RE: MWIF Game Interface Design

RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (Full Version)

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macgregor -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/13/2009 4:58:14 AM)
We speak all the time. I thought I was the guitarist though- or at least I was doing something while getting a sunburn in the Easter parade on a flat-bed trailer all day. He's the bassist/keyboardist, and yes, he plays a pretty good guitar as well. His name is Rich, and since he has a masters in music, I guess he can play whatever instrument he likes. He seems to be growing fond of the mandolin right now. We're psyched, though I wouldn't expect any high bids out of either of us.

Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/13/2009 10:12:08 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: macgregor We speak all the time. I thought I was the guitarist though- or at least I was doing something while getting a sunburn in the Easter parade on a flat-bed trailer all day. He's the bassist/keyboardist, and yes, he plays a pretty good guitar as well. His name is Rich, and since he has a masters in music, I guess he can play whatever instrument he likes. He seems to be growing fond of the mandolin right now. We're psyched, though I wouldn't expect any high bids out of either of us. Thanks, I did remember Rich's name about an hour after my post. And I did remember that he played the bass guitar (that's not a guitar?). I stick to vocals myself (saving my delicate fingertips for my putting stroke).

Mad Russian -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/13/2009 1:23:03 PM)
What about if you showed the fighters that were operating as fighters in a level attitude and a fighter operating as a tactical bomber in a nose down (dive) attitude? If level bombers are shown to be in level attitude and tactical attack aircraft are in a dive attitude, and not just the naval attack aircraft, then it would seem that you could put the fighters in that attitude and have them be easily identifiable at being used as tactical bombers. You could even show all the tactical bombers be nose down on the left side of the "counter" and tactical fighter bombers be nose down on the right side of the "counter" to further differentiate between them. Good Hunting. MR

Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/13/2009 4:03:41 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mad Russian What about if you showed the fighters that were operating as fighters in a level attitude and a fighter operating as a tactical bomber in a nose down (dive) attitude? If level bombers are shown to be in level attitude and tactical attack aircraft are in a dive attitude, and not just the naval attack aircraft, then it would seem that you could put the fighters in that attitude and have them be easily identifiable at being used as tactical bombers. You could even show all the tactical bombers be nose down on the left side of the "counter" and tactical fighter bombers be nose down on the right side of the "counter" to further differentiate between them. Good Hunting. MR WIF uses the positioning of the unit/counter graphics to denote the type of aircraft: fighter, land bomber (tactical and strategic), naval bomber, and ari transport. Depictions of carrrier based air units are a blend of fighter and naval lbomber. There are over 1200 bitmaps for the air units (one per unit) so changing them on the fly is not really feasible.

composer99 -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/13/2009 5:21:12 PM)
quote: That allowed places, like Malta, which wasn't a city or a port, to then base air units as was done historically. You had to buy them and it took a turn to build them. That might be something to consider in the game as well. I don't think anyone addressed this for you, Mad Russian, so I'll do it (on this thread to since I am lazy). Malta has a major port in the edition of WiF that MWiF is based on; so it can stack up to 3 air units (plus an extra one if it is a flying boat!). The majority of hexes can base 1 air unit so there's not much requirement for an airbase-type facility, especially not with the larger number of airbase-capable hexes in the non-European areas.

micheljq -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/13/2009 5:55:40 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: composer99 quote: That allowed places, like Malta, which wasn't a city or a port, to then base air units as was done historically. You had to buy them and it took a turn to build them. That might be something to consider in the game as well. I don't think anyone addressed this for you, Mad Russian, so I'll do it (on this thread to since I am lazy). Malta has a major port in the edition of WiF that MWiF is based on; so it can stack up to 3 air units (plus an extra one if it is a flying boat!). The majority of hexes can base 1 air unit so there's not much requirement for an airbase-type facility, especially not with the larger number of airbase-capable hexes in the non-European areas. The british fighters, and all other Commonwealth units, cannot appear in Malta directly while produced. They must appear in Great Britain for the most part. Though some particular Commonwealth units may appear in some Commonwealth home countries like : India, Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand. If playing the Fascist Tide campaign, some units may appear in Suez directly. So, if the british wants to reinforce Malta, he must transport the reinforcements to Malta somehow, often under Italian aeronaval pressure. A lot like it must have been in 1940-42 in the Mediterranean theater. Although, in the setup, the british player may place a unit in Malta and can send another by sea in the first impulse he play without fear of any interference. Problem he must leave a unit in Gibraltar also, often what happens is that at the impulse 2 of sept/oct 1939, the british has one unit who defends each of Gibraltar & Malta. Correct me if I am wrong. I write this for the benefit of those who never played WiF. [:)]

Mad Russian -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/13/2009 7:46:17 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: composer99 quote: That allowed places, like Malta, which wasn't a city or a port, to then base air units as was done historically. You had to buy them and it took a turn to build them. That might be something to consider in the game as well. I don't think anyone addressed this for you, Mad Russian, so I'll do it (on this thread to since I am lazy). Malta has a major port in the edition of WiF that MWiF is based on; so it can stack up to 3 air units (plus an extra one if it is a flying boat!). The majority of hexes can base 1 air unit so there's not much requirement for an airbase-type facility, especially not with the larger number of airbase-capable hexes in the non-European areas. The last versions I played didn't have Malta as a port and you couldn't base aircraft in a jungle. There were no flying boats in the game at that point at all. Good Hunting. MR

Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/13/2009 8:44:01 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mad Russian quote: ORIGINAL: composer99 quote: That allowed places, like Malta, which wasn't a city or a port, to then base air units as was done historically. You had to buy them and it took a turn to build them. That might be something to consider in the game as well. I don't think anyone addressed this for you, Mad Russian, so I'll do it (on this thread to since I am lazy). Malta has a major port in the edition of WiF that MWiF is based on; so it can stack up to 3 air units (plus an extra one if it is a flying boat!). The majority of hexes can base 1 air unit so there's not much requirement for an airbase-type facility, especially not with the larger number of airbase-capable hexes in the non-European areas. The last versions I played didn't have Malta as a port and you couldn't base aircraft in a jungle. There were no flying boats in the game at that point at all. Good Hunting. MR My copy of the WIF version 1 map has Malta as a minor port. It has since been changed to a major port.

Mad Russian -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/14/2009 3:05:55 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets quote: ORIGINAL: Mad Russian quote: ORIGINAL: composer99 quote: That allowed places, like Malta, which wasn't a city or a port, to then base air units as was done historically. You had to buy them and it took a turn to build them. That might be something to consider in the game as well. I don't think anyone addressed this for you, Mad Russian, so I'll do it (on this thread to since I am lazy). Malta has a major port in the edition of WiF that MWiF is based on; so it can stack up to 3 air units (plus an extra one if it is a flying boat!). The majority of hexes can base 1 air unit so there's not much requirement for an airbase-type facility, especially not with the larger number of airbase-capable hexes in the non-European areas. The last versions I played didn't have Malta as a port and you couldn't base aircraft in a jungle. There were no flying boats in the game at that point at all. Good Hunting. MR My copy of the WIF version 1 map has Malta as a minor port. It has since been changed to a major port. Sorry, mine shows a minor port as well. It's been more than 10 years since that map has been out of that box. What used to be possible was that a HQ raised the air stacking by one level. That didn't make sense because when the HQ moved you were overstacked and the opposing players pulled off an air unit. How exactly did a HQ control the aircraft capacity for an area? In place of that we came up with airfield counters. Only 3 per side. Malta, Guadalcanal, Lae, outside of Moscow were some of the places we used them. Just a thought anyway. Good Hunting. MR

paulderynck -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/14/2009 5:45:31 AM)
An HQ or Engineer still alows an increase of one for aircraft stacking. So you can stack three of them in Malta and base 7 planes there, if one is a seaplane. Move one or more away and the owner chooses the planes that perish.

Mad Russian -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/14/2009 1:10:01 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: paulderynck An HQ or Engineer still alows an increase of one for aircraft stacking. So you can stack three of them in Malta and base 7 planes there, if one is a seaplane. Move one or more away and the owner chooses the planes that perish. And that makes no sense. How did a HQ or an engineer unit create a temporary base that would cease to function when they move? What makes HQ troops have a magical ability to create, in their presence, airbase facilities that disappear when they move? That's why we introduced airbases into our games. Good Hunting. MR

Anendrue -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/14/2009 1:30:36 PM)
Because in WWII grass fields and mesh steel were used for temporary bases. These required maintainance to keep them functioning. Without the support units these fields fell apart rather quickly.

gridley -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/14/2009 6:24:03 PM)
As I am starting to think about WiF with it's release quickly arriving. I was thinking of the different countries and what I used to like to do with them. Yesterday, I was thinking of the CW and how it was possible, even with all units visible, to surprise opponents. Maybe not with where I would land so much as how quickly a minor landing could be reinforced, etc... This was with a Board in front of us...all units clearly visible. With this computer game I see surprise probably being THE single biggest difference to the board game. With just having a monitor sized snippet of the overall map, much will be missed that would have been clearly visible before. So now to my question. How far out can we zoom the map and still have some sort of counter detail? Any screenies, I couldn't find any good examples? Thanks, Gridley

micheljq -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/14/2009 6:37:53 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: abj9562 Because in WWII�grass fields and mesh steel were used for temporary bases. These required�maintainance to keep them functioning. Without the support units these fields fell apart rather quickly. Me and me friends use a home rule where airplanes in overstack can rebase if they are face-up, instead of being destroyed, but the airplane must be turned face-down after the rebase.

Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/14/2009 6:54:53 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: gridley As I am starting to think about WiF with it's release quickly arriving. I was thinking of the different countries and what I used to like to do with them. Yesterday, I was thinking of the CW and how it was possible, even with all units visible, to surprise opponents. Maybe not with where I would land so much as how quickly a minor landing could be reinforced, etc... This was with a Board in front of us...all units clearly visible. With this computer game I see surprise probably being THE single biggest difference to the board game. With just having a monitor sized snippet of the overall map, much will be missed that would have been clearly visible before. So now to my question. How far out can we zoom the map and still have some sort of counter detail? Any screenies, I couldn't find any good examples? Thanks, Gridley Of course this all depends on your monitor(s) ... Zoom level 1 shows you the entire Mediterranean, though unit details are just a blur. Zoom level 2 lets you see the counters, assuming you go to moderate resolution, when the graphics are simplified and the numbers made larger. That doesn'y help much in the Pacific though. Another solution is to create a "composite map" composed of a 6 or more segments of the detailed maps. Each detailed map would focus on a single sea area, showing what units are therein. The weakness here is that the ports that touch on each sea area aren't visible, so it is mainly useful for protecting convoy pipelines or sizing up enemy fleeets that you might want to attack. The problems with looking at the maps (and this applies to playing WIF over the board too) are the large stacks of units in major ports. Therefore, the third solution provided in MWIF is the combination of the Naval Review Details & Naval Review Summary forms. The NRD lets you see all the individual naval units in a port/sea area, including cargo (actual and possible). The NRS shows summary statistics for 8 ports and 8 sea areas, with several filters available (e.g., Mine, Allied, Axis) and the ability to design a configuration of ports and sea areas that you want to keep track of. So, you could build a set of ports and sea areas reachable from Truk and 'save' that configuration for use later. Given 6 or so NRS configurations, the CW should be able to review all the "hot spots" on the global map. The NRD and NRS are designed to fit side by side on the smallest monitor. You bring up the NRS, choose a previously saved configuration of ports and sea areas, and then click on an individual port/sea area to have the NRD refreshed so you can see the actual units in the port/sea area. I have posted screen shots of all of this, but I do not know where they are.[&:] Most likely in the Player Interface thread, but I am not placing any bets on that.[:)]

gridley -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/14/2009 7:10:53 PM)
Thanks Steve. Looks like between the composite maps, NRD and NRS my concern has already been addressed. Still, I think there are going to be a lot of "&^#* I didn't see that". Not that that is a bad thing...as long as it's the other guy more than me.[;)] Gridley

Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/14/2009 7:20:04 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: gridley Thanks Steve. Looks like between the composite maps, NRD and NRS my concern has already been addressed. Still, I think there are going to be a lot of "&^#* I didn't see that". Not that that is a bad thing...as long as it's the other guy more than me.[;)] Gridley Yeah. This was a major concern of mine and I worried about it a lot (I do have 10 years of experience playing WIF over the board). Whether this design gets the job done or not is still unclear. To some degree it is simply a function of WIF itself: there are a lot of possibilities and being able to 'see' them all is non-trivial.

gridley -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/14/2009 7:33:03 PM)
True. I'm glad your design took this into consideration. I am now very curious as to how the time per turn, the chess clock, plays out. I think that the computer has the ability to speed up certain aspects of the game. However, it may take a little longer to check out the map and maybe other areas as well. Maybe in the end it will be a wash and the time clock will remain the same.

Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/14/2009 8:35:53 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: gridley True. I'm glad your design took this into consideration. I am now very curious as to how the time per turn, the chess clock, plays out. I think that the computer has the ability to speed up certain aspects of the game. However, it may take a little longer to check out the map and maybe other areas as well. Maybe in the end it will be a wash and the time clock will remain the same. Something that really helps is the Selectable Units form. For phases when there are going to be very few units to move (e.g., air missions) the Selectable Units form shows all the possible units that can move. Using this form, you click to the right of the unit and the map centers on the unit. You click on the unit itself in the form and you can move the unit immediaely. This saves the time for trying to find all the units that can fly strategic bombardment and any supporting escorts, and searching through the stack to find the one you want. Bascially, all the air mission phases should go much faster than in over the board play - without those memorable "oh I forgot to move ..." moments. On the other hand, MWIF goes through all the phases/subphases of the game, waiting for players to click on the End-of-Phase button, while in over-the-board play many phases/subphases are bypassed instantly.

Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/14/2009 9:25:37 PM)
Here is an example of zoom level 2 on a 1280 by 1024 monitor. The Flyouts let you see what is in any particular stack. Here the Soryu has sent a Fighter to participate in a ground strike on the US units in Guadalcanal (I think that is where that is). It should be flying as a bomber, which is what I am debugging at the moment. Note the Selectable Units form in the upper left. I do not have medium resolution turned on, so the numbers are difficult to see on the units. It is much better with medium res. [image]local://upfiles/16701/FAE218D62CB9468B89C762B10524DBE6.jpg[/image]

gridley -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/14/2009 10:02:27 PM)
Thanks for taking the time, Steve. That looks pretty good...covers a lot of ground. With all the tools you have pointed out I feel a lot better about it. As you said earlier it was a concern for you too, looks like you have done as much as you can to alleviate it. Gridley

Eichenblatt -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/15/2009 8:55:03 AM)
For some screenshots/info on NRD, check posts 975, 1004 and 1021 of this thread. For screenshots/info on NRS, check out post 1048 of this thread. keep up the good work!

Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/15/2009 9:49:27 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Eichenblatt For some screenshots/info on NRD, check posts 975, 1004 and 1021 of this thread. For screenshots/info on NRS, check out post 1048 of this thread. keep up the good work! Thanks. Something I just figured out today[8\|], after 9300+ posts, is that there are 30 posts per page. So 1048 should be on page 35.

Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/17/2009 3:14:32 AM)
Here is today's latest for the screens that control the Player Interface settings. There is a menu item in the Main form's menu bar labelled Interface. clicking on that brings up the Player Interface Settings. Clicking on the button Disable CAP by Major Power and Phase brings up the form with that heading. This lets you speed up the game (slightly) by skipping the CAP subphase for any or all of the 8 air mission phases. If you look closely, you can see the border around the detailed map that is the automatic scroll area. Most of the other stuff you should be able to figure out. [image]local://upfiles/16701/45E57F8996874D6FA96789CB03C8454B.jpg[/image]

Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/21/2009 4:30:55 AM)
I am revising the Naval Review Details form (NRD). My primary goal is to enable players to pick up units from this form and place them on the map. Because all the units in a port are readily visible in the NRD, and grouped by type, this makes selecting which units to put in a task force fairly easy to do. Once selected, you move them out to a sea area (or where ever you want them to go). But an important secondary goal for this form is to enable players to place carrier air units onto carriers and other units to be transported aboard naval units that can carry them. To do this I needed to add a high zoom picture of the selected unit - here it is the Gladiator. I am going to place it on the ASW Escort, which I will do by clicking on that unit. The Gladiator will then appear alongside the ASW Escort (and no longer appear in the rightmost column). Sadly, to add the high zoom picture, I had to reduce the number of units visible in a column from 8 to 7 (on a small monitor: 1024 by 768). What you see here is me exploiting my larger monitor, by resizing the form vertically so 9 rows are visible. I still ahve work to do on the functionality of this form, but the visual finished (for the moment - pending the ever possible tweak-to-improve). [image]local://upfiles/16701/696305104A304612BC01376719BFF26C.jpg[/image]

OzHawkeye2 -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/21/2009 3:40:52 PM)
The "Only use Primary Monitor" option there I noticed. Does this mean support for dual-monitors? (I use 2x22" LCD's).

micheljq -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/21/2009 4:25:46 PM)
Thanks again for the nice screenshot very interesting. ASW carrier?

Froonp -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/21/2009 5:36:39 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: micheljq ASW carrier? An ASW Carrier is a unit that appeared in the CoiF kit, that expanded the war between the convoys and the SUBs by introducting a couple of new units types. ASW Carriers are amongst them, with the regular ASW, the Schnorkel, Walther, Milchcow & Supply SUBs, and the very fun CX (Auxiliaries Curuisers, i.e. "Raiders"). I had asked the designer of CoiF for what these counters represented, for scale purposes, and he answered me : . 1 ASW = around 5 to 20 DD/DE/corvette type units, depending on which class & the unit's factors, etc., etc. . 1 ASW Carrier = around 6 CVEs

micheljq -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/21/2009 5:40:25 PM)
So you have CV - carrier, CVL - escort carrier, and ASW carrier right? Thanks a lot.

Froonp -> RE: MWIF Game Interface Design (4/21/2009 5:50:53 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: micheljq So you have CV - carrier, CVL - escort carrier, and ASW carrier right? Thanks a lot. Not really. CV = Carriers (examples : Akagi, Kaga, Ark Royal, Enterprise, Essex...). CVL = Light Carriers (examples : Shoho, Eagle, Hermes, Independence, Princeton...). ASW Carriers = Escort Carriers (CVEs)

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