Resource bars

[Licho]

I would like to remove overdrive box and introduce new resource bar that integrates it.
Proposal is this:


Arrow is clickable (on/off toggle) and represents overdive. Tooltip over arrow explains how OD works.

Problem is it isnt very nub friendly or nice..

Here is some older proposal from maackey



some idea from MK to show indicator representing income flow..


grey part - income from mexes, red part - income from OD, color indicating how effective it is.

[Licho]

To clarify the "BP" thing .. its buildpower indicator..

% is the ratio between installed BP and metal icnome..

if its 130% it means you got 30% more BP than you need to consume metal and you can use 30% of it to reclaim..

if its 70% it means you need extra nanos to spend your income..


Tooltip over it could display distribution of BP:
nanos: 24m/s
factories: 6m/s
units: 12m/s

and prioritization:
high: 20% (20% of your BP is set to high priority)
low: 10%

[SirMaverick]

The numbers at the arrow should be placed at the bars.
metal: +20 (+7)
20 is total m income, 7 is generated through OD.
energy: -80(-20)
80e is used, 20 of it for OD

OD ratio is not important.

To clarify the "BP" thing .. its buildpower indicator..

I'd like it as "90%/130%"
You have 130% BP but using only 90%. Always in ratio to metal income.

[CarRepairer]

OD ratio is not important.

This is a good point. I've seen it mentioned in several places like one of our strategy guides to try keep your OD efficient. It is irrelevant that you are getting poor efficiency, the only thing that's relevant is that you've capped the mexes you can cap and those that you haven't yet are a goal no matter what. Whether or not your OD efficiency is high or low is not a reason to get more mexes. Of course a very poor efficiency is detrimental in a team game which is why Licho created communism mode.

In conclusion, ratio is not important. All you need to know is that you should always get mexes and always build more E - within reason depending on the situation of the game.

[Licho]

What you mean .. OD ratio is a key factor..

If its small it pays off to build energy..

If its very small like 2:1 you are likely to get faster return from building 2 winds than from sending con far away to cap risky mex.

If its yellow or red.. 8:1 and similar, no way you should invest into energy, as payback times are too long for the time scope of game..

Nested buildmenu shows payback times based on predicted OD ratio, for advanced fusion it can be like 20 minutes..

[CarRepairer]

Okay well maybe I should revise what I said. I'm mostly focused on the mex part. Building another mex is always better than building energy and that should be made clear so that overdrive is not a nub trap.

[Licho]

How about this convention..

ale metal numbers are blue
all energy numbers are yellow

if its income its green + and blue number (or yellow for e)
if its drain its red - a nd blue number (or yellow for e)

[Licho]

Or we could just use icon + number.. like supcom..



(I want similar display for CA tooltips to show DPS, HP etc)

[Google_Frog]

Displaying the total BP of units in the current selection would be useful too. I've got a widget that does this already but it just displays a number floating over the default info bar.

Manual Overdrive is still needed so people can balance their stall factors.

ale metal numbers are blue
all energy numbers are yellow

if its income its green + and blue number (or yellow for e)
if its drain its red - a nd blue number (or yellow for e)

I think drain = - with red number and income = + with green number works much better. The whole number colour is a lot more glanceable and proximity to Metal or Energy sections of the bar should tell people which income it is.

[Licho]

It could be up arrow (green) and down arror (red)..

Problem is too many red/green numbers confuse people, i remember i was confused too..
It could be fixed by adding icon (metal or energy) next to each icon..

Regarding BP - i could also display where resources are going in BP tooltip .. like

20% peewee (10m/s)
30% antinuke (15m/s) high priority
...
..

[Licho]

Manual Overdrive is still needed so people can balance their stall factors.

Can you calrify what you mean?

[luckywaldo7]

Manual Overdrive is still needed so people can balance their stall factors.

Can you calrify what you mean?

Early game sometimes I find myself stalling metal hard, and with my energy bar mostly full but not quite full enough to overdrive, so I manually overdrive to delete my energy bar for a bit more metal. I think this is the technique he is referring to.

[Licho]

Then we could add what det suggest - slider which indicates how much e is kept in reserves - anything above will be used for OD.

[JohannesH]

Then we could add what det suggest - slider which indicates how much e is kept in reserves - anything above will be used for OD.

That doesnt always give optimal resources though. Optimally the conversion rate should be change as little as possible, but with wind changing etc. the conversion rate would change back and forth leading to less m for same e in the long run.

Also if you set the slider to a lower value than your current e, how fast should it OD the excess E?

It saves you some time though, which is nothing to scorn at. Also point out if Ive understood something wrong in the OD mechanism and this is all false.

[Licho]

Then perhaps, it should be changed to permanent (in the gadget to prevent manipulation).

Because i think that adding GUI, that is usefuill for a fraction of players, for everyone is confusing.

Gains of manual OD management are probably very marginal.

[SirMaverick]

That doesnt always give optimal resources though. Optimally the conversion rate should be change as little as possible

In what sense is that optimal?
Optimal in sense of metal gain and maintain 80% e resources it should change as fast as possible.

Also if you set the slider to a lower value than your current e, how fast should it OD the excess E?

Test that now. Use overdrive in manual mode (in both cases: stalling and excessing) and see how fast it adapts when switched to automatic mode.

[Licho]

Since flow is more important than storage in CA, im now inclined to implement flow indicator instead .. something like MK suggested

[Licho]

Alternate suggestion by sirmaverick

[MidKnight]

How about we put income sources on one side of the screen, and resource consumers on the other.

Code: Select all

ASCII ART: A flow tree?
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mexes(45%)-----|        |--------------|
Overdrive(20%)-|========|   Storage    |           |----Buildings----
Reclaim(35%)---|        |              |           |Bot Lab (40%)
                        |  200M +30%   |-----------|Lotus (20%
Solars(25%)----|        |  50E  +15%   |===========|----Units--------
Wind(44%)------|--------|              |           |Sumo (30%)
Fusion(31%)----|        |--------------|           |Bandit (10%)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

the left %s are %s of total energy and metal income, the %s in the storage box are how much is being added or taken away, the %s in the right are % of total resource expenditure. Thicker bars mean more resource flow, and let you see what's stalling you, where, at a glance

[Saktoth]

Overdrive control is good to have, we shouldnt take power away from players. I use overdrive in my BD rush. You also use manual overdrive to share e, remember. At least, have a little drop out drag bar or something.

An effeciency-coloured arrow floating above the e bar to represent current overdrive rate, that moves up and down as percentage changes (far left is 0%, far right is 100% overdrive). You can drag it around to change the % dedicated to overdrive (so the bar doesnt need to auto-adjust its scale). The arrow would have a hover-tooltip showing the current overdrive panel info (though i doubt you need the graph).

A bar is probably not useful for showing income, since it has no upper limit. A bar is only useful for showing % of a maximum, such as of a max storage. If the bar is broken down (like a pie chart) to show sources of income or expenditure it may be useful. Then the maximum is 'income' and the breakdown of %'s is 'sources'. But this kind of complex graphed information is probably not very approachable for a new player.

The current adv resource bar modified is reasonably good, though i like the positioning of the numbers/bars more in the classic style. The portion of the bar which goes red/green with income/expenditure is good too, but needs to be smoother and spread out over several seconds. IE 'Drain in the next 10 seconds' rather than being a tiny sliver. Thus, we can have a bar to represent drain/expenditure as a propotion of storage.

Edit:


Something like this. The BP means proportion of BP used. He has -20 on metal (obviously, thats the drain), -10 on repairing/reclaiming/etc, and 10 idle BP. Clicking this takes you to an idle con.

The effeciency-coloured arrow shows overdrive %, 0 to 100, with numbers showing expenditure and income on overdrive next to it. Hover (or click and drag) gives complete overdrive stats.

The green and red portions of the bar are drain and gain, over x seconds (something smooth, where the bar is clearly visible as a portion of storage). You'll notice that that kind of makes the arrows redundant but i included them anyway.

Hovering over the metal bar shows a breakdown of income/expenditure, tasks, etc. This isnt necessary but if you want to add that stuff it goes in a hover. Same with e. If you dont like the arrow for overdrive, a coloured % would do, with click and drag for raise/lower.