Post by alsadius on Jun 4, 2019 8:01:54 GMT -6
I've played a lot of ultra-nerdy games like RTW before, and a Spartan UI is sort of assumed for the genre, but I think there's some room for improvement even so. I don't want to suggest a lot coding-heavy work, but I think some relatively simple changes would help a lot.
1) Text colouring is currently used for a couple battle notifications (torps, sinking ships, etc.), but it could be used much more aggressively. I want the Areas overview to show areas with insufficient ships in red. I want mothballed ships to show up in grey in my ship list, reserve fleet ships in a darker grey, and repairing ships in red. Halted ships under construction should be red, and accelerated ships in green. I'm sure you can imagine a few other uses.
2) Battle notifications are a bit painful to read. A 3" gun hitting an enemy CL shows up the exact same as a 16" gun hitting my BC. I have to parse them in much more depth than I'd like, and it slows down my gameplay badly in battles. Even something as simple as a little red marker beside enemy actions(i.e., firing at/hitting my ships), and a green marker beside my actions, would help a fair bit. I also want a quick visual marker for caliber - this doesn't need to be ornate, just small/medium/large markers is fine. Green and red "S", "M", and "L" just by themselves would be pretty helpful, IMO. (Maybe add "T" for torps, "A" for aircraft, etc. - like #1, this should be fairly easy to extend in principle)
3) When the enemy has multiple ships of the same class in the battle, it's hard to tell if my units are hitting the sinking cripple or if they're hitting the fleeing unit that I'm trying to catch. Can the ship names display as "BB Example-class #3" instead of "BB Example-class"? Alternately, let us give contacts a nickname (though that might be more work).
4) There's no notifications for things I'd normally consider pretty important. Sunken enemy ships don't show a notification, most obviously - they just change icon on the map. I understand it not displaying if they're not in sight, but when I get a kill, I want to celebrate. Ditto when they start sinking, though I'll accept that not being told to us quite so explicitly if there's a fog of war issue to consider.
5) When I have an allied fleet in the battle, the notifications get weird. Why can't I see ship names for my own nation's coastal destroyers? They're displayed like enemy ships, not like allied ones - I know they can't be controlled and shouldn't share line of sight, but not even showing me their names? I read about their shots and think they're enemy ships if I'm not careful. Likewise, when they hit an enemy, it doesn't show up like a hit - I've had enemy ships get sunk without me noticing until I go back through the log and say "Oh, there's like half a dozen hits I didn't see".
6) I know this has been suggested before, but in the ship construction window, I want to see my base maintenance costs. Also, a button I can press to see what the restrictions are on my current ship type would be really nice - it sucks building a DD to 2500 tons, because that's what the notification says, and then finding out you can only build up to 1100 tons (or whatever).
7) When an enemy ship leaves our line of sight, can we get a report on its last known info(class/damage level/course/speed) in the reports window? It'd be much easier to keep track of stuff when fleets move around, and it's the sort of thing that somebody would be keeping track of. I often leave the game mid-battle when I need top go to bed or work, and remembering what was happening when I come back is iffy sometimes.
Thank you.
1) Text colouring is currently used for a couple battle notifications (torps, sinking ships, etc.), but it could be used much more aggressively. I want the Areas overview to show areas with insufficient ships in red. I want mothballed ships to show up in grey in my ship list, reserve fleet ships in a darker grey, and repairing ships in red. Halted ships under construction should be red, and accelerated ships in green. I'm sure you can imagine a few other uses.
2) Battle notifications are a bit painful to read. A 3" gun hitting an enemy CL shows up the exact same as a 16" gun hitting my BC. I have to parse them in much more depth than I'd like, and it slows down my gameplay badly in battles. Even something as simple as a little red marker beside enemy actions(i.e., firing at/hitting my ships), and a green marker beside my actions, would help a fair bit. I also want a quick visual marker for caliber - this doesn't need to be ornate, just small/medium/large markers is fine. Green and red "S", "M", and "L" just by themselves would be pretty helpful, IMO. (Maybe add "T" for torps, "A" for aircraft, etc. - like #1, this should be fairly easy to extend in principle)
3) When the enemy has multiple ships of the same class in the battle, it's hard to tell if my units are hitting the sinking cripple or if they're hitting the fleeing unit that I'm trying to catch. Can the ship names display as "BB Example-class #3" instead of "BB Example-class"? Alternately, let us give contacts a nickname (though that might be more work).
4) There's no notifications for things I'd normally consider pretty important. Sunken enemy ships don't show a notification, most obviously - they just change icon on the map. I understand it not displaying if they're not in sight, but when I get a kill, I want to celebrate. Ditto when they start sinking, though I'll accept that not being told to us quite so explicitly if there's a fog of war issue to consider.
5) When I have an allied fleet in the battle, the notifications get weird. Why can't I see ship names for my own nation's coastal destroyers? They're displayed like enemy ships, not like allied ones - I know they can't be controlled and shouldn't share line of sight, but not even showing me their names? I read about their shots and think they're enemy ships if I'm not careful. Likewise, when they hit an enemy, it doesn't show up like a hit - I've had enemy ships get sunk without me noticing until I go back through the log and say "Oh, there's like half a dozen hits I didn't see".
6) I know this has been suggested before, but in the ship construction window, I want to see my base maintenance costs. Also, a button I can press to see what the restrictions are on my current ship type would be really nice - it sucks building a DD to 2500 tons, because that's what the notification says, and then finding out you can only build up to 1100 tons (or whatever).
7) When an enemy ship leaves our line of sight, can we get a report on its last known info(class/damage level/course/speed) in the reports window? It'd be much easier to keep track of stuff when fleets move around, and it's the sort of thing that somebody would be keeping track of. I often leave the game mid-battle when I need top go to bed or work, and remembering what was happening when I come back is iffy sometimes.
Thank you.