They might need to offset the ship icon slightly higher, but apart from that it looks good and very useful.
Fleet Strength Indication on Galaxy Map?
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They might need to offset the ship icon slightly higher, but apart from that it looks good and very useful.
Yes, though perhaps the most salient way to see the non-combat fleets would be "thing that doesn't have a number beneath it".
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I said this in another thread: the fleet strength indicator/number should be in!
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Millions were just there for thoroughness. I don't know what late-game fleet strengths are like and, ideally, that number would reflect the aggregate fleet strength in a system so that's part of why I decided to include them.
And yes, I can see your point. For starters, I see the K being there as increasinh my awareness of the significance of the fleet. For me, seeing two fleets one with 998 strength and one with 2K strength I still know the smaller icon is more a threat because of that K. But that's me. The problem, and why I didn't go this route, with trivializing small fleet is simply trying to decide "what's trivial?" At the beginning of the game three corvettes might be 200-300 points...that's very non-trivial. But 100 years in the game that's a rounding error. Since the system needs to be consistent to be of maximum value I just went with the hard numbers.
Of course these hard numbers open up a whole treasure chest of potential gameplay mechanics with sensors, sensor-jamming, and signal intelligence - but that'd be a dream DLC for me down the road.
That'd be another way to do it but I didn't want to presume that much editing authority in the mockups. Just want to present a (hopefully) simple addon they could do to the existing icons to help players. Beyond that, the S and C are visually quite different so stand out, in my opinion.
I guess, ideally, the choice would be to use the system-map icons for these ships in some capacity. I'll see about trying that if I do another mockup.
I placed them where I did so they're close enough (and physically touching) to show which icon owns which box while leaving enough space to still see the ship icon. But, as a mockup, it's just a rough-draft of an idea I'd love to see turned into a rough-draft of an implemented concept.
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I placed them where I did so they're close enough (and physically touching) to show which icon owns which box while leaving enough space to still see the ship icon. But, as a mockup, it's just a rough-draft of an idea I'd love to see turned into a rough-draft of an implemented concept.
Yeah of course, that is why I said "they" (as in Paradox, when they hopefully implement this) and not "you". It would just prevent the counter from overlapping with stuff below it like the wormhole indicator.
Honestly I think they need to get this in ASAP and I hope they will see it as well.
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I'd like that, as I've put the effort into the mockups to illustrate how it's, to me at least, a very effective improvement in conveyance of information to players without hurting the aesthetics of what is a gorgeous map.
(Although I'm a bit surprised at no comments at Mercedes joining Martin and cK in the booth in my last mockup)
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(Although I'm a bit surprised at no comments at Mercedes joining Martin and cK in the booth in my last mockup)
Another instance of the invisible gorilla illusion, I think.
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Huh? She has always been there with them the whole time! What, you tellin' me you don't see her in the stream box?
(The sight of Mercedes chillin' with Wiz and cKnoor probably became a normal thing for me after that Banner Contest thread)
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Yeah, trying to say ahead of time what's significant is pretty tricky. Initially I was thinking the game might classify each fleet into a few categories of significance, and show that symbolically. Of course, there's so many things that can affect whether 1K is significant or not, the rules for classification would be way too complex. Better just to get the numbers out there somehow. From your mockups, it seems like there is space for it.
Yeah, fighting wars seems to be quite hard with the current UI. If Wiz is having so much problems, I can't imagine what a MP war will be like.
Imagine somebody blanketing all your systems with single corvette fleets.
Imagine somebody blanketing all your systems with single corvette fleets.
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I think there are a lot of tactics that could be developed based on simply overloading the enemy player's ability to process information. Like, as you say, a bunch of 1-corvette fake attacks and one real one. You train your opponent to start ignoring alerts.
In the original SotS, you could send out fleets composed of single jammer-ships, which prevented detection of numbers until you got into combat. It was a favorite tactic if you were a Hiver player, sending out fleets so they arrive at 5 or 6 different human systems at the same time, so they don't know where to concentrate defenses.
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So in the last Blorgcast, I saw that moving fleets on the galaxy map show strength and breakdown across hull sizes (just as they do on the tactical maps). Is this only for friendly fleets or anything you have sensors on? It looked odd to have so much information while in transit, then it all disappears once the fleet arrives.
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Yeah, that is the problem here. Those information are pretty important and would give the player a much better overview, but they just disappear.
I have tweeted Rikard Aslund about this thread btw and he wanted me to send him the link to it, but I'm not sure if he saw that or not and I don't want to bother the PDX guys on Twitter too much.
I have tweeted Rikard Aslund about this thread btw and he wanted me to send him the link to it, but I'm not sure if he saw that or not and I don't want to bother the PDX guys on Twitter too much.
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If he wanted the link, I say send it on. Twitter exists to send tweets.
And actually, I had a few ideas on things to add...will try to get to that tonight.
Not that I think anything will be taken in for release at this point, but I do love when my ideas get incorporated. So I keep trying.
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If he wanted the link, I say send it on. Twitter exists to send tweets.
And actually, I had a few ideas on things to add...will try to get to that tonight.
Not that I think anything will be taken in for release at this point, but I do love when my ideas get incorporated. So I keep trying.
Don't worry, I sent him the link to your last "larger" posting, but I didn't get a response of any kind. So I'm not sure, if he saw it or not.
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So I was thinking something like this...Red ! with square for fleets engaged/in distress. Yellow ! with a diamond (square rotated 45) for being threatened (in a system with a neutral/hostile). And a caret rising up to show a fleet upgrading.
It's sloppy, didn't have time for more tonight. Perhaps later - if the weekend doesn't grab me first.
It's sloppy, didn't have time for more tonight. Perhaps later - if the weekend doesn't grab me first.
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Yes! As they already got a visual indicator in the galaxy map UI for unkown hostile fleets, this is certainly not far from implementation nor the aesthetics.
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