Topic #3: UI- Design and Layout

from AshesoftheSingularity Forums



I thought I would make a topic for the design and layout of the current UI and how well it works for our play styles. 

 

I posted this in my initial impressions, and will cross post it here for reading and thoughts. Feel free to criticize my thoughts, and put in your own thoughts on the UI design.

The UI to me is a love/hate relationship. While I like the overall layout, it does need some refinement. I found the unit boxes on the left overlapped some of the buttons when large forces are made. Overall I feel that the unit layout, information, etc. is pretty well done. It gives you the current information on your forces and allows you the option of quickly selecting anything you need to. I like the resource section as it is right now, and the addition of the victory count is a welcomed one. Most RTS games don't really give you the option to see if you are winning or losing at any given point in the game. The research box is one that I feel could be toggled so that you only see it when needed. So far I like the map and feel that it serves the purpose it was meant to. It's a map, so it is kind of hard to screw up.

The building part of the UI is one area I would like to see some improvement. I like the initial direction, but feel it could be refined to allow quicker selection of buildings, units, etc. I would like to see the bottom bar list Structures, Land units, and Air Units. The next up would list for structures would be Resources, Logistics, Factories, and Defenses. For the Land and Air unit options it would show Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 in the second bar. I am not sure if this would help or hurt the ability to quick build units, but it feels cluttered to me right now.  It would also be useful to the flow of war if we had a button at the bottom of the screen or attached to the map that allowed instant access to our building queues. Having to go back to factories to build takes us away from the battlefield and if we could call up reinforcements while watching the action I feel it would help the game flow.  

The other thing I liked about the building panel is the color of the defensive buildings. I would love to see that theme carried on through each type of building and all the unit tiers. I feel that with the color coordination it gives immediate recognition to the type of building you are going to build and allows new and old players a better understanding of what they are doing. 

Basically the top portion shows the 3 main options you would have at the bottom of the screen, which could be tied to hotkeys, making accessing them quicker. Once the particular section has been selected it would then show the larger selection of units/buildings and sort them by tier/type. With the buildings I feel that a color scheme would help with immediate recognition, but wouldn't have to be as dramatic as what I have made it. The way they show the defensive buildings with red accents could work for each type of building. The bottom images are just a representation of what the UI would look like on the screen. When tied to hotkeys I feel this UI layout could be very strong because you could reuse hotkeys for each category since only the structure, ground, or air could be selected at a given time. Of course this layout also depends on the smaller menu being a static one.

Just a thought. 

 

23,471 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

I'll add my thoughts to this. I really liked the layout and gameplay of Sins (of a Solar Empire) so most of my preferences come from that game.

I agree that the building menu is very cluttered. I've always liked how it was done in Sins where you had a button (using the QWERASDF keys for selection as hotkeys) that would bring you to a menu where you could then pick what you wanted to build. I also liked the little research icon that Sins had with each unit or structure that required research before building. Having one main menu with easily accessible submenus (as suggested above) would remove a lot of clutter and make it easier to build things.

One other thing with the building area is that it would be nice to only have the things that can be built by whatever is selected shown, i.e. I don't need to see the tier 3 ships from the Seed or a Factory.

I think that the unit bar on the left is mostly useless in its current state (I couldn't scroll down....which may be a bug, but I couldn't tell). I Liked the way the bar was set up in Sins with the ability to group units in groups of 5 so you could easily select a bunch without individually clicking a million buttons. Where the bar shined to me was its ability to tell you what planet each unit was on, which I think could apply here since each power station has its own area around it. Splitting the units up based on what area they're in would be really useful and make selection of units, like engineers (where you need the one closest to your current position), a lot easier. I also liked the ability to click an arrow and have them minimize so that I didn't have to see units or structures in areas that I had a good handle on.

I like the mini-map, it does what it's supposed to.

The unit Description in the lower left could use some more information (how much damage it does, how much health it has, what its speed is, etc) in some standard unit (e.g. scout-speed: 100, capital ship-speed: 20) and I'm hoping that eventually this will be a spot for special abilities of units.

I'm a little confused with the two dashes in the upper left hand corner that don't seem to be doing anything or indicating anything.

I agree that the research tree should be auto-hidden and accessed when needed. I think it's really lacking requirements for each research item. I don't mind if those are in the description that comes up when I hover over it, but I want to know what it costs to do the research.

I agree with the color coordination of the different types of units. Very handy.

It might be nice to display how many points you own compared to how many there are total in the upper right bar.

Reply #2 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting Shadow00000000, reply 1

I'll add my thoughts to this. I really liked the layout and gameplay of Sins (of a Solar Empire) so most of my preferences come from that game.

I agree that the building menu is very cluttered. I've always liked how it was done in Sins where you had a button (using the QWERASDF keys for selection as hotkeys) that would bring you to a menu where you could then pick what you wanted to build. I also liked the little research icon that Sins had with each unit or structure that required research before building. Having one main menu with easily accessible submenus (as suggested above) would remove a lot of clutter and make it easier to build things.

One other thing with the building area is that it would be nice to only have the things that can be built by whatever is selected shown, i.e. I don't need to see the tier 3 ships from the Seed or a Factory.

I think that the unit bar on the left is mostly useless in its current state (I couldn't scroll down....which may be a bug, but I couldn't tell). I Liked the way the bar was set up in Sins with the ability to group units in groups of 5 so you could easily select a bunch without individually clicking a million buttons. Where the bar shined to me was its ability to tell you what planet each unit was on, which I think could apply here since each power station has its own area around it. Splitting the units up based on what area they're in would be really useful and make selection of units, like engineers (where you need the one closest to your current position), a lot easier. I also liked the ability to click an arrow and have them minimize so that I didn't have to see units or structures in areas that I had a good handle on.

I like the mini-map, it does what it's supposed to.

The unit Description in the lower left could use some more information (how much damage it does, how much health it has, what its speed is, etc) in some standard unit (e.g. scout-speed: 100, capital ship-speed: 20) and I'm hoping that eventually this will be a spot for special abilities of units.

I'm a little confused with the two dashes in the upper left hand corner that don't seem to be doing anything or indicating anything.

I agree that the research tree should be auto-hidden and accessed when needed. I think it's really lacking requirements for each research item. I don't mind if those are in the description that comes up when I hover over it, but I want to know what it costs to do the research.

I agree with the color coordination of the different types of units. Very handy.

It might be nice to display how many points you own compared to how many there are total in the upper right bar.

 

I had an issue with the unit bar to the left as well. It actually overtook the two buttons meant for force arrangement and demolishing as well. Just a minor boundary issue, but an issue none-the-less. I definitely agree about the unit information. I have issues with just having health bars with no numerical representation of hit points. When it's just the bar you really don't have any idea how much HP it has until it starts getting shot, and by that point it can be too late. I also agree that the research box needs more information on the requirements. Just knowing the amount of resources you need to research it goes a long way.  

Hopefully we can get more feedback for them so they can improve the UI.

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Reply #3 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

I just thought of some other things that the research area needs: time to finish research, a number which corresponds to the order of the item in the research que (a feature I hope will be added), and a percent completion (not as important as the other two).

I didn't see your pictures before MindlessMe. I like the layout that you show, but I think that coloring just the object and not the entire square might look nicer. I really like the subdivisions though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reply #4 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting Shadow00000000, reply 3

I just thought of some other things that the research area needs: time to finish research, a number which corresponds to the order of the item in the research que (a feature I hope will be added), and a percent completion (not as important as the other two).

I didn't see your pictures before MindlessMe. I like the layout that you show, but I think that coloring just the object and not the entire square might look nicer. I really like the subdivisions though.

 


Yea, I have to agree with you on a timer showing when the research would be completed. Even if it was a small counter in the corner of the icon it would still help.

Yea the dramatic coloring is just there for representation. I love how the defensive buildings have the red sections that really make the designs stand out. If they did a different color for each category, while leaving the icons the same as they were it would look great.

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Reply #5 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting tatsujb, reply 5

I just think the unit picture window is frekin useless, it's just a copy of what starcraft did made really evident by the fact that it was already useless when statecraft did it.

then everything (well I think it's only important in the case of the economy) is TINY! I mean how am I supposed to KNOW that I'm missing reactives, mass, or logistics if I can't SEE them? plus appart from the fact it's tiny, it's teal on teal. No contrast. 100% illegible!

 

The unit window is a redundancy from what I can see. It does provide info on the unit when dealing with other unit types, but that could also be included in the unit discription. If they keep useful information in the window and make it a little smaller I don't really have a problem with it. It is also a good area to add unit abilities when/if they are added. It would be nice to see it used for meta abilities as well.

What I would love to see for the unit window:

1. Click a single unit and see its stats.

2. Click a group and see all unit abilities showing in the window and allow you to use them. This would be the same for meta units.

A ton if RTS games fail on this level by main you select a unit type before you can use their abilities. If we could select the battlegroup and immediately see all usable abilities then it would allow unit abilities and keep theme easy to use in the long game.

 

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Reply #6 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

I think the unit frames are supposed to show health, group leader type, and battle group fullness, plus what kind of units is it composed of. All of these are relevant strategic information that may be determinable without having to actually see the units on the screen, so I think there is significant value there. What may really be needed is some cleaning up of those unit frames so those details are much more obvious. That sounds like a UI polish thing to me, and since this is alpha, I'm happy to let them address this in their own time.

Now about that building bar. It seems I have to click with my mouse to change tiers. Examples:

- Tell a factory to build an engineer followed by Aegis

- Tell an engineer to build a factory followed by a logistics array.

Mouse clicks required. That's no good. Backing up the build tree needs a hotkey.

Secondly, the bottom bar appears to be redundant with the tier bar. I have not figure out how those two are supposed to be used together. Even if an engineer is in a battlegroup, you cannot instruct the battlegroup to build any structures.

Reply #7 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

It'd be awesome if it showed the health bars of the units you highlighted.

Also, it'd be awesome if you could deconstruct buildings because I built 5 research facilities to try and build tier 3's but found out it wasn't needed and now I'm out of power.  I can deconstruct units, but not buildings.  Other than that looks good so far.

 

Also, you know what announcement you guys could make that would ecilpse E3's final fantasy 7 remake?  SOSE 2!!!  With more titans, and the ability to control 2 factions at once!!  Maybe I'll also have to wait 20 years lol.