..:: New GUI Design - in progress ::..

Caydr · Post by **Caydr** » 02 Jun 2006, 15:40

OH! OH! IDEAAAaaaAHH!!

Just let me catch my breath. It's so rare I get one of these. I'll have to remember this moment.

Anyway, the buildtime bar is really ambiguous, but I just came up with an idea:

Figure out how much buildtime = 5 minutes of construction for the selected construction unit

If buildtime exceeds 5 minutes, it should be filled. (switch 5 minutes for whatever you think is more logical/reasonable/whatever. I was thinking it should be mod-based)

If buildtime does not exceed 5 minutes, it should be proportionally filled in a nonlinear manner, the same as the metal/buildtime bars.

However! Here's the interesting part, the one that'll give devs headaches during the day and nightmares at night. When you have more than one construction unit selected which is capable of building "this" structure - OR when the unit/building which is selected is being guarded by extra construction units, it is automatically reduced so as to show how long it would take the entire group to do that construction.

edit: Two ideaaaahhhs! Second one: when metal/energy cost is off the scale (ie, in your pics it would be filled right up, red and all), it can still accurately depict how much it'll cost! How? The part of the bar that is red increases in size while the other two parts shrink. The bar remains the same size, etc, just the distribution of color changes.

jouninkomiko · Post by **jouninkomiko** » 02 Jun 2006, 15:51

jcnossen wrote:Not counting the testing ofcourse, 3600 minutes of play using TASClient in actual multiplayer.

"Message from server: jouninkomiko's in-game time is 0 minutes.", so that might explain it

Jouninkomiko: what does your branch currently do?

Right now I'm going to use my branch to start piecing a gui together in an external application (using CEGUI's layout xml etc) until I get something that looks right, then I'm going to put it into spring, and eventually merge down into trunk.

(sigh... its so hard to find time to do REAL dev work...)

knorke · Post by **knorke** » 02 Jun 2006, 15:54

That looks really good, I like the experience icons

The energie/metal/buildtime bars at the build menu also seem usefull.

selection-channels:
Hm, the idea is quite good.
Maybe make it so, you can toggle them with the F-keys
F5: only builders are selectable
F6: only aircraft is selectable
F7: only military is selectable

The modes could be shown by changing the color of the cursor and the box-select lines.
This way you could drag-select all across your base, only getting the stuff you want.

However, I think most buttons should be hide-able because being the super-├â┬╝ber-pro I always use the hotkeys for (p)atrol (g)uard and stuff. That way you can also make "command-lines" more easily.
There is really no point in having them on the screen if you have learnt them. (of course I used them in the beginning)

I think a better way instead of having all kind of "useless" buttons like "c" cluttering up the screen is an in-game key-reference that lists all keys.

Anyways I'd liek to hear your suggestion on what todo if holding buttons down is n00b like, how do you explain shift?

The idea with the hold-down button seems good at first but think about this:
you hold down the toggle-key + p + shift to give patrol orders: your keyboard goes beep-beep-beep! (well, some at least)
Or you notice you suddendly have to give more then one order with the toggle-key pressed down: You can't release it because your selection would be gone...

And pressing crtl+c in overhead camera should place your view on the commander, taking care of the tilting of the camera..

SinbadEV · Post by **SinbadEV** » 02 Jun 2006, 18:29

on the subject of "bucky keys" and "toggle keys"

bucky keys are, SHIFT, CTRL, ALT (all with support of "left" and "right")

you can submit all 6 of these keys at the same time and the keyboard needs to be able to report them, most api's submit different scan codes for these and combinations of them... for example, I know windows can tell the difference between Left Shift+A and Right Shift+A, but I'm not sure how it would report left shift+right shift+a... anyways... because you need to use the mouse, ther isn't much chance of you using the left and right buckys at the same time...

Toggle keys are tipically refering to scroll lock, caps lock, and numlock, but can also include, pause and insert, and also, in theory, any key at all, because all that a toggle key does is when you press it onece, it turns something on, when you press it again, it turns something off. with numlock,capslock, and scroll lock, this is hadled by the hardware.

now the problem with keys that arn't bucky keys is that, while they do send key-down and key-up signals, they keyboard is designed in such a way as to be efficient and not allow more then a few of them at at time... because keyboards are not designed to be game controllers...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modifier_key

PSedit: it can be really bad... I had one laptop that could one register 2 simultanouse keypresses (excluding modifier keys)

IceXuick · Post by **IceXuick** » 02 Jun 2006, 19:34

Here is a new demo concept, with the high tracject, cammodes, and build-alert-progress icons. ETC = estimated time of completion

AF · Post by AF » 02 Jun 2006, 20:23

nice IceXuick

PS:: You're all forgetting that we've already bound all the function keys already!!!!!!

krogothe · Post by **krogothe** » 02 Jun 2006, 20:38

Just make sure to tell journ. 2 things:
the ETC should list the top X most expensive units, and self-d needs a double click to activate

knorke · Post by **knorke** » 02 Jun 2006, 20:38

PS:: You're all forgetting that we've already bound all the function keys already!!!!!!

Argh, true. Only thought about F1 to F4

Well, maybe the what-to-select-idea could be done with one key, for example tab or x orwhatever.
This way you could switch through all modes.

wizard8873 · Post by **wizard8873** » 02 Jun 2006, 20:56

very nice. i can't wait to have it ingame. the ETC is a great feature imo.

Rusher · Post by **Rusher** » 02 Jun 2006, 21:13

Cant wait

Looks great!

unpossible · Post by **unpossible** » 02 Jun 2006, 21:44

i agree, knowing when your important struct will be done is ace!

FireCrack · Post by **FireCrack** » 02 Jun 2006, 21:56

I think there could be a more elegant way to handle priorites...

Having high/normal/low you could make it so...

normal gets no resources unless high has the resources it needs
low gets no resources unless normal has the resources it needs

Torrasque · Post by **Torrasque** » 02 Jun 2006, 22:01

FireCrack wrote:I think there could be a more elegant way to handle priorites...

Having high/normal/low you could make it so...

normal gets no resources unless high has the resources it needs
low gets no resources unless normal has the resources it needs

Aren't you supposed to control your economy with assigning/desassigning builder to construction ?
I'm not sure it's a so good idea...

unpossible · Post by **unpossible** » 02 Jun 2006, 22:33

i think that's true...but it depends what kind of game spring morphs into. for ta perhaps it's not such a hot idea to have all the resource management done automatically...but for example a more 'global' strategy game where one is less interested in microing every aspect of everythig in favour of contorlling large battles then it might be a godsend.

IceXuick · Post by **IceXuick** » 02 Jun 2006, 22:38

krogothe wrote:Just make sure to tell journ. 2 things:
the ETC should list the top X most expensive units, and self-d needs a double click to activate

etc can be assigned manually to a construction, wheter it is a nuke, krogoth, BB, flagship, or peewee.. you decide what it shows.

The self-d is already double clickable (read my info's or check the info screen i posted on the previous version).

I think/hope journ. will check this out himself. :) if im not hearing from him in a couple of days i'll pc him.

IceXuick · Post by **IceXuick** » 02 Jun 2006, 22:42

Torrasque wrote:
FireCrack wrote:I think there could be a more elegant way to handle priorites...

Having high/normal/low you could make it so...

normal gets no resources unless high has the resources it needs
low gets no resources unless normal has the resources it needs
Aren't you supposed to control your economy with assigning/desassigning builder to construction ?
I'm not sure it's a so good idea...

Yeah but this is kinda sucky/micro, esspecially when your factories are far apart, so helping a construction on the otherside of your base would take the constrbots so long, it will be finished when they get there. It's meant to give you more control where all your income goes to. The main aim was to give one particular job all available resources, when in fast need of something. I often was hickin against a stall, had alot of nanolathing going on, but wanted my bertha to be ready! I would have to stop all my builders and buildings other than the BB... and later on, i had to re-assign all of them again. That sucks big time! All that time.. lost..

SinbadEV · Post by **SinbadEV** » 03 Jun 2006, 00:02

The perma-n00b in me says: Yay! I don't have to worry about any of my 10 million con-bots and planes, the game will decide for me.
The Spring-Vetran in me says: If you are working beyond your means you should be stopping units and blancing the work load yourself, if you want a game that plays itself try http://www.progressquest.com .
The OTAer in me says: Back in my day, when you nano stalled, everything stopped until we fixed the problem, and we liked it. You Springers are all too soft.

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 03 Jun 2006, 04:49

The game designer in me says that giving people a way to smooth their construction loads and resource use could be one of the most powerful things put into a RTS, ever. If we made factories all able to use a lot've resources (i.e., gave them sufficient workertime) but then allowed users to balance things the way they wanted, we could end up with game designs that didn't require hordes of "helpers", but had it as an option for games that wanted to preserve that play style. Of all of the ideas for this new GUI, that ranks as one of the most brilliant, and I will almost certainly make a NanoBlobs variant to take advantage of it :D

FizWizz · Post by **FizWizz** » 03 Jun 2006, 06:47

SinbadEV wrote:The OTAer in me says: Back in my day, when you nano stalled, everything stopped until we fixed the problem, and we liked it. You Springers are all too soft.

Darn kids these days...

Btw IceXuick, I'm starting to smell feature creep here. Darn kids these days should still be expected to read the readme...

krogothe · Post by **krogothe** » 03 Jun 2006, 08:57

Argh wrote:The game designer in me says that giving people a way to smooth their construction loads and resource use could be one of the most powerful things put into a RTS, ever. If we made factories all able to use a lot've resources (i.e., gave them sufficient workertime) but then allowed users to balance things the way they wanted, we could end up with game designs that didn't require hordes of "helpers", but had it as an option for games that wanted to preserve that play style. Of all of the ideas for this new GUI, that ranks as one of the most brilliant, and I will almost certainly make a NanoBlobs variant to take advantage of it :D

Yeah, great idea, so whenever you get attacked and not completely destroyed you reclaim all wrecks and have a huge army almost instantly. Hell, build some storages 6 mins in, damage your comm to 100 hp then reclaim him, and proceeed to pwn your enemy with 115 thuds. You have to pay for workertime for a reason, not all mods are nanoblobs

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Spring RTS Engine

..:: New GUI Design - in progress ::..