to the display, not sure its worth it.
Also it is so simple only for single emitter (no half-shadows), any superposition will add another layer of complexity



ComDev -> RE: UI Concerns (10/18/2014 5:36:10 PM)

Yeah this feature has been on 'the list' since day #1. It is a horribly CPU-intensive feature and quite difficult to implement. But we'd like to have this too, so will probably make it into the sim eventually.



Flef -> RE: UI Concerns (10/18/2014 6:21:04 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: emsoy

Yeah this feature has been on 'the list' since day #1. It is a horribly CPU-intensive feature and quite difficult to implement. But we'd like to have this too, so will probably make it into the sim eventually.

Nice to read it.

Do you think an acceptable compromise to have it only while selecting a unit? Won't it reduce the required clock time?
Another compromise could be to pause the game when the player wants to know the position of the masks. You are the specialists and it is your baby, I'm only proposing.




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