| Author |
Suggestion for redoing the UI on planets |
Sheraton*XO*
Chief Marshal
Faster than Light
Joined: January 18, 2013
Posts: 482
From: Keel Mountains
|  Posted: 2018-02-07 17:37
So hello everyone. It's no secret that Darkspace is an older game. Some of the user interface aspects of the game have changed a lot over time but one thing that has always remained are the planets and the fact we have to build on them.
So as time has evolved we've gone through several complex and simple variations of planet building. IE: the early days with Death Stars and transport chains and literally so many changes I can't even remember them all. However, recently the planets haven't really changed in function for a decent amount of time and so I thought now would be a good time to make some modest suggestions regarding the changes of how information on the planets is displayed.
So here are my suggestions and I invent anyone with any other suggestions to chime in as you wish.
1) Some more in depth explanations on the F1 display when you click on it. We have many stats on the planets that appear self-explanatory: Power, Population, Workers, Food are pretty straight forward however there are some stats like Planet Value, and Morale that are somewhat arcane and mystifying and even I concede I don't know what they really do. So my first suggestion is to create a friendlier outlook for planets by making a a display that could use a tool-tip type display to show what each stat on a planet does. for example, Food: "Comes from hydro-farms, automated hydro-farms and biosphere condensers and is necessary for population growth to occur."
2) Update the descriptions of buildings to more accurately reflect what they do. For instance interdictors currently do not disable jump drives but they do slow down the speed at which jump drives recharge. Therefore some text changes would be immensely helpful to newer players in determining what those buildings do. Starports are another example, they both spawn a transport around the planet and allow players to load resources onto their ships.
3) This is more of a community suggestion but we really should come together and create a manual for building planets of some kind. Currently it is really a matter of guesswork and painful hours of building for players to discover a building style that does not result in a gigantic patchwork of red and white buildings on a planet. So having the community come together and create an updated form of the manual for planet building and then posting it somewhere visible would be helpful.
So these are my suggestions, I make no claims as to their viability in the current game but would love to hear if there is anything I can do to help make them happen. Any thoughts?
-Sheraton
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Twilit Keel Mountains traversed at last we met a dragon who spoke thus: \"Sheraton am I who interprets the signs.\"
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BlackYoup
Grand Admiral
Joined: December 31, 2009
Posts: 32
From: Nantes - France
| Posted: 2018-02-08 03:32
Tooltips are a good idea.
Something I'd like to have too is a sorted list of current built buildings, by type of building: either have them all on the three lines but sorted by group (for example: food first, power second, ....), Or have a line for each category.
I still struggle to find basic buildings because they are unordered and order may always change from one planet to another.
What do you think ? Maybe the current behavior is intentional.
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Sheraton*XO*
Chief Marshal
Faster than Light
Joined: January 18, 2013
Posts: 482
From: Keel Mountains
| Posted: 2018-02-08 18:56
Not sure what you mean about the current behavior being intentional but the current tooltips are somewhat confusing but they do not especially change between planets. So far as I know the only extra structure that is included are shield generators for the ICC. But it would be good to organize them differently perhaps.
-Sheraton
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Twilit Keel Mountains traversed at last we met a dragon who spoke thus: \"Sheraton am I who interprets the signs.\"
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Sheraton*XO*
Chief Marshal
Faster than Light
Joined: January 18, 2013
Posts: 482
From: Keel Mountains
| Posted: 2018-02-11 17:02
Quote:
On 2018-02-08 03:32, BlackYoup wrote:
Tooltips are a good idea.
Something I'd like to have too is a sorted list of current built buildings, by type of building: either have them all on the three lines but sorted by group (for example: food first, power second, ....), Or have a line for each category.
I still struggle to find basic buildings because they are unordered and order may always change from one planet to another.
What do you think ? Maybe the current behavior is intentional.
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Now the structures are organized all on one big screen at the moment in order of what tier building they are. Fusion generator-solar generators-quantum-variance etc. and I think that was deliberate since at one time we had a lot more buildings to choose from than we currently do now. However, since the number of buildings has shrunk in recent years I would suggest perhaps making them under 3 tabs.
1) Defense structures
2) Colony Structures (this includes domes, food, electricity, anything required to keep the lights on and people alive. etc.)
3) Economic structures (This can include mines, factories, starports, anything required to produce resources.)
-Sheraton
[ This Message was edited by: Sheraton*XO* on 2018-02-11 17:04 ]
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Twilit Keel Mountains traversed at last we met a dragon who spoke thus: \"Sheraton am I who interprets the signs.\"
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BlackYoup
Grand Admiral
Joined: December 31, 2009
Posts: 32
From: Nantes - France
| Posted: 2018-02-17 20:08
I just thought about it when building a planet. I usually build and stay on the Planet view. But there are no progress indicator on that view when you're building something. The only way is to either wait for the log message in the chat or go back to the player view and check the progress of the build gadget.
Maybe we could have a progress on the current building structure.
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Sheraton*XO*
Chief Marshal
Faster than Light
Joined: January 18, 2013
Posts: 482
From: Keel Mountains
| Posted: 2018-02-18 16:32
Quote:
On 2018-02-17 20:08, BlackYoup wrote:
I just thought about it when building a planet. I usually build and stay on the Planet view. But there are no progress indicator on that view when you're building something. The only way is to either wait for the log message in the chat or go back to the player view and check the progress of the build gadget.
Maybe we could have a progress on the current building structure.
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I do like that idea but currently clicking on the structure your building will show you the % in the tool tip that it has been built when in F3 view. So perhaps take that percentage from the tooltip in the window and overlaying it on top of the building perhaps?
-Sheraton
[ This Message was edited by: Sheraton*XO* on 2018-02-18 16:38 ]
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Twilit Keel Mountains traversed at last we met a dragon who spoke thus: \"Sheraton am I who interprets the signs.\"
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BlackYoup
Grand Admiral
Joined: December 31, 2009
Posts: 32
From: Nantes - France
| Posted: 2018-02-18 17:06
Quote:
On 2018-02-18 16:32, Sheraton*XO* wrote:
I do like that idea but currently clicking on the structure your building will show you the % in the tool tip that it has been built when in F3 view. So perhaps take that percentage from the tooltip in the window and overlaying it on top of the building perhaps?
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I didn't know that. I'll check this out but IMHO, it may be better to directly have the percentage instead of clicking around
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Pantheon
Marshal
Palestar
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 1789
| Posted: 2018-02-18 17:14
Quote:
On 2018-02-18 17:06, BlackYoup wrote:
Quote:
On 2018-02-18 16:32, Sheraton*XO* wrote:
I do like that idea but currently clicking on the structure your building will show you the % in the tool tip that it has been built when in F3 view. So perhaps take that percentage from the tooltip in the window and overlaying it on top of the building perhaps?
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I didn't know that. I'll check this out but IMHO, it may be better to directly have the percentage instead of clicking around
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There's no reason we can't do:
Structure Name
[ Operation - % / Status]
For example:
Variance Generator
Building - 59%
Dome
Worker Shortage
etc.
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Sheraton*XO*
Chief Marshal
Faster than Light
Joined: January 18, 2013
Posts: 482
From: Keel Mountains
| Posted: 2018-02-18 17:52
Wonderful! Then perhaps implement a system like that to overlay the % on top of the building to make it more obvious to the inexperienced. I too confess I always found it annoying to have to switch between buildings to individually examine which building was how damaged. it wastes a considerable amount of time.
-Sheraton
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Twilit Keel Mountains traversed at last we met a dragon who spoke thus: \"Sheraton am I who interprets the signs.\"
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BlackYoup
Grand Admiral
Joined: December 31, 2009
Posts: 32
From: Nantes - France
| Posted: 2018-04-02 07:58
Just thought about this: I think we should auto select the new building when the construction starts instead of doing nothing.
Currently, you click on the building you want to build and it starts building. But the building isn't automatically selected and that's how I missed the build percentage.
[ This Message was edited by: BlackYoup on 2018-04-02 07:59 ]
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BlackYoup
Grand Admiral
Joined: December 31, 2009
Posts: 32
From: Nantes - France
| Posted: 2018-04-05 18:23
Quote:
On 2018-04-02 07:58, BlackYoup wrote:
Just thought about this: I think we should auto select the new building when the construction starts instead of doing nothing.
Currently, you click on the building you want to build and it starts building. But the building isn't automatically selected and that's how I missed the build percentage.
[ This Message was edited by: BlackYoup on 2018-04-02 07:59 ]
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It should be in beta soon 
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